Ask a board which customers make them money and most will answer with revenue or gross margin. Very few can show what it costs to serve each customer once delivery, returns, special packing and service time are counted.

Where the money leaks

When we build cost to serve, the pattern is usually the same. A handful of customers carry the business. A long middle roughly breaks even. And a small group, often loyal and long-standing, quietly loses money on every order because of how they order, not what they buy.

The answer is rarely to drop them. More often it is a minimum drop size, a different delivery day or a price that reflects the work. At Ardleigh Foods those changes found most of three margin points without delisting a single product.