Take away owners have defended their low prices after the Finnish Hospitality Association warned that those selling pizzas for less than six euros would most likely be employing illegal and underpaid workers. A documentary by YLE aired this week looked at grey-market crimes in the hospitality trade, following 800 investigations which were launched by the Helsinki tax office between 2003 and 2010.
While only a small share of Finland’s informal economy was found to be in the restaurant trade, the hospitality association Mara claims that a six euro profit-boundary on pizza would ensure that workers are legal and adequately paid. In the EyeWitness documentary, however, pizzeria owners rebutted the claims, saying cheap pizza is perfectly legal.
”Accusations of involvement in the grey economy are offensive,” said Pizzeria entrepreneur Ardalan Rasul, from Salo, adding that working long hours and keeping employees to a minimum helps him keep prices down.
Another entrepreneur, Ahmed Seikh, admitted that he only takes home around EUR 1,000 every month, but said he’d rather have low-paid work than none at all.
>Finnish Hospitality Association warned that those selling pizzas for less than six
>euros would most likely be employing illegal and underpaid workers.
…
>Another entrepreneur, Ahmed Seikh, admitted that he only takes home around
>EUR 1,000 every month, but said he’d rather have low-paid work than none at all.
Unlike the over paid under staffed burecrats there in Finnish Hospitality Association and in the tax office who have a job to harras legitimate working people.
You may pay more than six Euros for your pizza you burecrats — but not every one does want to eat in the fancy restaurant — if you do get the hell out of local politics and go and work in the EU parlimemnt or EU commission.
You Finiish burecrats will find people like you over there.
Looking at the quantities here http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/4683/pizza-margherita-in-4-easy-steps
and adding up the cost based on the figures here and Tesco.co.uk as an example and <1 euro is quite correct.
Anyone who is selling pizza that costs them over 50% of the selling cost needs their head examining.
@Peter
50 cents for a pizza? Wow, that is seriously cheap. Even if you make a dough without any olive oil, you’re not gonna get one that cheap. The cheese is gonna cost you. Quality Mozzarella costs quite some. Also claiming they have an insane mark up because the pizza only costs them whatever to make ignores the cost of labor, doesnt it?
The figures are for a home made quality pizza and are those I use use to bake pizzas at home.
The egg is in the dough, as is much of the olive oil.
The wholesale price of mozzarella in Italy is about 4.5 euros a kilo + VAT, I would be surprised if it were much less than 7 euros. RETAIL would probably be 15 EUR/kilo.
The 6 euro price in Finland includes 13% VAT.
The US wholesale price is $2.35/lb = 3.5 euros a kilo.
If your friend has a product cost of 1 EUR per pie, he is selling a crap product.
“Peter, have you ever actually baked a quality pizza?”
Your figures and quantities are a joke. 100grm of olives on a pizza? 60g of Olive Oil?? Eggs? I love eggs on Pizza but its not a common ingredient. 300gm of cheese on a pizza? WTF.
Your prices are RETAIL.
Have you ever seen how much manufactures pay for materials?
The cost of a pizza is entirely dependant on the cost of the Cheese, everything else is trivial.
A friend of my is expanding his Pizza business in the US and he confirmed my figures, I’ve also seen KFC’s figure.
Peter, have you ever actually baked a quality pizza?
250 gr flour – 20cents
60 gr olive oil – 40 cents
100 gr olives – 30 cents
300 gr mozarella – 2.20 euros
150 tomato paste – 30 cents
1 egg – 20 cents
Total – 3.60 euros before labor, power and location.
“if the pizza is made from quality ingredients, 6 euros per pizza leaves a small profit margin.”
Yes, a tiny 5 euro’s profit. Relatively small but a huge percentage profit margin.
if the pizza is made from quality ingredients, 6 euros per pizza leaves a small profit margin.
Since most street pizzas are made with small quantities of low cost toppings (anyone had a street pizza with real mozarella lately), 6 euros is quite enough.
Baking a good pizza from scratch at home would cost ~6 euros without labor and electricity ….
It’s ridiculous to set a “profit boundary,” even the term is offensive.
Pizza is the biggest rip off in take away food. The cost of a pizza is less than 0.5euro, although KFC franchisees make over 500% profit.
Could it be that the pizzas selling for less than 6 euros are made with less cheese?