Feature · 🧮
Menu Engineering
Star, Plow Horse, Puzzle, Dog. Forkcast plots every dish on the menu engineering matrix and tells you what to do with each.
What it does
Menu Engineering in plain English
Menu engineering is the discipline of analysing each dish on two axes — popularity (units sold) and contribution margin (revenue minus plate cost). Forkcast computes both from your POS + recipe data and plots every dish on a 2×2 grid. Each quadrant has a playbook: protect the Stars, reprice or reformulate the Plow Horses, promote the Puzzles, retire the Dogs.
Examples
What you actually see
'Butter Chicken — Plow Horse: 280 units/month at 18% margin. Reprice ₹220 → ₹240 (test on a soft Tuesday).'
'Paneer Tikka — Star: 180 units/month at 38% margin. Feature on aggregator listing cover.'
'Schezwan Noodles — Dog: 14 units/month at 22% margin. Retire next menu refresh.'
Inputs
What powers it
- POS sales by item (last 30/60/90 days)
- Recipe data (ingredients × quantities × prices)
- Live mandi prices for ingredient cost validation
FAQ
Menu Engineering FAQ
How often should I refresh the matrix?
Forkcast refreshes weekly. We surface the 2-3 dishes that moved quadrants and what to do about it, so you don't have to read the whole matrix every week.
What about plates with shared sub-recipes (gravy, base)?
Sub-recipes are first-class. Cost a base gravy once, link it to every dish that uses it, and Forkcast resolves the plate cost correctly.
Related reading
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