Why tracking your dish-by-dish margins can transform your results

Claire Brunaud
4 days ago
3 min read

Every restaurateur knows their revenue.

Many track their average ticket size.

But few really know how much they actually earn on each dish.

And yet, that’s where everything is decided.

Because between two dishes that sell well, one might bring in twice as much profit as the other, without it showing in overall sales.

Tracking your margins dish by dish is like switching from a wide-angle view to a magnifying glass: you finally see where your profitability is created, and where it’s lost.

Volume doesn’t equal profitability

Let’s take a concrete example.

A “star” dish sold 200 times a week at €16 seems like a success.

But if its food cost is €9.50, its gross margin per unit is €6.50, or 40%.

Another dish, sold only 80 times at €19, with a food cost of €6, generates €13 in margin — 68%.

👉 In short: the first one drives revenue,the second one drives profit.

Without a dish-by-dish analysis, these nuances remain invisible, and you risk promoting the wrong items on your menu.

Why this vision is often blurry

Many restaurateurs know their overall margin, but not the margin per dish.

Why? Because the calculations are time-consuming and often done manually.

Supplier prices fluctuate, recipes evolve, and Excel sheets quickly become outdated.

So, management ends up being done “by instinct,” without noticing that some dishes have become barely profitable.

And in a context of rising costs, not tracking margins in detail is like driving without a dashboard.

What a dish-by-dish margin analysis reveals

When you start analyzing your margins per product, you quickly identify three categories:

The Stars

High margin and high volume.They’re your locomotives — keep them, highlight them, and make them shine.

The Dilemmas

Good margin but low sales.Untapped potential — improve visibility (naming, visuals, placement on the menu…).

The Dead Weights

Low margin and low volume.These are costing you more than they’re worth.

This is exactly what Fyre automates with its built-in BCG matrix:at a glance, you see which dishes deserve a boost… and which should disappear.

How one restaurateur gained +12% margin in 3 weeks

Julien, an independent restaurateur, thought he had his offer under control.

But after connecting his POS system to Fyre, he discovered that his “signature” burger — his best-seller — accounted for only 5% of his total margin.

Fyre helped him:

identify low-profit dishes,
slightly adjust prices (+€0.40 on two key items),
highlight a high-margin dish as a suggestion,
and remove two poorly selling items.

Result: +12% overall margin in three weeks — with no drop in average ticket size.

“I realized that commercial success doesn’t guarantee profitability.Today, I choose my dishes based on numbers, not intuition.”

How Fyre makes this tracking simple

Tracking your dish-by-dish margins shouldn’t be a headache.

With Fyre:

your POS data connects automatically,
each dish is linked to its ingredient costs,
gross margin is calculated in real time,
and results are displayed through clear charts.

👉 In one click, you can see:

margin per dish, category, or service time,
gaps compared to your segment’s average,
and opportunities for adjustment.

No more endless Excel sheets or complex formulas.

The tangible benefits of dish-by-dish tracking

More margin without more volume

Optimizing your menu can boost profitability by 10–15% without serving more customers.

Faster, data-driven decisions

You no longer decide “by feel”, but based on clear facts:

→ this dish earns,

→ that one costs,

→ this one needs to evolve.

A clearer menu for customers

By removing underperforming dishes, you simplify the customer experience and increase satisfaction (and kitchen productivity).

A real pricing strategy

You adjust prices where it truly matters — without distorting your overall positioning.

In summary

Tracking your margin dish by dish isn’t a luxury.

It’s the core of profitable restaurant management.

This level of precision allows you to:

understand where value is created,
evolve your menu intelligently,
and boost profitability without compromising customer experience.

Fyre helps you do it effortlessly:no spreadsheets, no complex analysis, just your data, your dishes, your decisions.

Because in the end, a restaurant’s success doesn’t depend on how many plates are served…but on how much margin each one keeps.