Guide·Stok· 6 min read

Spotting supplier price creep before it eats your GP

Food and drink suppliers rarely announce price rises. They creep in, line by line, invoice by invoice — 40p on the ribeye, 12p on the tomatoes, an extra 3% on the wine list. Individually invisible; collectively, 4–6 GP points a year. Here's the routine that catches it.

The invoice diff, not the price list

Suppliers keep two prices: the price list they show new customers, and the price they actually invoice. The gap is where the creep hides. Every invoice needs a line-by-line comparison against the last invoice for the same SKU, not against the quoted price list. Automation makes this trivial; manual spot-checks catch maybe 20% of it.

The 3-invoice trigger

Any SKU that rises on three consecutive invoices without a written notice from the supplier triggers a conversation. Not every rise is unreasonable — currency, harvest, minimum-wage impacts are real — but every rise deserves an explanation. Suppliers who cannot explain a rise usually reverse it on request, because they know the next call is to a competitor.

The quarterly reset

Book a quarterly 15-minute review with each major supplier. Bring the invoice-diff report. Ask three questions: which SKUs moved, why, and what's coming next quarter. Suppliers respect operators who look at the numbers; they exploit operators who don't. The review costs an hour a quarter and typically pays back 2–3 GP points annually.

Takeaway

Diff invoices, trigger conversations at three rises, review quarterly. Price creep is a habit, and the fix is a counter-habit.

Stok