In article ,
"John" writes:

"Bruce" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 25 May 2010 21:37:02 +0100, "Woodworm"
wrote:

Now the suppliers would be telling porkies if they did that - as on most
of
their stuff the 'mark-up' is around 30-40% of the wholesale price (and
that's without what they can charge for delivery) - and if they're in the
restaurant business, then that mark-up is more like 60% plus.


Restaurants usually charge a multiple of the cost of ingredients,
typically four or five times. But that has to pay for all their
overheads, including rent and rates, staff wages, electricity and gas,
water, ...

It is not a highly profitable business, and the risk of going bust is
very high indeed. Lots of people think it's easy, have a go and fail.

....and the food wastage which is probably considerable. If it is an Indian
restaurant then another will open up a few doors away to pinch some of your
business.............

Wages is the largest part for many resurants, and the wages required
to handle the increasing levels of red tape (anti-money laundering
measures, etc) has escalated enormously over the last 10 years and
bites heavily into the smaller businesses in particular. A friend
packed his in because of this - red tape took up more and more time,
until he had no leasure time left and not enough time to actually
run the business.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]