Price creep
Why your distributor prices creep up — and the exact words to push back
· by the Candor team — operators auditing real restaurant invoices
Short answer: because nobody re-checks the line items, and the pricing structure most independents are on passes every cost increase straight through — plus markup. Here's why your invoice drifts, what the record shows, and the exact words that make a rep call productive.
Why do my distributor prices keep going up?
Operators describe the same pattern everywhere. "Every invoice same item bounces up and down," reads one r/restaurantowners thread title — about gloves and other staples that shouldn't move weekly. Three forces drive it:
- Cost-plus-percentage contracts. Most independents pay the distributor's cost plus a percentage markup. When their cost rises, your price rises and the markup on top of it rises. You absorb both.
- Pass-through with no resistance. When industry costs spiked, Sysco told investors it had passed along a 13.4% cost increase "with little pushback" (Restaurant Business); US Foods separately reported an 11.5% quarterly increase (The Food Institute). "Little pushback" is the operative phrase — the increases stick when nobody contests them line by line.
- Drift by a thousand line items. No single jump looks worth a phone call. A $2.40 case that becomes $2.90 is a 21% increase — but it's "only" fifty cents, so it survives. Multiply by 200 line items and 52 deliveries a year.
Is it just inflation?
Partly — and that's exactly why you have to check. Real market movement explains some increases. What it doesn't explain: the same case selling for 12–25% less across town in the same week, which is what our own Phoenix invoice data shows (the actual spreads, line by line). Inflation moves markets; it doesn't explain why your price sits at the top of the local range.
What should I say to my rep?
The conversation works when it's specific, calm, and about line items — not loyalty, not feelings. The structure we use in every audit's negotiation script:
Open with the number, not the complaint. "I'm looking at boneless chicken breast — I've got a $3.60 quote on it, and the same spec is going for $3.20 nearby. Walk me through my price on this line."
Ask the structural question. "Am I on cost-plus-percentage? What's the percentage, and which of my top ten items carry the highest markup?"
Make the ask concrete and small. "I'm not switching trucks over this. I want these five lines re-quoted. If we're close, we're done."
Put a date on it. "Can you get me revised pricing by Friday's order?"
The leverage isn't volume — it's that you demonstrably know. A rep can wave off a feeling; a specific number on a specific line, with a credible alternative, gets escalated to a district manager's pricing desk.
What if I don't have the comparison numbers?
That's the honest catch — the script only works loaded. You need to know what the same case costs somewhere else, and collecting that takes either a second distributor relationship, regular cash-and-carry trips, or the midnight-spreadsheet ritual. That's the gap our 48-hour audit fills: send your last 3 invoices, and the free benchmark comes back with your top 3 overpaying items — the ammunition, cited to your own invoice lines. The full audit adds every line item and the complete word-for-word script for your next rep call.