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Inflation check-in

MSG

MSG

Active member
Prices have been steadily rising, but now the week-to-week jumps are getting ridiculous

Pepperoni 33% in one week.
Fry bags up 50% since last purchase (admittedly I only by these every two months)
Overall, my total food cost jumped in 10% in one week.

What are you guys seeing?

I’ve started pricing other vendors, but their quotes are coming in higher than my current vendor. So kudos to my current vendor for keeping prices as low as they can, but holy smokes!
 
Yep it is insane right now. Just grabbed some prices so we can kinda compare.

Cheese 3.42 lb
pepperoni 5.42 lb
ham 4.53 lb
bacon 7.79 lb
sausage 4.05 lb

Very frustrating combo of high food costs and high labor costs right now. I have 3 vendors but basically only order from 1 and all 3 basically have the same prices with some slight variance.
 
My cheese is not that expensive but pepperoni is $5.89, ham is $3.48, bacon is $7.90 but sausage is $2.20. I have a local maker. If i buy same through distributor it’s $3.88. I buy raw and cook on flattop for prep. I am redoing all my margin calcs and will be consolidating the menu in next 2 weeks, dropping many items that are no longer profitable
 
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Which items are you looking at dropping? I’ve recently raised my prices 10% ( couple months ago) and am looking at another 10% increase here soon…

These rapid rises in food are causing frustration between both me and my customers, raising prices all the time is getting to be the new norm and I know times are tough for them as well.
 
I do ribs, and sales are flagging in that area. They are high labor for me, I smoke them in house. I’ll be ending those theirs weekend. We do 18” pizzas as XL, they slow us down because they can’t go 2 wide in the ovens. I have 11 different subs, all made to order, and 3 of them make up 75%+ of sub sales, which make up 5% of my total sales.

I have some difficult decisions to make, because any change is bound to crank up the anti-social media posts
 
We decided to pull our pulled pork off the menu due to labor constraints as well. After the initial prep it was such an easy high profit margin for a few years until this inflation started. Pork butts were 80 cents a pound when we started if not lower. Now they are $3 something if I remember right. After the yield and labor it didn’t make sense anymore. XL pizzas, especially specialties, are one of the worst profit margins we have. I would need to charge $44 for a 70% margin on a 20in. We did raise the price on the last menu and didn’t get any complaints on it, but it’s still not a great margin.
 
I’m dreading another price increase. It took me two months to get my menus and mailers reset last time and by the time I did, inflation had eaten all of my “gains”. Guess it was better to do it then not do it, but throwing away another batch of menus is painful and I don’t know how well the guests will accept another increase.

Chains don’t seem to be budging on price, though Dominos has shrunk their wings portion.
 
Dominos also shifted their top special to being carry out only and online only (I think).

We printed our last menus without prices because of the same things you mentioned, by the time they went to print and got distributed, they were needing to go up again. Surprisingly, we didn’t get a lot of calls about price. I’ve seen OLO go up in this period
 
I’m seeing chains having different pricing by location. I have a Hungry Howies by my store at $14 for a 16" and the HH near my house is at $13. I’m guessing the franchisees either are going rogue, or there is some leeway from corporate on pricing. Can you guys post your websites here? mine is order.luckyduckpizzas.com
 
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What margins are you guys running on food/supplies and labor right now? With the rise in both in the past 6 months I’m at 35% cogs and 27-32% labor for a Delco.
 
I’m re-calculating all my margins again, looks like I at 36.5% COGS and 34% labor, which is why I’m looking to update or “reimagine” my restaurant. I don’t think prices are coming down any time soon.
 
we stopped printing menus all together…digital menu boards that can be updated anytime and online ordering reflect current pricing. Proteins are out of control. Do not think it’s coincidence that the Pizza Expo had an abnormally large amount of plant based vendors this year…
 
Has anyone tried a cost of living service fee here?

I’ve seen it at a few places in my area, usually about 3%

The Pizza Huts in Southern California charge an 8% service fee on all orders.
 
I raised my prices monday of this week. it is the third time since November of last year. I try to keep my food cost around 28%. It jumped to 31.5% last month. I sell a 14" one topping for $17.00 and a 16" one topping for $22.
Labor is tough. Minimum wage in Arkansas is $11.00. I pay between $12 and $16.
My sales are not setting the world on fire. I am down from 2019 even with higer prices.
 
I’ve been raising prices ‘behind the scenes’ for a few weeks. I’ve been taking items that are set at the even dollar ($12.00) and making them $12.99. I’ve historically been a tiny bit behind the curve price wise vs. the competition (legacy issues when I bought), but I’m determined to get paid for the extra care we take in making all our food. I’m re-do margins on all my food and if they don’t cut it, or I don’t want to make anymore due to labor costs, I am cranking up the price.
 
Another surprise. The fee on Indeed just went from $29.00 per application to $44.00 and most of those guys are no-call no-shows.
 
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