Everyone knows money doesn’t grow on trees, but saving—that’s exactly the point of a product tree. With a product tree, you can look at all the components of every dish and know exactly which ingredients it’s made from and the quantities of each one.

What’s more, a product tree will help you track the quantities you need of each ingredient and how much it contributes to the cost of the dish. Yes, a product tree prices out every drop of ketchup in a burger and every swirl of whipped cream on a cake. 

How does it work exactly? We set out to plant a product tree of schnitzel in a challah. To simplify the example, we left out the matbucha.

Product tree for a schnitzel in a challah:

200 g chicken breast 

50g breadcrumbs

Egg

1⁄2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1⁄2 teaspoon broken crystalline garlic

And here comes the dish assembly: 

2 slices of challah

10g pickles

1 tablespoon mayonnaise

From components — to calculations

Each component has a price.

Remember that spoon of mayo? Can you price it? Now, let’s see if you can calculate how many jars of mayo you’d need for 100 servings of schnitzel in challah. 

So we’ve seen that accurately calculating costs helps you price everything just right.

But it also allows you to control your inventory properly, without overloading your warehouse for no reason. To do that, you’ll need to calculate the sales volume for each dish, and then you’ll know exactly how much stock you need of each ingredient. 

This will help you maintain a tight order cycle, manage your cash flow properly, and keep your products fresh.