How to Price Market-Price (MP) Menu Items: A Rule, Price Bands and a Visible Price

MP exists for ingredients whose cost moves too fast for a printed price; this guide works the examples with a whole lobster and oysters. The operator's problem is not the definition — what MP means is settled — but deciding tonight's number quickly, consistently and in a way that still earns what the dish is on the menu to earn.

How far the cost can move

Maine's Department of Marine Resources publishes the average price its lobster harvesters were paid each year. Between 2021 and 2022 that average fell 40.8%; over the next two years it rose about 24% twice. These are annual averages at the dock, before dealers, processors, freight and your distributor, so they are not your invoice price and they hide the swings inside each year. They still show why a lobster dish priced once a year does not work. For which ingredients follow a predictable season and which move on shocks, see seasonal food prices.

Sources: the department's historical lobster landings table for 2019–2021 (2021 marked preliminary there), and its annual releases, which also describe their figures as preliminary, for 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. Percentage changes are calculated from the published prices.

Step 1: Cost the whole plate at today's price

Keep the rest of the plate as a fixed, reviewed cost so only one input changes each day. In the example below, a whole 1.5 lb lobster is served with drawn butter, potatoes, corn and lemon costing $3.10 together. At a hypothetical delivered price of $14.50 per pound, the lobster is $21.75 and the plate is $24.85. For picked meat — a lobster roll, crab cakes — the yield from live weight to meat is the number that matters; measure it the way the cooking yield guide describes rather than borrowing one.

Step 2: Choose the rule that turns cost into price

There are two common rules, and they behave very differently when the cost moves. A percentage rule divides the plate cost by a target food cost, so price moves in proportion to cost. A contribution rule adds a fixed dollar amount to the plate cost, so price moves dollar for dollar with cost and the dish earns the same dollars at any cost. The contribution margin guide covers the general trade-off; MP items are where it shows most.

Across a $7.50 swing in plate cost, the percentage rule moves the price by $21 and the contribution rule by $7. The percentage rule keeps food cost steady and earns more dollars per plate when lobster is expensive — $53.40 at the high cost against $39.90 at the low one — but asks guests to absorb nearly three times the cost change. The contribution rule keeps the dish earning about $46 a plate and keeps the price steadier, at the price of a food cost percentage that climbs when the market does. Neither is correct in general; choose one, write it down and apply it the same way every time. A floor works with either: never below a stated contribution, whatever the percentage says.

Step 3: Set price bands and a change trigger

A price that changes by cents every day is work for the kitchen, the servers and the register. Set a band instead: keep the posted price until the rule's price moves at least a set amount away from it, then reprice in whole-dollar steps.

Log every change with the date, the delivered cost and the posted price. After a few months the log shows what the dish actually earned per plate through the market's swings, which is the evidence for changing the rule itself.

Items sold by count or by weight

For items sold by count, cost the servable piece, not the purchased one. A hypothetical box of 100 oysters at $78 with four dead or broken is $78 ÷ 96 = $0.8125 per servable oyster. At a 30% target that is $2.71; a posted $2.75 each runs 29.5%. Count your own losses over several boxes before you fix the divisor.

For items sold by weight — a whole fish, a lobster priced per pound — state the unit and the size range on the menu, weigh the item, and tell the guest the total before it is cooked. A per-pound price with no weight leaves the guest to discover the bill at the end, which is exactly the surprise that quoting the price before the order is meant to prevent.

Show the current price before the order

Marji's free QR menu lets you update a price from your phone; guests opening the same menu link see the saved change, so the printed QR code stays the same. It does not change the price in your POS. Update the register at the same time, and keep one person responsible for both when the price moves. To compare what other free QR menu plans allow before you print, see free QR menu makers compared.

Mistakes that make MP pricing expensive

• —Pricing from the news instead of the invoice. A dock price or a national index describes the market, not your delivered cost. Use the invoice, per the unit you serve.
• —Skipping yield and loss. Picked meat, fillets and shucked counts cost more per servable unit than per purchased unit.
• —Re-deciding the rule every night. A rule applied inconsistently is a guess with extra steps.
• —Reacting to every cent. Without a band, the price churns and the menu, the register and the log fall out of step.
• —Updating the menu but not the register — or the other way round. The guest sees one price and pays another.