Fun facts from Germany:
- Fresh Aldi potatoes are like 0.5 Euro per 1 Kilogram - basically the same price as 25 years ago when Euro currency was introduced
- Our national TV channel now shows a great collection of "potato recipes" videos on demand on its main page
- Price of McDonalds/BurgerKing fries is around 4 Euro, and 5-6 Euro as a street food
- Crisps like Pringles are like 15 Euro per 1 Kilogram (a typical 2.50 Euro for 175gm pack)
They’ve been driving people to use their app for years now. The menu prices isn’t what one pays if they use the app, since it has a constant stream of coupons and discounts that bring the list price down.
I’m not convinced it’s that good because of how the deals are structured. For example, top deal where I am at the moment is 9 chicken nuggets plus two medium drinks plus two sauces for 1990 HUF. That’s a two person deal (you don’t need two drinks if you’re on your own), but there are no chips, add a large chips to share at 1270 HUF and your meal costs 3260 HUF. Two four nugget McMoment deals comes to 3060 HUF (small fries, small drink). Are an extra 80ml of coke and half a nugget each worth 200 HUF? Maybe? But it’s definitely not the huge savings it purports to be.
This walkthrough is just an example, open the app yourself and have a look, most of the deals are just an item or two away from being a thing people would actually order.
In the US, a rule of thumb for restaurant economics is that only about 25-35% of an item's price is the cost of ingredients, when you average over all menu items (of course some items better margins than others). The rest goes into labor, fixed costs, etc. It varies a bit by region and by market segment (e.g. fast food vs fast casual vs fine dining), but not by too much.
Of course! That is why I qualified it as "averaged over all menu items". The expectation is that higher-margin items are purchased in a volume that balances out lower-margin items.
Also sodas/fountain drinks are famously high-margin. Depending on the size, as much as a third of the COGS comes from the disposable cup.
Japan: McFry S Size ¥ 200~ (1.09 EUR) M Size ¥ 330~ (1.80 EUR) L Size ¥ 380~ (2.07 EUR) * Prices may differ at selected restaurants and for delivery.
Small fries at McD had been lately around 2,99 EUR, that was very expensive given that the "small fries" are actually really small :-D