Menu Optimization Ideas

"My food cost is 32%" Wrong. I've analyzed over 500 restaurant P&Ls, and 91% of owners are calculating their food costs incorrectly. Here's the truth: Your food cost percentage doesn't matter nearly as much as your dollar contribution. Let me prove it: Item A: • Sells for $20 • Costs $5 to make • 25% food cost • $15 profit Item B: • Sells for $40 • Costs $16 to make • 40% food cost • $24 profit Most owners would pick Item A because of the "better" food cost %. But you're leaving money on the table. Here's why: #1) Dollar contribution > percentage Would you rather have: • A 25% cost item making you $15 • Or a 40% cost item making you $24? #2) Volume matters If you sell 100 of each: • Item A = $1,500 profit • Item B = $2,400 profit That's $900 in profit you're missing by focusing on the wrong number. #3) The real math you should be doing: • Profit per item • Profit per hour of prep time • Profit per square foot Quick example: Two burgers: A) 28% cost, 10 min prep = $12 profit B) 35% cost, 5 min prep = $15 profit B is more profitable because it generates more dollars per labor minute. Want to see exactly how we calculate true menu profitability? Drop a "menu" in the comments and I'll send you a specific tool from my book about menu optimization. 👊🏻 #restaurants #restaurantmanagement #restaurantowner

Indians want to eat healthy and companies want to make healthier alternatives. But both customers and brands are often confused. Health food is a $30B market in India and we meet atleast 20 companies every week. My last post on Indians eating protein got a lot of attention. So here is a playbook for brands, entrepreneurs & startups making food as nutrition to consider. #1- Sell simplicity, not superiority. Protein is not a luxury, it’s a necessity. Stop marketing it like it’s only for bodybuilders or fitness fanatics. The simpler your message, the broader your audience. #2- Educate, don’t exploit- Most Indians don’t know how much protein , carb or fibre they need, let alone where to get it. Be the brand that empowers with knowledge, not fear. Create tools, guides, or calculators that simplify nutrient requirements for different age groups, lifestyles, and budgets. Education creates trust, and trust builds loyalty. #3- Respect local wisdom- Stop chasing western trends and start celebrating Indian staples. Align your messaging with cultural relevance—it resonates deeper than imported fads. #4- Focus on affordability and accessibility- If your product costs more than an average meal, you’re solving a problem for the few, not the many. Create products that cater to the masses, especially rural and low-income communities. Affordability isn’t just ethical—it’s scalable. #5-Champion the underserved - Protein or carbs isn’t just for athletes or gym-goers. It’s crucial for children, pregnant women, and the elderly and they often are left out of the conversation. Tailor your products and campaigns to serve them, and you’ll stand out as a brand with purpose, not just profits. #6- Break the high-protein Halo - A “high-protein” claim shouldn’t be your only story. Focus on the overall quality of your product—minimal additives, real ingredients, and transparent labeling. If your protein bar has more sugar than a laddoo, you’re part of the problem, not the solution. #7- Decommoditize the narrative - Don’t just sell protein or fibre—sell the idea of a healthier India. Be the brand that shifts the conversation from “how much protein you eat” to “how balanced your diet is.” Make protein part of the bigger picture, not the entire story. #8-Make nutrient consumption a Public Good- Don’t just sell specific nutrient products; create ecosystems that make nutrient accessible and affordable for everyone. Collaborate with local governments to integrate protein-rich foods into public programs like midday meals and ration systems. You’ll build long-term demand while addressing a systemic health challenge." More notes continued in the comment section below.

🔎 How To Redesign Complex Navigation: How We Restructured Intercom’s IA (https://lnkd.in/ezbHUYyU), a practical case study on how the Intercom team fixed the maze of features, settings, workflows and navigation labels. Neatly put together by Pranava Tandra. 🚫 Customers can’t use features they can’t discover. ✅ Simplifying is about bringing order to complexity. ✅ First, map out the flow of customers and their needs. ✅ Study how people navigate and where they get stuck. ✅ Spot recurring friction points that resonate across tasks. 🚫 Don’t group features based on how they are built. ✅ Group features based on how users think and work. ✅ Bring similar things together (e.g. Help, Knowledge). ✅ Establish dedicated hubs for key parts of the product. ✅ Relocate low-priority features to workflows/settings. 🤔 People don’t use products in predictable ways. 🤔 Users often struggle with cryptic icons and labels. ✅ Show labels in a collapsible nav drawer, not on hover. ✅ Use content testing to track if users understand icons. ✅ Allow users to pin/unpin items in their navigation drawer. One of the helpful ways to prioritize sections in navigation is by layering customer journeys on top of each other to identify most frequent areas of use. The busy “hubs” of user interactions typically require faster and easier access across the product. Instead of using AI or designer’s mental model to reorganize navigation, invite users and run a card sorting session with them. People are usually not very good at naming things, but very good at grouping and organizing them. And once you have a new navigation, test and refine it with tree testing. As Pranava writes, real people don’t use products in perfectly predictable ways. They come in with an infinite variety of needs, assumptions, and goals. Our job is to address friction points for their realities — by reducing confusion and maximizing clarity. Good IA work and UX research can do just that. [Useful resources in the comments ↓] #ux #IA

