If pizza shops can keep their prices low and still give large portions why can't Indian, Chinese or fish and chip shops?
as someone that makes a ton of pizzas, its only expensive if you are buying premium ingredients, which the vast majority of takeaways aren't. A lot will just be using cash and carry bags of toppings and prebought dough or bulk making their own which isn't hard and cheaper still. English style takeaway pizza isnt known for its tasty crust - its basically filler to hold up the heavier amount of cheese and toppings that we prefer, vs say...NY Style thin and crispy, chicago deep dish, detroit pan or Neapolitan style where often the crusts are nice or even the best bit, or so thin it doesn't matter.
the core ingredients of pizzas are same a bread FWSY - Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast. Flour is the only one which has really any impact to that, but even that is not that expensive especially in catering sacks.
Then you get onto bases and toppings - it doesn't take much tomato sauce to make a base - and again these come in huge drums or they make it themselves, but imagine most pre-buy it. A drum of pizza sauce makes a shedload of pizzas
Cheese is cheap in bulk.
Toppings are where costs enter into it but you dont get free toppings - look at what it costs if you order a large pizza, say 16 inch - most shops about £2 per topping added. For £2 you could buy a retail packet of that topping eg pepperoni, chicken etc, but theyre not buying retail packets, they'll be buying catering supply sized packs as that's what I do and freeze it up in smaller portions. That £2 to add pepperoni to your pizza probably covers the costs on a load of pizzas in reality and from then on their costs are covered. it wont still be 40p a pizza but it wont be £2 a pizza either, else they would be going out of business, especially at sizes that lidl and aldi sell at. As you scale a pizza up from 9", 12", 14", 16" etc the cost difference to the pizza shop is minimal. they already made the dough, the cost to cook it is practically identical and its inconsequentially more cheese, sauce base and toppings yet the price will bump a few quid plus extra toppings go up from 50-90p at smaller sizes to £1.50-£2+ at larger sizes depending on the place. As a consumer, its still best value for you if you work out the costs because the area of pizza youre getting is costing you less so it goes further, but the store also makes a lot more profit.
Pizza shops real costs will come from rent, rates, staff in store, delivery staff and all that jazz.
Pizza shops have still put their prices up, just not as much. Fish and chip shops youre talking a fish for each customer - costs for that have gone up for the fish, but also the oil being used to fry in and the large amounts of electricity to fry. Indians and Chinese are much more meat heavy, and also have to have a huge inventory of bases, sauces, meats and veg and although a lot of that will be the same principle, a lot will be wastage because theres often about 100 items on the menu to make (Although often theyre just combinations of the same bases) Plus costs for things like plastic containers for each item (the costs of which have gone up). You get bigger portions of curry or stir fry and none of that is as cheap as a bigger dough ball like it is with pizza
