Field note
Reading supplier rises without panic
A supplier increase does not always mean every line on your board must move the same day — but ignoring the letter is how margins thin unnoticed.
Supplier emails arrive with percentages that sound dramatic. Translate them into pennies on your actual recipes or job cards before you decide anything.
If milk rises and you sell two hundred flat whites a week, the weekly hit is knowable. If packaging rises and you use it across twenty products, the hit may be smaller per ticket but still worth a bundled adjustment later. Separate urgent moves from patient ones.
Create a simple rule: any input that adds more than a stated threshold per ticket triggers a review within thirty days. Below that threshold, gather changes and adjust on a planned date so customers are not trained to expect weekly wobble.
Keep the letters. During a Pricing Structure Review they become evidence, not folklore, and they help you explain a rise without inventing a story on the spot.