𝗣𝗩𝗥 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗣𝗼𝗽𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗻 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗠𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗲 𝗧𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗲𝘁𝘀. 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗗𝟮𝗖 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗖𝗮𝗻 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻. Look at this chart. PVR INOX generates ₹32,582 crore from movie tickets. But food and beverages bring in ₹18,864 crore and it's their fastest-growing revenue stream, up 21% in FY24 while ticket sales grew just 19%. 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭: food and beverage sales generated around ₹1,958.4 crore, up from ₹1,618 crore in the previous year. The margin on that popcorn? Significantly higher than the margin on your ₹250 ticket. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥 PVR isn't in the movie business. They're in the high-margin consumables business with movies as the traffic driver. Tickets get people through the door. Food keeps the business profitable. This is the exact playbook D2C founders miss: your core product doesn't have to be your most profitable product. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐃2𝐂 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐂𝐚𝐧 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧 Think about your "popcorn moment." What's the high-margin add-on that complements your core offering? Skincare brands selling ₹800 serums should bundle ₹200 sheet masks at checkout. Apparel brands selling ₹1,500 shirts should push ₹300 accessories. Fitness brands selling ₹5,000 equipment should offer ₹500 supplement subscriptions. PVR's Food & Beverage spend per head reached an all-time high of ₹148 in Q1 FY25. That's not accidental. It's strategic bundling, strategic positioning, strategic pricing of complementary products that customers are already primed to buy. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐝𝐝-𝐎𝐧 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐜𝐬 PVR's popcorn costs them ₹20-30 to make. They sell it for ₹300+. That's 10X markup. Your D2C brand probably has 2-3X markup on core products because of competition and customer acquisition costs. But add-ons? Accessories, consumables, complementary items – those can carry 5-8X markups because customers aren't price-comparing them. They're already committed to the purchase journey. 𝐀𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩𝐬 Identify your high-margin add-on that enhances the core product experience. Place it strategically at checkout, not buried in your catalog. Bundle it with your hero product during festive seasons. Track "attach rate" – how many customers buy the add-on with the main product. PVR's real genius isn't selling movie tickets. It's monetizing the moment when customers are emotionally committed and their wallets are already open. That's your opportunity too. Picture: Respective Owner #D2C #businessstrategy #pricing #revenue #growth #Ecommerce

What’s Separating Winning Coffee Brands Globally from the Rest   Spend time with coffee across New York, London, California, and China, and a clear pattern starts to emerge. Out-of-home coffee is still growing, but it is no longer being won by the traditional cafe model alone. More of the momentum, especially among younger consumers, is moving toward cold drinks, customization, digital ordering, pickup, drive-thru, and all-day beverage occasions built around convenience and treat value.   Luckin Coffee is one of the clearest examples. My visit to Luckin in New York was instructive on the model. The experience was built around the app, not the counter: order ahead, pay digitally, scan, pick up, move on. The menu energy sat visibly in iced, flavored, seasonal, and matcha-led drinks rather than classic hot drinks. In a conversation I had with Centurium Capital, they shared that in China, a new Luckin was opened roughly every 20 minutes. At Yum China, opening a new KFC every 18 hours once felt fast. Luckin’s 2025 results underline the point: revenue rose 43.0% to an estimated $7 billion, and it ended the year with 31,000 stores.   Dutch Bros Coffee in the U.S. shows a different version of the same shift. In my drive-thru experience, the service was warm, and the menu logic was clear. The center of gravity is not traditional espresso or latte. It is cold drinks, Rebel energy, frozen beverages, flavors, add-ons, customization, and indulgence. The 2025 results show how powerful that model can be: revenue rose almost 28% to $1.64 billion with well over 1,000 stores and growing.   Costa Coffee, the leading brand in the UK, helps explain the other side of the story. In my London visits, the offer was dependable and complete: coffee, tea, breakfast, sandwiches, toasties, snacks, and grab-and-go food. You can also see Costa trying to modernize through kiosks, app-led loyalty, customization, and travel-hub grab-and-go formats. Costa still feels more rooted in the classic coffee-and-food chain, and that makes it a useful symbol of the middle of the market. The Coca-Cola Company bought Costa for $5.1 billion in 2018, and in early 2026, it abandoned a sale process after bids failed to meet expectations at half the purchase price.   Starbucks remains the global leader and one of the great consumer brands. But even Starbucks shows that scale alone is no longer enough. As of April 2026, Starbucks’ 5-year total return was just over 4%, compared with 65% for the S&P 500. Coffee remains a big, resilient category. However, the winners are not simply the biggest café brands. Luckin and Dutch Bros look very different on the surface. Still, both are built around similar underlying advantages: cold formats, convenience, speed, repeatability, and stronger unit economics than the classic sit-down café.   I’d love to hear your thoughts: what are the biggest lessons from the winning brands, and how far do they apply to coffee and the broader out-of-home beverage category?

