Be Sensible With Your Pricing

Speciality Bites with

Paul Hargreaves

Chief executive of Cotswold Fayre

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In today's tight climes, Paul Hargreaves explains why price matters

I have just come back from a weekend away with a friend of mine riding our motorbikes around the mountains and valleys of Mid Wales. Yes you guessed it, I am one of those middle-aged bikers that car drivers are warned about! For those of you who haven’t been to that part of the country it really is very beautiful – well it was on Saturday. On Sunday we were in the clouds most of the time getting very wet!

Of course, we had frequent stops for tea and coffee (generally at customers’ cafes), and it was good to see some of these businesses - most of which were very pleased with how trade was going. Our overnight stay was pre-booked at a “restaurant with rooms”. That wording always pretty much guarantees good food and generally a decent bed for the night. In neither of these facts were we let down at all. The food was local and of a high quality and very well cooked. We had a fantastic bottle or two of Gigondas, which slipped down very nicely. The hotel (or restaurant with rooms) was, however, not very busy – and this in the first weekend of the school holidays. However, a much cheaper hotel serving terrible food across the town square seemed to be very busy – with several other tourists (including other bikers) staying there.

The reason for this was entirely down to the price of the food in the restaurant we ate at e.g. main course steak on the A La Carte menu was £28 and “welsh cheese and biscuits” was £10. We actually ate off the table d’hote menu, and made up the difference with the Gigondas. As I said above the quality was excellent, but a very limited percentage of the population are going to pay for quality food at these prices. Rather they will stay at the terrible hotel across the road and eat crap bought from a massive food service wholesaler rather than a gourmet food supplier. Granted, quality costs money, but please don’t expect to charge these kind of prices in the middle of Wales and expect to be busy. Yes, please make a decent margin, but also price your menu at prices that gets it full on a summer Saturday night.

If we are a food retailer, what can we learn from this? Yes, we will have products in our shops that are expensive, but don’ be greedy on your margin on products that appeal to a mass audience. Figures out last week suggested that 53% of the UK population shop in a farm shop from time to time (I would like to see the data for this as 60% of the UK population live in cities where there aren’t any farm shops!) For those that are just learning about quality food, and starting to shop in farm shops, make sure there are good quality products around that are going to introduce them to proper eating without them having to re-mortgage their house!

Have a profitable week!

Paul

To read more of Paul’s blogs, visit www.cotswold-fayre.co.uk/specialitybites