₹830 Per Serving — How MarginMind™ Found the Loss Hidden in a Signature Dish
A special Ilish Biryani priced at ₹2,500 was costing ₹3,330 fully loaded. The What-If Simulator modelled the right price.
Results at a glance
₹830
Loss per serving on signature dish
The Ilish Biryani was selling at ₹2,500 against a fully-loaded cost of ₹3,330 — a loss on every order.
₹3,362
Recommended minimum price
The What-If Simulator recommended ₹3,362 as the breakeven price, with a target margin price of ₹3,800.
10
Dishes modelled in What-If Simulator
Full repricing and scenario analysis run for the top 10 highest-cost dishes across both outlets.
2
Outlets, one category P&L
A consolidated category-level P&L built across both outlets, with per-outlet ingredient price variation applied.
The challenge
Hangla'r Heshel is a Bengali fine dining restaurant with two Kolkata outlets and a menu built around seasonal and heritage Bengali cuisine. The kitchen runs complex, multi-step preparations — dishes that take hours to produce, use premium seasonal ingredients, and reflect the prestige of the dining experience.
The restaurant's flagship Ilish (Hilsa) Biryani is its most celebrated dish — featured in press coverage, ordered by regulars specifically for it, and priced at ₹2,500 per serving to reflect the quality of the Hilsa sourcing and preparation.
What the kitchen had never calculated: the fully-loaded cost of producing that dish. Recipe cost cards existed in a rough form but had not been updated for current Hilsa market prices, had no yield factor applied to Hilsa (which varies significantly by season and fish size), and had no overhead allocation.
A preliminary MarginMind™ assessment revealed that the Ilish Biryani was costing ₹3,330 per serving — fully loaded — against a selling price of ₹2,500. Every service, every table that ordered the signature dish was generating a loss of ₹830.
The solution
This was a MarginMind™ managed service engagement. The KhanaOS team worked directly with the restaurant — not a self-service product. Learn about MarginMind™ →
The MarginMind™ engagement for Hangla'r Heshel was structured as a full menu P&L build for both outlets, with separate ingredient master libraries reflecting the different purchase prices at each location.
The Hilsa Biryani received particular attention: a detailed recipe BOM was built with actual Hilsa yield data (which varies from 48% to 62% depending on fish size and sourcing), current market price tracking for Hilsa (which fluctuates dramatically by season), and full overhead allocation including the skilled chef time required for the preparation.
The What-If Simulator was run for the top 10 dishes — modelling the effect of repricing, ingredient substitution, and portion adjustments on contribution margin. For the Ilish Biryani, the simulator produced a breakeven price, a target margin price, and a revenue-impact model if order volume changed with repricing.
A category P&L overview was built for both outlets, breaking down margin performance by cuisine category and identifying which parts of the menu were subsidising which.
"We knew Hilsa was expensive. We didn't know we were selling it at a loss. The number was precise — ₹830 per serving — and that precision made it impossible to ignore. We had the right price recommendation within the first session."
Director
Hangla'r Heshel, Kolkata