Do you personalise your cancellation flow? Canva does. When I cancelled my trial a few weeks back, I was met with what looked like a normal screen: a list of benefits I'd miss out on when I cancel. I thought nothing of it. That was until I saw another version of this screen from a post by Growth Advisor & Coach Andrew Capland on LinkedIn. Then I realised: this screen is actually super ✨ personalised ✨ I went back to compare, and saw: 👏 The features listed are tailored to what I’ve used during my trial 👏 The frequency of use of each feature tallys under each bucket 👏 I’m told what I’m missing out on (see in screenshot two ‘and there’s more left to discover’..) 👏 I’m given another CTA to 'remind me in 7 days', yet the main 'cancel' CTA is still the most prominent What’s interesting is that the third example doesn’t have the 7-day reminder. Perhaps this is an old variant, perhaps it changes when you have 3 days left of the trial (versus 29 days left). Does it work to reduce churn? I think so. I wrote a deep dive on Loom’s cancellation sequence a few months back, finding that they have implemented something similar as their final screen in the cancellation sequence. What’s cool is that this actually reduced churn for Loom. One of the senior product designers who worked on this flow, Crystal Ma, shared that this project’s codename was named ‘Graceful Goodbyes’ and was aimed at providing a positive off-boarding experience for users. The team managed to increase retention as a result 💥 If you're thinking of implementing a similar thing, here’s three takeaways from Canva’s cancellation flow to help ⏰ Shorten time to cancel: avoid screens that don’t add value. Keep the flow short in terms of clicks and number of screens to avoid dark UX flows. Get essential feedback before the cancel, and extra feedback after. 🦜 Personalise the benefits: the strongest part of this flow is the personalisation. Make users see the value you’ve brought to them through their trial or subscription before they leave. 🔴 Make the cancellation button the brightest one: similar to point 1, don’t hide the button. Don’t grey it out. Don’t make it hard to see. If people want to cancel they will, so you might as well support their choice. Seen any more like this? Share in the comments, would love to compare more. ----- Hiiiii, I'm Rosie 👋 I do a weekly deep dives on growth, product & UX in my newsletter growthdives.com 📅 2wk ago: Canva's trial cancellation flow 📅 Last week: how Duolingo blackmailed me back into the app via email 📅 This week: sign up to find out (hint: it's a B2B Saas onboarding) Sign up at 🕺 growthdives.com 🕺

Evolution takes time… But listening always pays off. A couple of years ago, we made one of the hardest, And smartest decisions in our journey. When we first launched Mid-Day Squares in 2018, the product worked. The excitement was real. The brand was growing. But as we scaled, we started listening to feedback, to the data, and to how people were actually enjoying the product. We learned something important: Many customers were eating one square at a time and putting the second back in the fridge. The problem? That second square wasn’t staying as fresh. At the same time, raw material and supply chain costs were skyrocketing. To survive as a business, we had to make a bold call: Move from two squares to one. And to raise the price of our product. And over time, we realized the change wasn’t just practical, it was right. The single square became the perfect amount for that midday moment we were built for, the pick-me-up between lunch and dinner. It was the right format for the use case our consumers wanted most. As the product evolved, so did how we presented it. We refined the flavour name to be clearer and instantly communicate what it tastes like. And the packaging evolved too. We went from having lots of words on the front to leading with what mattered most: Our brand identity, our logo, and the actual product image. Simple. Confident. Recognizable. At first, the transition wasn’t easy. Sales dipped. Feedback was mixed. But over time, everything started to click. The product stayed fresher. The brand looked cleaner. And then growth came back: First steady, then it started compounding fast. Today, most of our consumers love the change. It was hard, but one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. Real evolution doesn’t happen overnight. But when you listen, adapt, and stay true to your purpose, it always pays off. #packaging #cpg #sales #retail #grocery Mid-Day Squares.