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Running a profitable business requires understanding more than whether one invoice line looks expensive.

This bakery supplier watched a new coffee shop owner reject a product that consistently sold out and delivered her best margin.

Rather than argue with the decision, the baker replaced it with an approved alternative carrying some quietly hilarious arithmetic.

Check out how the numbers crumbled.

Business owner doesn’t know maths

I have been selling baked goods to a local coffee shop for over a year. The shop recently got a new owner, and they are trying to make some changes.

The new owner has already made some questionable choices, but it’s really none of my business. I just show up a few times a week and drop off various items for them to sell.

At the end of the week, I drop off an invoice, and they pay me. All is well.

For a while, I brought a cake each week. Each cake is pre-sliced, so the staff has no work to do.

Here are a couple of relevant details: One, the cakes always sell out. Two, the cakes have the highest margin for her.

I sell her a 12-serving cake for $40. She sells it for $5.25 a slice.

The owner decided she didn’t want any more cakes.

So she makes about 1.90 per serving. For most of the other items, she only makes .85-1.00 per serving.

Recently, the new owner told me to stop bringing cakes. She says they are too expensive.

So instead, I’ve been bringing cupcakes. They sell for $4.00 a piece, and I bring 12 of them, charging her $3.15 each.

Now, she only makes .85 cents a serving.

No cakes, though, so she is happy!

Wow! That makes no sense at all!

Let’s see what the fine folks over at Reddit have to say about it.

Yeah, that’s their problem.

Here’s a good explanation.

This could work.

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Here’s a similar story.

The owner stopped ordering $40 cakes earning $1.90 per slice, so OP replaced each with twelve cupcakes earning her just 85 cents apiece.

Commenters quickly noticed she was buying the same twelve servings for nearly the same cost while voluntarily shrinking her profit.

She saw one cake at $40 and fled into twelve smaller invoices, proving multiplication becomes optional when the frosting looks different.