Summary: Vesper has launched Cost Models, a powerful new feature that transforms individual commodity benchmarks into complete product cost insights. This capability allows food manufacturers to combine weighted commodity benchmarks with standardized non-ingredient costs to build accurate product pricing models, delivering unprecedented visibility into true product economics.
What's New:
Build complete product cost models by combining multiple commodity benchmarks with precise weightings
Access industry-standard non-ingredient costs (labor, manufacturing, overhead) specific to your region
Choose from our template library for common food products or create custom models
Track how each component contributes to your total product cost with automatic updates whenever source prices change
Why It Matters: With record-high volatility across food commodities, understanding how ingredient changes impact finished products is critical for maintaining margins. Cost Models provide complete cost structure visibility for your entire organization: procurement teams can verify supplier price increases, finance can track margin impacts across product portfolios, and sales teams can justify price adjustments to customers with independently verified data. Non-ingredient costs can represent up to 47% of total product costs—a critical component that's now visible alongside your commodity benchmarks.
How to Use It:
Access Cost Models through the main dashboard menu
Choose between starting with a template or building a model from scratch
Select ingredients from your available commodities and assign precise weightings
Add country-specific non-ingredient costs by selecting your industry and location
Save your model to track cost evolution over time as prices update automatically
Related Features: Cost Models integrates seamlessly with Vesper's existing capabilities:
Individual commodity price benchmarks (VPI, Partner prices, and Public benchmarks found in prices widgets)
Incorporate into your own custom dashboards
Coming in Q3 2025: Forecasting capabilities for your cost models
