The 2023 Q1 DecisionNext Hamburger index is 106.5, meaning that the aggregated input costs for a ¼ lb hamburger is expected to be 6.5% higher in Q1 of 2023 than in Q4 of 2022, for a cost of $.65 per unit.
This 6.5% increase in input costs for a standard quarter pound burger outpaces price increases seen in other areas. For example, CPI for the past year measures 6.14% while US inflation measures at 6.45%. This increase in price has been driven by supply/demand factors in the key inputs, mainly ground beef .
A box and whiskers plot can be used to measure the certainty (or more aptly, measure the uncertainty) associated with a forecast. After running over a million simulations, the DecisionNext system determines that 50% of those simulations fall within the box while 90% of the simulations fall between the whiskers for each given month.
The Q1 price is forecasted to be $0.65 per hamburger, and we are 90% certain that pricing level will fall between $0.61 and $0.69 (fig. 3).
The DecisionNext analytics platform has pre-built forecast models for over 250 commodity inputs ranging from beef and pork series to soy and corn. The DN hamburger index was calculated using the DecisionNext Transaction application. Using this fully customizable tool, you can forecast the aggregated input costs for any given recipe with ease.
Look for more useful indices from our library of pre-built recipes in future editions of The Formula, our monthly newsletter. To learn about a full list of finished goods indices, commodity series forecasts, and other decision support capabilities, book a demo with one of our experts using the contact button below.
