Cannibalisation Modeller Tool

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 — whether it’s food or drink, its selling price (inc tax), what it costs you to make (ex tax), and how many you sell in a period. Add more rows if the new product overlaps several lines. Use the same period for every row; the switch rates come later, in “The switch”.

The new product

Its name, selling price, cost, and whether it’s food or drink. 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.

Budgeted C.O.S / GP

Your target food and drink cost of sales — or flip the toggle to gross profit. Not sure? Leave the typical 35% food / 25% drink. The tool blends the two by your menu’s food/drink mix after the switch and checks whether the menu still hits it — the answer shows in the verdict and the “Cost of sales after” (or “Gross profit after”) card.

The switch

Pick how big you think the switch will be — Low 10%, Medium 25%, High 45%, Majority 70% or All 100% — and that exact rate is set on every product, so bigger sellers automatically lose more sales (fair-share draw, the standard estimating method). The box under the buttons then sense-checks your choice against the price gap: research shows dearer products win fewer switchers and cheaper ones more (~0.8× the gap), so a big switch to a much dearer product gets a caution — a nudge to run a lower level as your base case. To override any product, type its rate in the “Switch rate by product” table; pick a level again to reset.

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 the change in contribution vs today 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.

Fair-share draw

The standard way cannibalisation is estimated: a new product is assumed to take sales from existing lines in proportion to how much each one sells. That’s what one switch rate across your products gives you — bigger sellers automatically lose more sales.

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.

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