Tomato at ₹30 a kilo and tomato at ₹120 a kilo is the same recipe with a very different P&L, and most menus only get costed once a year at whichever price happened to be true that week. This tool costs a recipe under two price scenarios at once, current and peak season, so you can see exactly which dishes need a seasonal price, a recipe tweak, or a temporary holiday from the menu.
Cost a recipe twice, once at current ingredient prices and once at peak-season prices. The difference in cost per portion tells you whether the dish survives the spike at its current menu price.
| Ingredient | Qty | Unit | Current price / unit (₹) | Peak price / unit (₹) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Tomato, onion and green chilli are the notorious ones, with multi-x price moves in bad monsoon years. Seafood moves with fishing bans, and dairy creeps up in summer. Any dish where one of these is a primary ingredient, not a garnish, deserves a seasonal costing.
Four options, in rough order of preference: adjust the recipe (less of the spiking ingredient, or a substitute), take the dish off as a seasonal special, run a temporary price, or accept the hit on a signature dish and recover margin elsewhere on the menu. The wrong answer is not knowing it is happening.
Your own purchase records from the same months last year are the best source. Failing that, ask your supplier what the item touched at its worst in the past two years and cost against that, a pessimistic scenario you survive is better than an optimistic one you don't.
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Rank every dish by margin percentage and total profit contribution, with a colour heat scale that makes the weak spots impossible to miss.