Coffee prices

[IanSmithCSE]

Good morning,

………local lad rang in and said him and his mates went to the local McDOnalds a few times a week and ordered 4 burgers and large fries at the drink thru …………. If you get kicked out please come to my place - I will never stop you as you would be my most profitable customers!!"

Around here McDonald are pushing their “new” burger the Big Arch at £10.79 for the large meal.

Thinking that at this price it was going to be something special imagine my surprise when I looked at the nutrition panel on the website and saw that the meat patties had the exact same nutritional value as the double quarter pounder!

So where is the price limit for the mass market if this isn’t seen as too much? After all I do remember saying to myself that the £1 pint was too much, whereas the £5 pint turned out to be my limit.

I get that card payment mean that many/most customers don’t have to find a £10 note and some change to pay for it but surely this is more than the market will accept?

Or are McDonalds right and the customers will just gripe and carry on buying or are they so self obsessed/contemptuous of the customer that they have sealed the beginning of the end?

A few people that I know who have worked at McDs talk about being told that this is a restaurant not a fast food joint and it is true that it takes so long to get served that it is not fast food, but a restaurant?

Unlike many here I do, or at least did like McDs as a sugar and carbs hit after a ride. But the ones local to me have just full sugar coke left. Although the little sugar packets are free, adding them to the no sugar drinks doesn’t taste the same. No Big Breakfast for many years and I would be embarrassed at offering the Cheesy Flat bread!

There was a Pret A Manger in Worcester, it closed down, Worcester may appear to be a wealthy city, but it wasn’t ready or willing for those prices.

I once jokingly said that I spent more on beer in two months than my 753 Raleigh frame cost. As this was true and the reality of that set in my whole attitude to beer in pubs changed and what might be different from the past, after all the older generation has always moaned about the price, is that the young people I work with don’t see the price as O.K. either.

It is simply a case that a lot of people who voted for higher and higher minimum wages, gloated over their domestic property prices rises which trickled over into business premises and said whatever the cost of the COVID lockdown was it is worth it (I still know quite a few businesses paying those loans back and ex business owners who simply shut down their businesses as they realised that they simply had too much debt) now don't like the results?

£12.21 is the minimum wage, add to that paid holidays, pensions and NI, presume a 40 hour working week and calculate just how much that is a year, then take out of the selling price 16.667p per pound in most cases for VAT, another tax to pay for what we voted for.

I once went to presentation by someone, it might have been Greene King, who explained that their pubs with paid managers were more successful that those that they had leased out to self employed managers/tenants because the paid managers cared a lot less than the self employed ones. The underlying theme was that there was a lot more money to be made by selling average products to customers with low expectations than there was out of trying to do an excellent job.

In my mind it's just not worth the effort nowadays to run a small business business/cafe/pub/shop etc. that cares, unless you are retired and it's a hobby or it is planned to be the start of something bigger.

Off to NACA I am sent..............

Bye

Ian

 

[FrankCrank]

Good morning,

Around here McDonald are pushing their “new” burger the Big Arch at £10.79 for the large meal.

Thinking that at this price it was going to be something special imagine my surprise when I looked at the nutrition panel on the website and saw that the meat patties had the exact same nutritional value as the double quarter pounder!

So where is the price limit for the mass market if this isn’t seen as too much? After all I do remember saying to myself that the £1 pint was too much, whereas the £5 pint turned out to be my limit.

I get that card payment mean that many/most customers don’t have to find a £10 note and some change to pay for it but surely this is more than the market will accept?

Or are McDonalds right and the customers will just gripe and carry on buying or are they so self obsessed/contemptuous of the customer that they have sealed the beginning of the end?

A few people that I know who have worked at McDs talk about being told that this is a restaurant not a fast food joint and it is true that it takes so long to get served that it is not fast food, but a restaurant?

Unlike many here I do, or at least did like McDs as a sugar and carbs hit after a ride. But the ones local to me have just full sugar coke left. Although the little sugar packets are free, adding them to the no sugar drinks doesn’t taste the same. No Big Breakfast for many years and I would be embarrassed at offering the Cheesy Flat bread!

There was a Pret A Manger in Worcester, it closed down, Worcester may appear to be a wealthy city, but it wasn’t ready or willing for those prices.

I once jokingly said that I spent more on beer in two months than my 753 Raleigh frame cost. As this was true and the reality of that set in my whole attitude to beer in pubs changed and what might be different from the past, after all the older generation has always moaned about the price, is that the young people I work with don’t see the price as O.K. either.

It is simply a case that a lot of people who voted for higher and higher minimum wages, gloated over their domestic property prices rises which trickled over into business premises and said whatever the cost of the COVID lockdown was it is worth it (I still know quite a few businesses paying those loans back and ex business owners who simply shut down their businesses as they realised that they simply had too much debt) now don't like the results?

£12.21 is the minimum wage, add to that paid holidays, pensions and NI, presume a 40 hour working week and calculate just how much that is a year, then take out of the selling price 16.667p per pound in most cases for VAT, another tax to pay for what we voted for.

I once went to presentation by someone, it might have been Greene King, who explained that their pubs with paid managers were more successful that those that they had leased out to self employed managers/tenants because the paid managers cared a lot less than the self employed ones. The underlying theme was that there was a lot more money to be made by selling average products to customers with low expectations than there was out of trying to do an excellent job.

In my mind it's just not worth the effort nowadays to run a small business business/cafe/pub/shop etc. that cares, unless you are retired and it's a hobby or it is planned to be the start of something bigger.

Off to NACA I am sent..............

Bye

Ian

Does the Big Arch occur when you lean over the toilet bowl after eating one of these?

 

[Shortfall]

It is simply a case that a lot of people who voted for higher and higher minimum wages, gloated over their domestic property prices rises which trickled over into business premises and said whatever the cost of the COVID lockdown was it is worth it


Did you ever visit the Cakestop forum on Bike Radar? This sort of stuff was the received wisdom in there.

 

[midlandsgrimpeur]

It is simply a case that a lot of people who voted for higher and higher minimum wages, gloated over their domestic property prices rises which trickled over into business premises and said whatever the cost of the COVID lockdown was it is worth it (I still know quite a few businesses paying those loans back and ex business owners who simply shut down their businesses as they realised that they simply had too much debt) now don't like the results?

I run a family business. I have no issue with the minimum wage going up, we have staff that have worked for us all their lives doing tough manual work and they deserve a decent wage. My issue is the fundamental lack of care or understanding that govts in general exhibit around who actually funds this i.e. the business itself. Essentially you do this one of two ways; cut costs or increase sales with the former being the easiest method for most businesses. My issue is that our govt (current and past) do very little to promote investment or growth for small businesses. There is no point legally mandating us to take on extra cost and then not creating the economic conditions for growth that enable you to grow income and absorb this cost, it ultimately just ends up in people losing their jobs in many cases. With new machinery I could increase my turnover and GP, absorb costs and probably even employ more people. I can't invest in this though as my excess cash goes on increased salary and NI, astronomical energy bills, increased steel prices etc.

As for the McDonald's thing or fast food in general. I never understand the logic of people buying fast food. I think historically people have seen it as a cheaper and more convenient option and don't question it. The reality is I can cook 2-3 fresh meals for two people on the cost of one fast food meal for two. I think a basic lack of either knowledge or confidence to cook accounts for a large part of it.