Food & Drink profits

[cassa333]

Hi,

I was once told by a hotel manager that to make 30% profit on say a glass of orange for arguments sake you had to add something like 150%. Is this because you have to take all costs off ie: staff, cleaning and suchlike, then what is left is 30% profit?

Thanks

[buildersmate]

I would think it is more than 150% for many establishments and for many drinks products.
The costs that you refer to are called overheads and most of them are present whether or not the hotel has any customers. To break even (or perhaps make a profit) businesses have to find a way of recovering these overheads and the conventional way to do it is to mark-up the price of a product by a margin that aims to cover the overheads and make a profit margin on top.
The mixer machines that dispense branded soft drinks probably cost about 5p per pint but typically sell between �1.25 and �2.00 to the customer.
Landlords probably pay about the same as supermarkets for beer - say �1 per pint. Typical price of say �3?