Food Costing Tips for Delivery

Many of you (even before CV-19) broadened your business model to include take-out and delivery.

In the face of the pandemic, it’s no longer a choice.

And none of us really know the lasting power of the changes in the consumer behavior we’re seeing. My guess? Delivery and takeout will be a permanent, expanded segment.

There are many, many considerations for delivery (safety, preparation, logistics, POS, etc.). We are focusing here one essential piece: food costing.

Obviously, you want to offer items that are already popular, are relatively easy to make, and that withstand delivery. But we’re making another suggestion that is more surprising:  

Strive to maintain margin dollars

Notice we’re not saying food cost percentage. The name of the game is margin dollars. This is essential: your ‘delivery’ version of a menu item should create the margin dollars as the ‘to stay’ version. That means essentially ignoring the food cost percentage of delivery items. That’s counter…