Take away workers, what's the deal with portion size?

Posted by oportoman@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 31 comments

A place near me sells a small chicken kebab for £8 and a large for £9.50. So I think, "it's only £1.50 more so I may as well get a large", but is there really going to be much difference when the food actually arrives? Are you banking on me thinking I should get a large, when you know a small isn't that small?

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rithotyn@reddit

If there are 3 sizes of a thing, the one with the smallest upward increment in price from the previous size is the one they want to sell you.

Price jump from small to medium huge, but the jump from medium to large small? They want you to buy the large.

Price from small to medium small, but medium to large big? They want you to buy the medium.

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Rusty_Tap@reddit

If I order a kebab from my local kebab house, I get what a normal person would eat for £9.

If I go to the local kebab house and buy that same £9 kebab, I get more kebab than 3 people could reasonably eat in 1 sitting.

I'm not entirely convinced there's any proper cost analysis involved.

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AffectionateJump7896@reddit

That's the deliveroo fees? Yes there are the fees you see, but the restaurant also pays more fees.

Officially they aren't allowed to charge more through the delivery apps than they do in person, although many do. To get around it they have different portion sizes or dish specifications to cover the fact that in their mind, the person ordering online is paying less to them.

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incredibubblez@reddit

As Joe Pesci said in Lethal Weapon 2

"They fuck you at the drive through"

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Inside-Definition-42@reddit

Boss man looking after you.

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Rusty_Tap@reddit

Either that or he's trying to kill me off.

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shartingmaster@reddit

Maybe you’re just gorgeous

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Rusty_Tap@reddit

I keep telling my partner this but I'm not certain she agrees with me. Why else would people be so nice to me?

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British-Bot@reddit

You know.

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zZIceCreamZz@reddit

The cost of the ingredients for a restaurant are only a small fraction of the cost of running the business. Remember they buy the ingredients cheaper than you can buy at the supermarket.

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R2-Scotia@reddit

Gordon Ramsay says menu price should be 4x the ingredients to cover other costs.

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TuMek3@reddit

Gordon Ramsays restaurants probably have different running costs to a kebab shop.

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MisstianoPenaldo@reddit

That's exactly what they do - they probably don't even knoe what the medium portion is, everyone orders the large, it's the old illusion of value of ordering more

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Urbanyeti0@reddit

Most of the cost is packaging and the staff, the actual difference in chicken is probably £1

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PsychologicalRun1911@reddit

It's definitely not £1, they're probably adding 50 grams of chicken. Probably more like 20-30p.

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Logical_Strain_6165@reddit

If they are only adding 50g you nerd to find a new place.

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PsychologicalRun1911@reddit

I have no idea just a guess. I'd guess that's the difference between sizes.

Here let me Google it.

Google seems to suggest 50-100 grams difference in sizes. Either way even 100 grams is not £1.

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Low-Captain1721@reddit

Staff Wages, rent, utility bills etc plus a lot of profit to make it worthwhile to run a business.

Hospitality taking a real battering due to payroll taxes etc. They have to put prices up but then less will want to eat out so then they have to put prices up more to cover business expenses.. In the end it gets ridiculous when you can just whip down Asda & enjoy it more.

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jeremyascot@reddit

So two thirds of the upgrade cost 🤔

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HawkwardGames@reddit

No, because you’ve got to factor in labour, cooking, packaging and overheads too. It isn’t as simple as saying a third of the price is the chicken.

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Cielo11@reddit

Bigger portions usually means you get charged more. The actual costs of the extra ingredients will be obviously be much less than what you are paying extra. Its just a way to get you to put more £ in their pocket.

My local shop started selling drink bottles at £2.90 for one. But you get one free... I thought why? Why not just sell at £1.45 each???? But its obviously it forces you to buy two bottles.

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Low-Captain1721@reddit

My favourite kebab place getting ridiculous for portion sizes, really gone to pot. Regular is basically mostly Pitta, salad & a couple of slithers of Kebab meat. About 8 quid too so really takes the piss.

Large is only a couple of quid more so if you're going to pay that much you would probably go for it. A half decent filler however still just loads of pitta basically.

There's one of those Chinese buffet places nearby where you have to choose a box size. Small wouldn't feed an anorexic mouse. Medium is only slightly bigger. Large box is significantly bigger but still not big - they fill it for you & mostly rice too with a couple of mm of chosen toppings. I think the Large about a tenner but a light snack to me. Mind you I am a 6ft, 240 pound quite beefy muscular Rugby player type build 😅

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Pure_Breadfruit8219@reddit

I think you’re being dramatic ‘a few slithers’

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Low-Captain1721@reddit

I'm not... I hadn't been for a while & then had one at end of last year. Used to be gr8 but got a shock when I opened it up. Real boner killer tbh

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NortonBurns@reddit

It's what I always call the "one open, one shut, span of my hand and half a brick" measuring system.
It's just complete guesswork. Who serves you, what their expertise is vs how bothered they can be and if you're in front of them how much they like the look of you.

I've had smalls that well outweigh larges, and vice versa. Buy a small.

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ManOfTheBroth@reddit

Yes, probably will be significantly more food, because the costs of the food isn't the majority of the cost in running a takeaway, it's staff and other overheads, which they're covering in the cost of the small/regular, if they can then get you to pay a bit more for more food then they can offer you a lot more food for a much smaller margin and still make a profit on the extra.

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Aggressive_Cream_188@reddit

I don't know how big your kebab is. Perhaps a picture might help.

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Big_Poppa_T@reddit

OP doesn’t appear to have been willing to order the large kebab yet. They needed to get feedback from a Reddit post before taking the plunge and spending an extra £1.50.

Presumably they hope that there are some sort of national sizing standards that they can learn about rather than the reality that each kebab shop has their own version of small/large portions

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