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Blackpool Stall Keeps £1 Burger Price for 20 Years

Bulk buying, an engineer-designed production line and social-media crowds let a small seasonal stall sustain a deeply discounted price.

Overview

  • Chris Higgitt said Tuesday that he has sold the £1 burger from Higgitt's Las Vegas Arcade since 2006 and that the burger trade now supplies about 90% of his earnings.
  • He reports each burger costs roughly 50p to make, a figure that includes ingredients and electricity and reflects his tight per-unit margins.
  • Higgitt designed a one-person production-line kitchen that can produce a freshly made burger about every 20 seconds to meet heavy demand.
  • He reduces input costs by ordering in very large volumes — for example 5,000 patties at a time and more than 5,000 tins of Spam — and by buying drinks and other stock from discount suppliers such as Farm Foods.
  • Wider takeaway: the stall shows how high-volume sales, strict operational layout and social-media-driven footfall can let a small, seasonal business hold a long-standing low price despite rising costs.