Most importers explain a winning SKU with one word: fit. That explanation hides the actual mechanism.Across European food service, ordering has shifted toward smaller, more frequent replenishment. Freight and warehousing costs have moved up. Carrying stock is no longer cheap, and shelf space is no longer free. Size selection stopped being a product question and became a working-capital question.

What really decides the size is usage cadence，A single outlet has a fairly stable daily output. That makes the service life of one unit predictable. Too small, and staff reorder and reopen constantly. Too large, and an opened unit sits on the shelf far longer than it should.0.95 L / 640 g lands inside the window most single-site operators can absorb between deliveries. It aligns with their replenishment cycle instead of fighting it.The second variable is rarely written on a spec sheet: the storage unit. Back-of-house space is tight. If a carton stacks cleanly and moves easily by hand, staff use it. If it doesn't, the product gets ordered less — regardless of price.

The common mistake is pushing the largest size for the lowest unit cost，A 3.3 L unit usually carries a better price per litre, so it becomes the headline SKU. But a lower unit price is not a lower total cost. Importers tie up more cash. Outlets absorb the idle time after opening. When the end of the chain slows down, returns and dead stock consume the entire margin difference.There is a third cost that rarely enters the spreadsheet: dangerous goods handling. Under IMDG / ADR, declaration, labelling and warehouse procedures are largely fixed per shipment. The more fragmented your SKU mix, the more that fixed cost is spread across smaller volumes. SKU breadth is not free.

A more durable structure is three tiers,One listing SKU to open the market, one core SKU that turns over, and one SKU for high-frequency accounts. 0.95 L / 640 g does the first two jobs well. 2.2 L and 3.3 L cover catering groups, chains and high-volume buyers.Then change the metric. Stop ranking sizes by unit price. Rank them by inventory days and container utilisation. The smaller size loads denser, which lowers freight per unit; inventory days determine how fast cash comes back. Only together do they show which SKU actually earns.

Size is not a product parameter. It is a channel decision. The cost of getting it wrong never appears on the quotation — it appears in the inventory report at quarter end.

In your current range, how many SKUs drive 80% of shipments? And are the rest serving customers — or serving the catalogue?

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