Menu strategy
Cannibalisation Modeller Tool
See what a new product really adds when some of its sales come from the lines you already sell — what each switched sale gains or gives up, and what that does to contribution over a period.
How to use this tool
Cannibalisation modeller
When to use this tool
Use it before adding a new dish or drink that overlaps with something you already sell — a premium version of a bestseller, a new line in a crowded category, or a replacement item. If some of its sales will come from your existing products rather than new demand, this tool shows what that switch does to your profit.
Currency, tax & royalties
These live in the toolbar and work the same on every tool:
- Currency
- Pick your currency from the selector — it relabels the tax field to match your region.
- Tax rate
- Type your tax rate in the field beside the currency, or set it to 0 if you don’t want to factor in tax.
- Royalties / commission
- Optional. Switch on “Factor in royalties or commission” to open a panel where you set the rate with the slider (or type it exactly), rename it Royalty or Commission, and charge it on net or gross sales.
Cannibalisation modeller features
What you enter for this tool, and what it gives back:
- Current products
- One row per product the new item could take sales from — its selling price (inc tax), what it costs you to make (ex tax), how many you sell in a period, and its own switch rate. Add more rows if the new product overlaps several lines. Use the same period for every row.
- The new product
- Its name, selling price and cost. The tool works out its contribution per sale and compares it with what it would replace — a dearer new product can still lose you money if its cost rises faster than its price.
- Switch rate
- The share of each product’s current buyers you think will move to the new product. Drag a slider to set every row at once (the one in the inputs panel and the one under the chart are the same control), or type a different rate on each row of the table.
- How it models the switch
- Deliberately conservative pure-switch maths: every switcher stops buying their old product and buys the new one, one for one — no extra customers appear, none walk away. If the new product carries less contribution per sale, no switch rate can make the move profitable; if you expect it to also bring genuinely new sales, the real result will be better than shown.
- Tables, chart & verdict
- The tables compare one switched sale and the whole period before and after the switch; the chart shows contribution as the switch rate runs from 0% to 100%; the verdict sums it up in plain words — what the switch adds or costs a period — flagging problems in red.
Your data
These buttons sit in the “Your data” panel at the foot of the page and work the same on every tool:
- Download template
- Downloads a blank Excel template you can fill in offline.
- Upload template
- Reads a filled‑in template back in and fills the tool in one go.
- Save scenario
- Saves everything you’ve entered to a file you can back up or share.
- Load scenario
- Re‑opens an analysis you saved earlier.
- PDF report
- Generates a clean PDF of the analysis, ready to save, print or share.
Jargon buster
- Cannibalisation
- When a new product’s sales come out of your existing products’ sales rather than from new demand — the new line “eats” the old one.
- Contribution
- Net revenue less cost of sales and any royalty or commission — what a sale adds before labour and overheads.
- Cost of sales (C.O.S)
- What the product costs you to make or buy — ingredients, packaging and waste — usually shown as a % of net revenue. Excludes labour and overheads.
- Gross profit & %
- Net revenue less cost of sales; the % expresses it as a share of net revenue — the mirror of cost‑of‑sales %.
- Gross revenue
- The total the customer pays, including tax.
- Labour
- The wage cost of the staff involved, usually shown as a cash figure or a % of net revenue.
- Margin of safety
- How far sales could fall before you stop making a profit — the cushion between your forecast and break‑even.
- Net revenue
- Gross revenue with tax removed — all the margin maths is worked on this figure.
- Per switched sale
- The contribution gap between one sale of the new product and one average sale of what it replaces — the figure every switched sale gains or gives up.
- Royalty / commission
- A fee paid as a % of each sale, charged on net or gross. Optional — switch it on only if your business pays one.
- Switch rate
- The share of a current product’s buyers who move to the new product. 30% means three in ten of its sales become new-product sales.
- Trading up / down
- Switching to a product that leaves more contribution (up) or less (down). A higher price doesn’t guarantee trading up if the cost rises faster.
Royalty — rate and how it's charged
Current products — what the new product could take sales from
This table is wide — scroll it sideways to see every column.
The new product — price and cost
The switch — who moves across
Drag to set every product’s switch rate at once, or type a different rate on each row of the table above.
Per switched sale — a current sale vs the new product
Over the period — before vs after the switch
Contribution by switch rate — what happens as more buyers move across
Not sure what to assume? The switch rate can’t be known in advance — run a low and a high rate and judge both ends. Read the research on menu cannibalisation →
Verdict — does the new product pay its way?
At a glance
Per-sale breakdown — current vs new
Your data — import, save and share
Template
Download a template, fill it in offline, and upload it back to populate.
Save & restore
Save your settings to a file you can back up, share or reload later.
PDF report
Generate a report of the analysis, ready to save or share.