Menu Engineering Calculator & Contribution Matrix

About the Menu Engineering Calculator & Contribution Matrix

Menu engineering shows which dishes earn their place on the menu. Bring in the item-wise sales report of your POS or billing software for a period, give each item its food cost, and the calculator places every item on the menu engineering matrix of Michael Kasavana and Donald Smith: how popular it is (its share of the items sold in its section) against how much it earns on each sale (its contribution margin, price before tax minus food cost). Stars sell well and earn well, plowhorses sell well but earn little, puzzles earn well but sell too few, and dogs do neither.

For every item the full report says what to do, with its own numbers: the price or plate cost at which a plowhorse reaches the average margin and what that adds over the period, how many more sales turn a puzzle into a star, what a dog brings in. A second view, David Pavesic's cost/margin analysis, sorts items by food cost % and the margin they bring in, and keeping a period a month shows how each item moved. Plate costs can come straight from the Recipe Cost Calculator in this browser.

The free preview shows the whole matrix with every item in its quadrant and the summary counts; the full report, with its actions, opens with a Premium pass, which also unlocks the PDF report, the workbook, the CSV and the copy. Your sales stay in this browser on this device.

Common uses

• A restaurant reviewing its menu each month before reprinting it.
• A cloud kitchen choosing which dishes to push on delivery apps and which to drop.
• A café checking whether a new dish took sales from a star.
• A consultant preparing a menu review for a client.

How the matrix is worked out

• Menu mix % of an item = items of it sold ÷ items sold in its section × 100.
• Popular when its menu mix is at least 70% of an even share: (100% ÷ the number of items in the section) × 70%. With 10 items the line is 7%; you can move it in Settings & data.
• Contribution margin of one = selling price before tax − food cost. The average margin of the section is its total margin ÷ the items sold, so popular items count for more.
• Stars: popular, margin at or above the average. Plowhorses: popular, margin below it. Puzzles: not popular, margin at or above it. Dogs: not popular, margin below it.
• The method compares items that compete with each other, so each menu section is analysed on its own unless you choose the whole menu.

What to do with each kind of item

• Stars: keep the recipe, the portion and the look exactly as they are, and give them the best place on the menu. Popular items often take a small price rise: test one.
• Plowhorses: raise the margin — the report gives the price or the plate cost that reaches the average — in small steps; trim the portion or the costliest ingredient; pair them with a high-margin side.
• Puzzles: make them easier to choose — a better place on the menu, a better name and description, a photo, a special, staff suggesting them — or lower the price a little if the margin allows.
• Dogs: replace them, rework them or take them off, unless they serve a purpose (a dish a group of regulars comes for).

Cost and margin: the second view

David Pavesic’s cost/margin analysis compares each item’s food cost % with its section’s (total food cost ÷ total sales) and the margin it brings in over the period (margin of one × items sold) with the section’s average. Primes have a food cost % at or below the section’s and bring in at least the average; standards bring in at least the average at a higher food cost %; sleepers have a low food cost % and bring in little; problems have a high food cost % and bring in little. An item can be a plowhorse in one view and a prime in the other: read the two together.

Reading POS exports

Most POS and billing systems export an item-wise or product-mix report with an item column, a quantity and a net amount; the calculator matches the columns by their names and asks when it cannot. It reads amounts with ₹ signs, Indian digit groups (1,23,456.00) or a decimal comma, a byte-order mark and quoted fields, adds up repeated items (a report of every bill line) and refunds, and leaves out total rows. Tick “the amounts include tax” when your report’s amounts include GST or VAT, so prices are worked out before tax.

Limitations

• The matrix is only as good as the food costs: cost each dish with its real recipe (the Recipe Cost Calculator does it) and update them when prices move.
• Menu engineering looks at one period’s sales and margins; seasons, promotions and stock-outs change both, so compare periods before you drop a dish.
• Labour, preparation time and the effect of one dish on another are not in the margin.
• A section of fewer than four items says little: analyse across the whole menu then.
• Your periods are kept in this browser on this device: download a backup in Settings & data to move them or keep them safe.

Privacy

On this device; its files download once

Your sales reports, items and food costs stay in this browser on this device; nothing you import or type is uploaded. A file you bring in is read on this device.