Right around the year 1600, William Shakespeare penned one of his most famous plays. “Hamlet” is one of the great literary tragedies, and one of its most-quoted lines remains oft-used today: “To thine own self be true.”

Jeremy White
Editor-in-Chief
Pizza Today
[email protected]

When distilled to its essence, that’s more or less what I was saying in my May Commentary when I wrote about the need for YOU, dear reader, to raise prices. Since that time I’ve received scores of e-mails, social media messages and text messages essentially saying “You are absolutely right. Things are crazy and we have to raise prices.”

Go to Mike’s Monthly Tip and you’re going to read Mike Bausch, one of the pizza business minds I most highly regard, saying that right now, today, you need to set aside some time to take a deep-dive into pricing, food costs, portion sizes and combination packages designed to up ticket prices. He referred to it as “the quantity game for yield gains.”

In order to be true to yourself, you must first be able to sustain your business model. You can’t take care of anyone else if you don’t first take care of yourself, right?

This is a critical summer in many ways. Our nation could possibly be heading into a recession. Commodities prices are insane. Supply chain issues still linger. The labor pool is cold and shallow. Yet you know from experience that your sales are about to spike. It’s summer, and consumers are getting out and spending money. Your revenue is coming … but what about profits?

If you ignored the May plea to raise prices out of fear or for any other reason, read it again at PizzaToday.com after you read Bausch’s article. Sit down today and develop a pricing strategy that will carry you through summer, fall and winter. Make sure at the end of the year you aren’t sitting with your accountant and being told “your sales were up, but you didn’t make any profit.” 

Lastly, speaking of Bausch, he’s leading a seminar on “Dealing with Inflation” at the 2022 Pizza & Pasta Northeast Show in Atlantic City that you aren’t going to want to miss. I know it’s early, but as you start planning your itinerary for the event, make sure you include this one in your list of pit stops.

Best,
Jeremy White
Editor In Chief
[email protected]