What GP percentage should you target on beer, wine, spirits, food and coffee?

A benchmark can flag where to investigate. It cannot price your menu, pay your rent or define a viable margin for every venue.

Starting GP ranges by category

These are illustrative planning ranges, not official standards. Maynards’ 2026 pub guidance gives the draught, spirits, wine and food ranges. Hospitality Tax uses 70–80% for hot drinks in its July 2026 café example.

Use each band as a screening question: why is this category outside the range? The answer may be a bad cost, stale price, generous portion, intentional value offer or different trading model.

Calculate every category on the same basis

For a VAT-registered business, compare ex-VAT sales with the matching recoverable ex-VAT direct product cost. The standard UK VAT rate is 20%. Divide a standard-rated VAT-inclusive price by 1.2 to find its net value.

Match supplier packs to selling units. Draught needs actual sellable serves. Spirits need the correct measure. Wine needs glass yield and open-bottle waste. Food needs recipe and portion cost. Coffee needs milk, cup and extras.

For drinks VAT and yield, read https://involiqo.com/blog/gross-profit-drinks-vat-uk. For kitchen arithmetic, read https://involiqo.com/blog/food-cost-percentage-formula-uk.

The Harbour Arms target is 64.8%, not 69.2%

Consider an illustrative month at the Harbour Arms. Its category sales and GP results are:

• Draught: £12,000 ex-VAT sales × 60% = £7,200 GP.
• Spirits: £3,000 × 75% = £2,250 GP.
• Wine: £4,000 × 68% = £2,720 GP.
• Food: £8,000 × 65% = £5,200 GP.
• Coffee: £1,000 × 78% = £780 GP.
• Total: £28,000 sales and £18,150 GP.

Adding the five percentages and dividing by five gives 69.2%. That is wrong because the small coffee category receives the same influence as £12,000 of draught sales.

The simple average overstates expected GP by about 4.4 percentage points, or £1,226 on these sales.

A good category can still pull the blended result down

Suppose draught still achieves its 60% target. If draught takes a larger share of sales while 78% coffee takes less, blended GP falls. No category has failed. The mix has changed.

A one-point improvement on £12,000 of draught sales adds £120. The same improvement on £1,000 of coffee adds only £10. Review GP percentage and GP pounds.

• Supplier price or pack change.
• Selling-price change.
• Yield, portion or waste change.
• Promotion or discount.
• Sales-mix change.

Current invoice costs turn a benchmark into a control

If the draught supplier cost rises 5% while price and yield stay fixed, the Harbour Arms draught GP falls from 60% to 58%. That removes £240 of GP and lowers blended GP from 64.8% to about 64.0%.

A stale spreadsheet can keep reporting the old target even while the till price remains unchanged.

Involiqo item analytics can keep recurring invoice lines and current item costs visible. It can help expose a changed pack, unit price or duplicate description. The operator still supplies selling prices, yields, recipes, waste and sales mix.

Why one universal target is unreliable

The UKHospitality and Christie & Co 2022 survey found wet GP of 61.2% for mainly tied lease estates and 68.9% for mainly commercial leases. The report warns that the tied sample was limited, but the 7.8-point gap shows why purchasing terms affect comparisons.

Rent, labour, throughput and venue position matter too. A high GP percentage does not guarantee net profit or positive cash flow. Gross profit excludes wages, rent, rates, utilities, card fees and finance costs.

Set three levels of target:

1. Item target: current cost, yield and selling price.
2. Category target: the weighted result of items sold in that category.
3. Venue target: the weighted result of all category sales.

Compare actual results with all three targets each period. This separates a cost problem from a mix change.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good GP percentage for a pub?

There is no single reliable pub target. Illustrative ranges start near 55–65% for draught, 70–80% for spirits and 60–75% for wine. Calculate the venue’s sales-weighted target from its own costs and mix, then test whether the remaining GP pounds cover labour and overhead.

Should every drink hit the same GP percentage?

No. Purchase terms, measures, yield, waste, price position and demand differ by line. A lower-percentage product can still produce more GP pounds. Set item and category targets, then judge their effect on the blended venue result.

How often should category GP targets be updated?

Review high-volume lines when a price, pack or recipe changes. Recalculate the category mix at least monthly, or more often in a seasonal venue. A quarterly review is too slow when supplier invoices have already changed the underlying cost.

Key takeaways

1. Treat category ranges as starting checks, not promises.
2. Calculate every line on a consistent ex-VAT basis.
3. Weight category GP by actual ex-VAT sales.
4. Prioritise the largest GP-pound gap.
5. Refresh targets from current invoice costs.

Sources

1. Maynards: https://www.maynards.org.uk/post/typical-gross-profit-for-uk-pubs
2. Hospitality Tax: https://www.hospitalitytax.co.uk/blog/hospitality-accounts/gross-profit-menu-pricing
3. UKHospitality and Christie & Co Benchmarking Report 2022: https://www.ukhospitality.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/UKHospitality-Christie-Co-Benchmarking-Report-2022-FINAL-abridged.pdf
4. GOV.UK VAT rates: https://www.gov.uk/vat-rates

Rebuild the category target this Monday

Export one month of ex-VAT sales. Apply the current invoice cost, yield and waste assumption to each high-volume item. Sum GP pounds by category, then divide total GP by total sales. Investigate the largest pound gap before changing a price.

See how Involiqo connects supplier invoice lines with item-level cost evidence at https://involiqo.com/#bento-overview.