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How Much Is TOO Much?

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On Friday I was looking at my invoice from Roma for that delivery and noticed the prices of everything went up. Today, Saturday I pulled my last few invoices and compared the prices of my top 10 items and I am shocked. My cheese went up 5.5% Flour 5% Pepperoni 18% and onions 31%. The total % increase on the 10 items was just 9.5%. I spend about $2000 a week with them and it comes out to $104,000 a year. @ 9.5% I will be paying $9,880 more. I have been looking for a different distributor over the past couple of months and am waiting on two companies to get prices to me. Is this expectable, should I call the out on it? Is this common? I am just going on 1 year of being in business and don’t know if this is an average increase for everyone. Any advice by Monday would be helpful –Thanks
 
I would call and ask for the reason for the increase. Some suppliers I have dealt with try to slide you up the scale with out you noticing. I would say that if you have been in business for a year your price point should be getting better not worse. this is assuming that your business is increasing.

The lesson to be learned here is check your pricing on every invoice. Make it clear to the rep that there are to be no increases without prior notice.

Just my opinion of course
 
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Produce is all over the map right now and we are in California, the biggest truck crop state in the country. In California we just had a 75 cent per hour wage increase with another 50 cents coming next year. We just raised prices to account for the labor increases. Our vendors, of course, also raised their prices because their cost of labor went up as well. These politicians are economically ignorant or they are playing to poliitical interests. The unions olve to see the minimum wage go up and they are big contributors politically. If the minimum wage goes up then the unions use this as a base to negotiate for still higher wages for their union members. Untimately, of course, the consumer pays. All this crap about a living wage. How about a performance wage? In many parts of the country and especially in California most of us are having problems finding enough employees and we certainly pay over minimum wage. The difference is that we are paying a premium over minimum wage to people who are worth it. We start people at $8 and we tell them that we want to find reasons to pay them more and, in fact, if they remain only worth $8/hr then it will be sign that they should look for other employment. These are the people who don’t show up for some shifts, call out an hour before their shift, etc.; you know, the ones who NEED a living wage.
The cost of fuel is also a big factor. Vendor trucks that get 8 miles a gallon and require $3 gas are expensive. Oh, and the people who maintain those trucks also got bumped up because of the minimum wage increase most likely. After all, if X number of minimum wage people get bumped up then everybody else in the company getting paid higher wages is going to expect a bump up as well.
It ain’t just the cost of the commodity by a long shot.
Having said all this, most of the big vendors are notorious for price creep. Its part of the business; you have to monitor invoices and those who don’t are paying the price for not doing it.
Just my observations over the years.
 
i use three different distr.,all onions up 30-40 %,been told they will hit 50$ a bag of 50#.all flour products up due to week winter conditions in midwest,all dairy up due to grain prices,which will influence beef,pork,eggs.you should see my produce,lettuce up 15$ per case this week,fry oil up 4$ per 45# box
it just sucks…
 
i’ve seen a modest increase on all items. Shop around… be careful though… a distributor may lowball you just to get you in… then increase after a few weeks.

i always use 3 distributors, and they can never pull a fast one on me. i’m on top of the markets across the board.
 
Regarding Roma, watch them closely! They are a good distributor for the most part, but smooth too, sliding increases in quite often. Don’t know how you buy your cheese (shredded or block), but they have the ability to sell you at market plus…ask for it. They operate on the Chicago market, and they’re always one week behind. Knowing this, you should be able to watch closely. For example, the market they sold you this past week had not increased even a penny over the prior week. It had gone up, but not even a penny per pound! They are quick to raise, slow to lower.
Hope this helps…
 
Re: How Much Is TOO Much?-Update

Update- I talked to my rep today, he says it was a computer error and that a credit is being issued, claims he doesn’t know why it did that. I am satisified with that, as long as I get a credit and the prices go back to normal
 
Re: How Much Is TOO Much?-Update

So as i said in my last post always check your invoice and call your rep if it isn’t what you think it should be. I have had the same thing happen to me. One time the computer screwed up where the decimal was on flour and I was expected to pay $107.50 for a 20kg bag.
 
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