Increase your Melrose takeaway profit in 30 days

By planning each one a week ahead: the stock, the staffing and a fast, high-margin menu for the day. Sevens weekend fills every street and the festival calendar is published months in advance, so nothing about the surge is a surprise except how many shops serve it off an ordinary night's prep and two-year-old prices. An event week served properly funds a quiet month; one served off the usual rota covers its costs and little more.

Because a queue out the door and a profitable night are different things. A Friday of app orders at collection prices can earn less than a quiet Tuesday of collections, and portions that have crept up over a year take a slice off every box. The fix is arithmetic: cost every item after packaging, waste and platform fees, price each channel separately, and put the busy nights back to work.

Cost it per order. Count every item in a typical order (box, lid, bag, sauce pot, napkins, cutlery) at your supplier's price; for most takeaways it comes to tens of pence to about a pound. Then add what is rising underneath: HMRC's Plastic Packaging Tax at £228.82 a tonne from April 2026 and the producer fees suppliers pass on. Build it into every menu price, standardise on fewer sizes, and stop giving away the bag.

A well-run UK takeaway typically keeps a net margin of 6% to 12%, on Nory's UK benchmarks. Which end of that range you sit at is decided inside the shop: portion costs, menu pricing, how much of the trade goes through delivery apps, and what goes in the bin at close. Two shops on the same street with the same queue can sit at opposite ends.

Use them for customers you would not otherwise reach, and price for them separately. The platforms charge around 30% commission on orders they deliver, or 13% to 14% where you deliver yourself, so an app order at collection prices can earn less than half the margin. Know what each channel earns per order and steer regulars, politely, towards the one that pays.

Weigh what goes in the bin for a fortnight, then change the prep list rather than the menu. Most takeaway waste is prepped food that never sold: rice, chips, sauces and salad made for a Friday that turned out like a Tuesday. Record leftovers by item each night, set prep to the day and the weather, and check portions against the costed recipe every week.

Plan for it rather than waiting it out. January brings fewer takeaway orders after the Christmas spend everywhere, and in a visitor town like Melrose the tearoom trade has gone home too, so the shops that come out of the month in profit trim staff hours to the orders, shorten the menu, and use the quiet weeks for the price review. Fewer nights on a sensible rota beat a full week of staff waiting for the phone.

Between £500 and £3,500 a month plus VAT for one-to-one coaching, depending on the coach's experience, according to Alan Wick's May 2026 guide to UK coaching fees, and the bill runs for as long as the coaching does. The Profit Clarity Framework doesn't work that way: a fixed £1,495 + VAT for 30 days of work on your Melrose takeaway's real numbers, and nothing after that.

£1,495 + VAT, fixed. That covers the full 30-day diagnose-and-fix process on your Melrose takeaway: menu pricing, portion costs, platform fees, rotas and cash flow, with the changes implemented rather than left in a report, and leaves you with a more profitable takeaway. Most clients who commit to the framework and follow our recommendations see a full return on the fee within 90 days.

No. Honesty and your numbers as they are: six months of business bank statements, your menu and supplier costs, your platform statements if you deliver, and a one-hour onboarding call. Untidy numbers are usually where the missing profit is hiding, so don't wait until things are perfect. You stay on service; we work around it, and the diagnosis starts almost immediately.