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Surcharges?

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Scott_Hack

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With Cheese out of control – anyone tried doing a surcharge? We just printed our menus 4 months ago, and printing more isn’t an option right this moment, but neither is keeping our prices the same. We moved towards a buy one get one half off pricing structure about 2 months ago, so that has been helping a little bit.

Anyone have some suggestions? I’ve been at this 4 years, so I know this this is a cycle and things will settle down a little bit (of course I also see that things are going to settle a lot higher then we are used to) but I not sure I want to just “sit and wait.”

I’m going to start a salad promotion to help shift some of my sales away from pizza which uses a lot of cheese. We already charge 1.50 for delivery and it all goes to the driver.

What is everyone else doing?
 
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we’re struggling on the general concept/pricing 4 the new spot - thinking of offering a “carry-out” price and then add in a $5 delivery charge, to better reflect the actual cost of delivery and thereby offering a better deal 2 those who choose 2 p/u the order…

actually going to the extreme of heralding the take-out price and better explaining the delivery fuel-surcharge
 
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talk to your food rep…my sysco rep prints all our menus free of charge
 
Patriot,

Why not just add 2.50 to both and make it up that way. Keeps it simple and customer won’t get aggreviated.

Scott,

We were in the same boat just printed 10,000 carry out menus and had our dining menus printed. We have been biting the bullet but decided to put those menus away and print new. I just went to the local printer with something I made on the computer. That way if this hangs on months or even longer I am ready. If it goes down I can pull the old out.

My reasoning was for every ounce of cheese I am using I am spending at least 10 cents more…That is a 1.00 for a large pizza. Cheaper to spend ten cents max for a new menu with a raised pizza price of 1.00 and recover 90 cents for the cheese . Eventually and pretty quickly I will have paid for the cost of new menus when you do the math rather than hold out. Otherwise I continue to lose 1.00. Make sense?
 
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I am currently absorbing the increase, but since i haven’t made an increase in 4 years, its time to go up.

I am just adjusting my personal spending and trying to portion control.
 
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as of today we raised our 16" .50 and our 14" .30 and also increased the price of our chicken wings, we went up .50 an order there too, when i was younger i used to absorb the hit, but i have a different opinion after 26 years in the business, we all work our butts off in some way, shape or form in this business and we deserve to reap some of the benefits of that.

in saying this i feel we MUST pass this along and not absorb it now or we may end up paying the price in the long run. the strong survive and the weak (the guy that wants to take the hit for everyone all the time) eventually end up being your sysco salesman
 
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As I said we are raising our prices…Today I was at the local store in my “shirt” and the lady asked me what was up with cheese prices…huge conversation…and said it was also on the news. Stopped by the shop and the girl said she saw something on the news about pizza places getting hit hard and having to raise prices. ( I hadn’t said a word) My husband said a couple customers had also commented. PH and PJ are charging the price of a meat for plain chz pizza.

Googled the news in our city and all 3 major stations have done a stories about cheese and pizza. (I obviously don’t watch the news)

They were talking about a pound of chz being more than a gallon of gas. They all mentioned cheese is up 78% over last year this time.

So the point…create a buzz create a big buzz and raise your prices. Email the news in your area asking them what is up. Ask them if they know why chz is so high. The reason really doesn’t matter but you will get them going with a story. It is a great story and the more buzz we all create the more sympathetic our customers become.

Just my thoughts!
 
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Anonymous:
talk to your food rep…my sysco rep prints all our menus free of charge
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I don’t know about you, but this would send up a red flag with me – expecially since it is Sysco.

Nothing is free.
 
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For the past 4 years we have included a dipping sauce with our large pizzas. We are in the home town of PJs basically and lots of customers requested the Garlic Butter. Our menus don’t mention that a sauce is included. I’m thinking of not including the sauce anymore and then asking customers if they want one, and then charging for it. A price increase of sorts, but it will allow me to use my old menus for a while still.

Am I just asking for trouble?
 
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Scott Hack:
Am I just asking for trouble?
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Of course. Customers are generally sensitive to raising prices or new charges. I fell for you trying to use up old stock of menues before laying out for more.

You’ll probably get lots fo complaints like we did when we decided that we would, instead of raising wing prices, make celery and dressing and add-on for 50cents. Mind you, it is almost a 50% food cost for me . . . .

Most customers threw it out anyway, as they didn’t use it. And, the folks who use tons of it are squawking a little about the added charge. In two months, everyone will have made a decision to buy it or not, and noise will die down. We are also trying to bring in BOTTLES of the dressing to sell to customers who want to stock it in their fridges conveniently (no grocery store within 20 miles).
 
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I used to agonize everytime I needed to raise prices. The last couple of times I raised them I just did and didn’t blink an eye. Don’t torture yourself when you need to do it just do it. If you are providing a quality product and good service your customers will not have a problem. Good luck make money and have some fun 🙂
 
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