--- title: "How Biscuit Belly Cut Cost of Goods Sold and Beat Inflation" url: https://burnaze.com/article/4a31d1d1-b1be-4715-bbbb-a95dee9dbf36 source: "1851 Franchise" original_url: https://1851franchise.com/biscuit-belly/biscuit-belly-cost-of-goods-inflation-franchisee-profitability-2730748 category: "Bakery & breakfast" industry: "Restaurants" segment: "Bakery & breakfast" topics: ["Operations"] published: 2025-11-12T13:08:12.000Z modified: 2026-11-01T00:52:54.927Z image: https://newimage.1851franchise.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=85,format=webp,width=1280,height=720/story/featureImage/ec326a711bca0fb4674d65a4075298187324.jpg --- # How Biscuit Belly Cut Cost of Goods Sold and Beat Inflation **TL;DR:** Biscuit Belly, a fast-growing brunch franchise, has redesigned its sourcing, procurement, and kitchen-level processes to reduce its cost of goods sold and mitigate the effects of inflation. The brand's approach includes diversifying its ingredients, renegotiating its broadline agreement, and reengineering its menu items to build a more efficient kitchen model. *originally published in 1851 Franchise on 2025-11-12. [Read the original](https://1851franchise.com/biscuit-belly/biscuit-belly-cost-of-goods-inflation-franchisee-profitability-2730748).* ## Story Restaurants have lived with the same equation for years: ingredients rise, guests push back on price and margins erode. Biscuit Belly, the fast-growing brunch franchise known for its scratch-made biscuits and Southern hospitality, has chosen a different path. Instead of passing costs to customers, the breakfast-and-brunch brand treats cost of goods as a controllable system — one that can be redesigned with smarter sourcing, tighter procurement and precise, kitchen-level changes that guests never notice. “[COGS] is one of your biggest costs other than labor. It can affect profitability and your ability to continue to expand within the brand,” said Chad Coulter, founder and CEO of Biscuit Belly. “To offset that, you have to raise prices. However, consumers are tired of spending more money and they’re starting to get sticker shock.” Biscuit Belly avoids being hostage to any one commodity. Its highest-volume purchases span potatoes, dairy, eggs, produce, chicken, beef, turkey and pork. That diversity acts like a shock absorber when a single commodity experiences a spike. Operators in narrow categories can get whipsawed when one input moves. Biscuit Belly’s broader basket spreads risk across the P&L and steadies margins through swings. “If you own a burger or chicken-focused restaurant and your most purchased protein increases in price substantially, you get crushed,” Coulter said. “For us, if one thing goes up, it’s not really going to affect you.” With risk distributed, Biscuit Belly went after unit economics. The team renegotiated its broadline agreement, added an outsourced procurement partner and kept multiple suppliers in play. Those steps do more than shave dollars off case prices; they align incentives so vendors invest in the system’s growth. When suppliers believe the brand will open more doors, they are more flexible on terms today to earn volume tomorrow. That mindset extends beyond food into disposables and paper, where basis-point improvements compound at scale. Biscuit Belly has made inflation an opportunity to sharpen its recipes without sacrificing quality. By reengineering menu items, the brand built a more efficient kitchen model that safeguards both margins and flavor. “We were able to switch our biscuit mix to a different manufacturer and save 40 percent on one of our top-five items,” Coulter said. “We shifted the ratio of our melted butter, heavy cream and a couple of other ingredients in our biscuit mix and saved six or seven cents a biscuit. It had zero impact on the final product because we tested it many times over several months.” Lean decision-making lets the brand move faster than larger systems. Menu tests run quickly, LTOs pivot in weeks rather than years, and supplier switches roll out without operational churn. “We’re extremely nimble,” Coulter said. “We can pivot and test, and pivot again and test again until we get it right fairly quickly.” When eggs spiked, a distributor’s local farming contract muted the hit. When disposables crept up, a paper distributor change delivered a 20 to 30 basis-point improvement. The cadence is constant: watch the market, test alternatives, lock in savings. Lower, steadier input costs reduce the need for aggressive price increases and the traffic risk that follows. Biscuit Belly’s playbook — diversified ingredients, negotiated scale, recipe-level engineering and speed — turns inflation from a headwind into a margin opportunity. It’s not a one-time fix but a discipline embedded in leadership focus and field feedback. For owners, that means a model built to protect profitability in a volatile economy, not just in ideal conditions. ## Entities - 1851 Franchise (publication) - Restaurants (sector) - supply chain management (topic) - Biscuit Belly (company) - Chad Coulter (person) - cost reduction (topic) - menu engineering (topic) - inflation mitigation (topic) - procurement strategy (topic) --- Originally reported by 1851 Franchise (https://1851franchise.com/biscuit-belly/biscuit-belly-cost-of-goods-inflation-franchisee-profitability-2730748). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/4a31d1d1-b1be-4715-bbbb-a95dee9dbf36).