Menu mix (PMIX)
Also called: product mix · pmix · sales mix
Menu mix — usually called PMIX, from the POS report name — is how many of each item you sold and what share of sales each represents. It's the weighting behind every menu-level number: ideal food cost, average check, and blended margin all move when the mix moves.
Worked example · Same recipes, same prices, different week
- Week 1 — burger 60%, salmon 40% of entrées
- ideal food cost 26.4%
- Week 2 — burger 40%, salmon 60% of entrées
- ideal food cost 28.9%
- Change from mix alone
- +2.5pp
Nothing was bought differently and no recipe changed. Chasing a purchasing explanation for this would waste a week.
What to read it for
- Concentration. If three items are 40% of covers, those three recipes deserve monthly recosting and the rest can wait.
- The tail. Items under 1% of sales are candidates for removal — check what's holding them in place first.
- Drift. A mix that shifts toward low-margin items explains a rising food cost percentage that purchasing can't.
- Modifier attach rates. Add-ons and upgrades are high-margin volume most menus never look at.
Run the numbers
Menu engineering worksheet
The guide that works it through
Menu Engineering: The Four-Quadrant Matrix
How to build a menu engineering matrix from a POS product mix report — with a full worked example on a 12-item menu and the specific action for each quadrant.
Related terms
Menu engineering
Sorting every dish by popularity and contribution margin to decide what to promote, reprice, rework, or cut.
Ideal food cost
The food cost percentage your menu would produce if every plate were made exactly to spec and nothing was wasted.
Contribution margin
The dollars a dish contributes to overhead and profit after its ingredient cost — menu price minus plate cost.
Stars, plowhorses, puzzles, dogs
The four menu-engineering quadrants, named by popularity and contribution margin.