Die Kosten für eine Suppe und ein Sandwich für 17,50 € abbauen
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2025/0819/1529128-costs-hospitality/
Von Andru93
Die Kosten für eine Suppe und ein Sandwich für 17,50 € abbauen
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2025/0819/1529128-costs-hospitality/
Von Andru93
25 Kommentare
PR piece to continue the lobby for 9% VAT rate
>The 9% will give a lifeline to our industry because every two months businesses have to pay their VAT. It will mean the VAT bill will come down by 50%. It means a better cash flow for them over the twelve months
What am I missing here? The VAT rate is currently 13.5%. Hence, a 4.5% reduction in the rate would reduce the tax bill by 33%, not 50%.
Unless I’m missing something, seems shocking that the CEO of the Restaurants Association of Ireland could get very basic maths like that wrong.
The only bit that matters really.
„Referring to the €17.50 sandwich and soup he said: „I am sure that this business is trying to make a margin. At the end of the day, they have to make a profit. *If their customers are paying €17.50 that is the price that they feel as a business that will attract customers in their door*“
If you can find customers at a given price point then that’s your price point.
I think his costs there are way overstated. There is no way the bread is costing 55cents or the chicken €2 in a sandwich (even if Organic). The cost for a bowl of soup is ridiculous – €1.75 would imply a huge cost for the large container of soup they are making if that is the cost for a bowl.
Does a reduction in vat mean that if your restaurant bill was €113.50 (for simplicity, 100 + 13.5% vat), they would reduce the bill to €109, in order to make it more attractive to consumer?
Or does it mean the prices they pay for food to make for the end customer also drops by 4%
Or is it both?
Is there something else?
I would find it hard to believe that if the first scenario is true, that they would pass the 4% saving onto the customer.
As was pointed out in the article, it sounds like it was a premium establishment. Organic chicken isn’t cheap to produce and tends to be only seen in higher end places.
The price is high but it sounds like they went to a fancy café and were shocked they were charged fancy prices.
They’re so full of shit on the costs, if it costs you €5+ in staff costs per sandwich, then I suppose you’ll need extra overheads to provide space for your cook to park his Lamborghini.
I paid over €80 for coffee and sandwich for 4 in a rural Kerry village recently, almost puked.
Let’s stop trying to normalize pure, unadulterated greed.
You can get a toastie and a sandwich for 9.50 where I am. It is rae though.
Bargain
„Organic chicken on sourdough“. Notions I tell ya…notions!
For the crazy prices for lunch and sandwiches,
Cafe Sol that are in Dunnes have unreal value. Sandwich crisps and drink for 4.50 I think. Sandwich can be hit or miss, but can’t complain.
If I had a costs breakdown like this, the very first thing I’d be doing is cutting back on the staffing.
> „I have looked at all the ingredients. It was chicken sandwich – the chicken was a premium chicken, it was organic. At cost you’d pay €2.10 for the chicken. 55 cent for the bread. Potato salad 50 cent. The soup €1.75. The garnish about 15 cent. So, it would cost about €5.05 – at cost,“ said Mr Vaughan.
>
> „But the thing is that the €5.05 – that only represents about 35% of the total cost. If I was building that cost to allow for other costs that I have I’d be looking to get between €16 and €17 for what you got,“ he added.
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> The reason, he explained, was that staff labour cost represent another third of the final cost.
>
> On top of this there are rates, electricity and overhead costs to take into account.
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> „When you add all of the costs up, when you do the maths on that, you are up as far as €16. But the owner is only getting about €1 of that as pure profit,“ added Mr Vaughan.
It’s called monetizing. It is greed.
>The woman went for tea with her sister-in-law who asked for an extra tea bag in the pot of tea she was ordering.
>“The tea was €3.50, and when she (her sister-in-law) looked (at the bill), it (the pot of tea) came to €7. He charged us €3.50 for the extra tea bag. They were just ordinary tea bags,“ she said.
>The man serving the women explained he had to charge for the extra tea bag. **The women left the restaurant without consuming or paying for the food, leaving it at the till.**
Ultimately, that is what we all should be doing in response to what is blatant price gouging.
Have they factored in the owners new Range rover?
Staff costs are 1/3 of that apparently. So €5.80 in staff costs to make a sandwich and pour a cup of soup. At minimum wage it apparently took 26 minutes to do that.
What the article doesn’t mention is food waste, and our expectations. Yea in a perfect world, every single ingredient you purchase will be put in a dish and sold. Thats far from the case
Our expectations of what a dining experience should be has risen drastically, so have expectations of staff to have a lighter work load per person
All the extra options people like to have in cafes etc means more waste and more cost. Half a dozen types of milk, plenty different types of cheese and bread. With all that variety comes more waste. Food prices have gone mad overall , I’m not really surprised at some of the prices in places, I’m not delighted about it but it’s not hard to imagine. Plus nobody is making me pay it
Places need to earn a decent profit after all is said and done when you think of the risk and investment involved. It’s easy enough to get €700-€1400 per week now as an employee if you’re any good at all to work.
If I was the owner/operator of a small business like that with all that it took to start and keep going, I’d want to clear €3000 per week just for myself, or at least be aiming for it? Maybe I’m a mile off with that figure, I don’t own a cafe or whatever. But what would anyone say would be a fair wage for all it takes to start and run a business like that, staff, dealing with the public etc?
There’s a very good point in the article, that you can make a €17 soup and sandwich yourself for €5. Up until the call for a VAT reduction, the article was good but the person justifying it lost all credibility at that point. We have seen the vat increase and decrease several times now and each time it’s the same story, the consumer saves nothing on a decrease yet has to pay in excess of the increase.
Another point is people buying less wine with the dinner, again why would a customer pay €10+ for a glass of wine when an average bottle costs €10 in most shops.
This is why people won’t pay it and they shouldn’t either. There’s a problem here from business where the answer is always to screw the consumer and now thankfully the consumer has learned not to pay it and the business is wonder why ripping off the customer isn’t working. The same problem
It’s happening with the pubs thanks to the vintners association, they pushed for minimum pricing and then jacked the pub price up, missing the point that the gap between off license and pub was meant to get tighter so that people could justify going to the pub but nope the brains behind it still don’t understand that.
„“VAT should be reduced because what we are trying to do here is make our industry sustainable. The reason why so many businesses are going out of business is the cost increase over the last number of years.“
– the reason is that people cannot pay exorbitant prices in your restaurant
€17.50?
More like a surprise proctology exam than a meal.
This is a poor article and has scant details about what goes into the cost of a soup and sandwich.
Suffice it to say, a lot of restaurants are closing and costs for my own business have gone up.
The biggest is insurance and energy.
Restaurants have tight margins at the best of times, and with decreasing tourist numbers, you either close up shop or raise prices. Either way, you end up closing in the long run.
A lot of the costs can be attributed to poor governance. We have a real problem with infrastructure and it is affecting everyone and I don’t have much faith in any party to fix it.
We really need a new party that is grounded in reality.
I used to eat in MyMeatWagon in Smith Field in Dublin when I lived near, I used to pay for the mix on board 19 euros in 2021, last week the same dish is 28 euros, not only the price increased but the amount of food decreased, more than 50% increase if you consider the amount of food.
I love it when they say operating costs i.e. staff. The waiters and waitresses aren’t driving to work in BMW’s 🤣. Most I see are kids on minimum wage.
Stupid high minimum wage, councils more than doubling rates on some businesses and power costs soared.
It’s not just the vat rate.
Wait until employers have to deal with this pension messing, watch the chaos that adds in.
What the hell sort of rip off is 17.50 for a soup and sandwich