## Menu Engineering Calculator

URL: https://minimalpos.com/tools/menu-engineering-calculator

Menu engineering plots each dish on two axes: how much margin it makes, and how often it sells. Enter your items with cost, price and units sold for a period, and each one is placed in one of four quadrants with a recommended action — promote it, re-price it, re-cost it, or take it off.

### Features

- Stars, Plowhorses, Puzzles and Dogs classification
- Contribution margin per item and total for the period
- Compares each item against the menu average, not a fixed threshold
- A specific recommended action per quadrant
- Visual matrix you can read at a glance

### How it relates to MinimalPOS

This analysis is only as good as the sales mix behind it. MinimalPOS reports units sold per item over any period, so the popularity half of the matrix comes from your own till rather than from an estimate.

**What are Stars, Plowhorses, Puzzles and Dogs?** Stars are high margin and popular — protect them. Plowhorses are popular but low margin — try to re-cost or nudge the price. Puzzles are high margin but sell rarely — promote or reposition them. Dogs are low margin and unpopular — usually candidates for removal.

**How are the quadrants decided?** Against your own menu average, not a fixed number. An item is 'high margin' if its contribution margin beats the average across the items you entered, and 'popular' if its share of units sold beats what an even split would give. That is why you should enter your whole menu, or a whole category, rather than a handful of items.

**What is contribution margin?** Selling price minus item cost. It is what each sale contributes toward rent, labour and profit. Menu engineering uses contribution margin in currency rather than food cost percentage, because a high-percentage item that sells in volume can still contribute more cash than a low-percentage one that rarely sells.

**How often should I run this?** Quarterly is a reasonable rhythm for most venues, and after any significant supplier price change or menu revision. Use a period long enough to be representative — a single quiet week will misclassify seasonal items.