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> the cost of delivering a salad to the customer exceeds the salad's price. Is this mostly due to the higher cost of fresh ingredients, or the additional labor
by danans 9y ago
> the cost of delivering a salad to the customer exceeds the salad's price.
Is this mostly due to the higher cost of fresh ingredients, or the additional labor required to assemble them?
- Domenic_S 9y agoI'd bet it's due to waste. You can buy a lot of things in bulk and refrigerate/freeze them, but salads don't keep very well.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoMaybe the low $/m³ value?
- leroy_masochist 9y ago> Is this mostly due to the higher cost of fresh ingredients, or the additional labor required to assemble them? Both. On ingredient cost alone, restaurants will analyze across multiple dimensions: the per-unit pure cost (e.g., the wholesale price of a head of lettuce), transportation cost, storage cost, and spoilage rate (lots of interesting volatility modeling done on this).
- danans 9y agoThere must be a price point where it starts to turn a profit, and it must be less than, say, $25 for a salad. There are plenty of places that turn a profit mostly selling healthy stuff and a moderate (but not cheap) price point. Admittedly, these places tend to attract people who can and will pay a higher price for healthier options.
- leroy_masochist 9y agoSalads are profitable for QSRs in a broader sense -- they're loss leaders. QSRs are happy when the customer comes in to buy a $5.59 salad that costs them $5.85 to make, because the customer also usually buys another product that has great margin, e.g., a $1.79 drink that costs the restaurant $0.20.