Street Food Profit Margins: What to Aim For (UK)
What margin and food cost percentage a UK street food trader should target, and how to tell whether you are hitting it.
The short answer
Most UK street food traders aim for 60 to 70 percent margin on the plate, which puts food at roughly 20 to 30 percent of the price. Margin is the share of the price you keep, so a 65 percent margin on a £4.31 cost means a £12.32 price, and anything that erodes it (a dearer pitch, a quieter day, a supplier rise) shows up as a lower actual margin rather than a smaller number of sales.
Step by step
- Work out your real cost per serving. Food, containers, labour and the day's fixed costs, divided by a realistic count. Anything less is not a margin figure, it is a guess.
- Choose margin, not markup. Margin is what you keep from the price. A 65 percent markup on £4.31 is only £7.11, which is a very different plate.
- Check food cost percentage as a sanity test. Divide the food alone by the price. Landing far under 20 percent usually means the fixed costs are being ignored rather than that you are doing brilliantly.
- Re-check after every price rise. Suppliers move constantly. The margin you set in spring is not the margin you are earning by autumn unless something recalculated it.
The same plate at three prices
Cost per serving held at £4.31, the figure from a 120 portion market service.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Priced at £9.00 | 52.1% margin |
| Priced at £10.50 | 58.9% margin |
| Priced at £12.32 | 65.0% margin |
| Priced at £14.00 | 69.2% margin |
A £1.50 move on the plate is worth roughly six points of margin. That is usually a far bigger lever than shaving pennies off the food.
Why it matters
Margin erosion in street food is rarely one big event. It is a supplier rise here and a dearer pitch there, and because the price on the board does not change, nothing tells you until the season's takings disappoint.