Full-service restaurant purchasing - supplier price-hike negotiation scripts - ask the cause, state the volume facts, then trade; three steps that turn a "notification" back into a negotiation, with your walk-away line and fallback decided before you open your mouth

You are a purchasing lead training coach for a full-service restaurant. Write me a script card set for "responding to supplier price hikes". Scene: a supplier calls, writes, or mentions at delivery that prices go up ("from next month, [X] more per pound"). I will provide: the item and increase, the supplier's stated reason, this supplier's share of the category (sole / one of two / one of three), monthly spend, whether a competing quote exists, and current payment terms.

Pre-call inputs (the back of every card, before any script):
- Walk-away line: the maximum acceptable increase (beyond it, switching evaluation starts)
- Lock-in requirement: the shortest price-lock period you can accept
- Fallback: the transition supply plan if you switch - who picks it up, in how many days, and where the menu breaks
- None of these three decided? Then no negotiation happens yet

The three steps (fixed order):
1. Ask the cause (positioning, not confrontation):
"Is this increase the raw material, or freight? Is it the delivered price or your ex-warehouse price? How long do you expect it to hold?" - three causes, three plays: market-wide (the trend is real; the price itself is not negotiable - trade on locks and terms), their own cost (negotiable - ask for the breakdown), probe (goes vague or softens at the first question - counter directly)
2. State the volume facts (no emotion):
"We move [N] cases a month on this item, [M] a year - where does that put us among your accounts?" - let them say your weight out loud. Banned by contrast: "raise it again and we're done with you" - a threat only works if you are actually ready, and an empty one devalues on first use
3. The trade menu (ordered by concession, worked item by item):
- Price lock: "Fine, but lock this price for me for [3] months - we revisit quarterly"
- Spec substitution: "At this price point, can we move to [grade / spec]? I'll take samples to the kitchen first - if they don't pass tasting, no change" - at the table you agree only to "send samples", never to the deal
- Terms for price: "If we move from monthly to semi-monthly [or cash] settlement, can you absorb half of this increase?"
- Volume tier: "If my volume reaches [X], where does the price go?"
- The quote (last card): lay the competing quote sheet on the table as fact - "this is their number; with your increase I have to work out how to explain this at my end" - numbers only, never the empty phrase "someone else is cheaper"

Variant cards:
- The surprise phone call: "Noted, I've written it down - give me two days to check our volumes and the other houses; you'll have my answer by [day]." Not deciding on the spot is discipline, not weakness
- The mass announcement (group message / blast): call them individually - blast prices are for the small accounts; big-account prices are negotiated
- The legacy supplier playing the relationship card ("after all these years"): accept the relationship, return to the numbers - "after all these years is exactly why I want this increase to be one you calculated carefully, not one you quoted offhand"

Forbidden:
- Accepting the increase on the spot (anything beyond "let me think about it" verbally)
- Empty threats (no "we'll switch" without a switch ready to execute)
- Accepting flavor compromises for the kitchen - a spec substitution counts only after it passes tasting
- Any "we'll settle it next time" outside a written quote - every deal lands on the quote sheet
- Script language stays spoken - no "win-win partnership" or "long-termism"; neither side believes those words

Why it is written this way

The first sentence in response to a hike notice decides whether it is a negotiation or an execution: silence or "okay, understood" auto-enacts the increase next month. Step one asks the cause instead of countering, because the cause locates the negotiating room - bargaining a market-wide increase on price wastes breath, while locks and payment terms are tradeable; and probe hikes unravel at the first question, since quoting high and waiting to be bargained down is standard practice. Asking the cause is a positioning move: three sentences sort the counterparty into one of three plays.

Stating share is designed as "let them say your position out loud" because of one negotiating fact: your saying "we're a major account" is a position; their saying "you're definitely in our top tier" is a fact - and concessions people articulate themselves hold firmest. Threatening to switch is banned unless execution is truly ready: an empty threat devalues the first time and becomes a joke the second, while your actual switching capacity (who picks up the volume, in how many days) is precisely the fallback that must be settled on the back of the card first - a person without a fallback negotiates nothing.

The trade menu orders by concession rather than leading with "discount" because the real currency of a hike negotiation is rarely price itself: a lock buys stability, terms buy discount, tiers buy unit price, a spec change buys cost - each a genuine two-way trade. "Give me two days" is discipline, not delay: whoever decides on the spot decides with incomplete information, and the price-hiker is counting exactly on you agreeing dazed and fast.

"Agree only to send samples" on spec substitutions is written for two failure scenes at once: purchasing promises "the smaller spec is fine" at the table, the kitchen fails it in tasting, and the supplier has already shipped the new spec - both sides insulted. Flavor is the kitchen's territory; what purchasing reserves at the table is merely "the right to test". With that boundary fixed in writing, purchasing stops trading away someone else's territory as its own chip.

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