What makes up the price of sausage, cheese and chicken: how much goes to the store
Of every 100 rubles you pay for boiled sausage, 43 rubles go to raw materials, 14 to the factory’s labor, about 6.6 remains for the producer as profit, 6.4 is taken by taxes on the producer, and 29.4 rubles go to trade. With chicken the picture is different: almost half of the price is raw materials, and trade receives only 14%. These are Rosstat data on the structure of retail food prices, in the 2025 release. Below are three charts and an analysis of four products: sausage, cheese, chicken and pasta.
How to read this table
Rosstat every few years breaks down the price of individual products into parts: from the cost of raw materials to the store’s profit. The table is arranged as a chain. First comes the cost at the factory (raw materials and production expenses), then the producer’s profit and taxes, resulting in the ex‑factory price. To that is added the turnover of the distribution sector: trade margin, the store’s expenses for delivery and sales, its profit and VAT. The sum is the retail price that the buyer sees on the price tag.
Prices in the tables are given in rubles per unit of product, and the second column shows the same parts as percentages of the retail price. For discussing who gets how much, percentages are more convenient, so they are mainly used below. If you mentally convert to a receipt, then out of 1,000 rubles spent on boiled sausage, about 294 rubles go to trade, and raw materials cost about 430 rubles.
Boiled sausage: almost a third of the price stays in the store
The retail price of boiled sausage in the Rosstat table is 512.70 rubles. It is distributed as follows:
- raw materials and main inputs: 220.36 rubles, 42.98% of the price;
- production costs, including commercial expenses: 72.96 rubles, 14.23%;
- producer's profit: 33.78 rubles, 6.59%;
- VAT and other taxes of the producer: 32.79 rubles, about 6.4%;
- delivery from the producer to the buyer: 2.09 rubles, 0.41%;
- turnover of the distribution sector, i.e., trade: 150.72 rubles, 29.4%.
Wages with contributions in the sausage amount to 19.37 rubles, a total of 3.78% of the price. This is less than the profit of the store alone: retail trade retains 67.53 rubles profit, 13.17% of the price. The producer's profit is half as much.
The chart shows that the largest part of the sausage price is raw materials (43%), and the second largest block, 29%, goes to trade. Workers and the plant together with the producer's profit take up less than a quarter.
The trade block is also broken down. Of the 150.72 rubles: trade markup without VAT 136.33 rubles, costs of delivery and sale of the product 68.80 rubles, retail trade profit 67.53 rubles, trade VAT 14.39 rubles. The trade markup and the listed costs with profit describe the same thing from different angles, so the rows cannot simply be added together. Costs, profit and VAT together equal exactly 150.72.
You can view the entire table line by line on the dataset page: structure of the retail price of boiled sausage.
Chicken: receives the smallest share in trade
Chicken is the cheapest product among the four by absolute price. The retail price in the table is 257.21 rubles, and more than half of it is paid for raw materials:
- raw materials and main inputs: 127.41 rubles, 49.54% of the price, of which the main type of raw material is 118.80 rubles;
- production costs: 59.09 rubles, 22.97%;
- producer profit: 16.69 rubles, 6.49%;
- turnover of the distribution sector: 36.15 rubles, 14.05%;
- retail trade profit: 15.34 rubles, 5.97%.
Chicken is the only product examined where a noticeable part of the price consists of the enterprise's labor. Wages with contributions here are 26.07 rubles, 10.14% of the price, three times higher than in sausage. Fuel and energy for production are also more noticeable: 7.94 rubles, 3.09%.
For the buyer the conclusion is simple: when poultry meat becomes more expensive, it is usually due to the cost of the birds and feed, not the store's margins. In sausage, on the contrary, the trade component is twice as large. Detailed table: structure of the retail price for chilled and frozen chickens.
Cheese: the most expensive item and the largest profit
The retail price of rennet, hard and soft cheeses in the table is 904.82 rubles. Almost half of the cheese price is the cost of raw materials: it accounts for 432.74 rubles, 47.83% of the price. Further:
- production costs: 136.71 rubles, 15.11%;
- producer profit: 69.30 rubles, 7.66%;
- producer taxes, VAT 59.93 rubles and other taxes 0.32 rubles: about 6.7%;
- turnover of the distribution sector: 203.39 rubles, 22.48%;
- retail trade profit: 89.72 rubles, 9.92%.
In rubles, cheese stands out among the rest: the store earns almost 90 rubles per unit, which is more than the producer's profit and much more than the whole price of pasta (142.50 rubles). In percentage terms, trade takes less from cheese than from sausage (22.5% versus 29.4%), but even a smaller percentage on an expensive product becomes a large sum.
Table on the site: structure of the retail price for rennet cheeses.
Pasta: cheap raw material, but long chain
Pasta products at a price of 142.50 rubles look like the simplest product: flour and water. That is why the raw material here takes the smallest share, 45.74 rubles, 32.1% of the price. The trade part is the heaviest of all four: 56.55 rubles, 39.69%.
In this table pasta has a separate row that the others do not have: turnover of the intermediary link, 18.81 rubles, 13.2% of the price. That is, between the factory and the shelf there is often a wholesaler, and its markup is shown separately. Retail profit from pasta 16.32 rubles, 11.45% of the price: this is higher than the factory profit (10.85 rubles, 7.62%).
The conclusion for the household budget is interesting. Where the product is cheap and simple, the largest part of the price is not production but the road to the consumer. Table: structure of the retail price of pasta.
Comparison: who earns how much
If you place four products side by side, the share of trade in the price goes in this order: pasta 39.69%, sausage 29.4%, cheese 22.48%, chicken 14.05%. The simpler the product and the less labor and raw material it contains, the larger the portion of the price that goes to transport and the shelf.
The share of trade in the retail price declines from pasta (39.7%) to chicken (14.1%): for chicken almost half of the price is the raw material itself.
Taxes, if you combine the producer's VAT, other taxes and trade VAT, amount for these products from 7.7% (pasta) to 9.2% (sausage) of the price. These values are calculated as the sum of three rows of the table; the table itself has no separate total for taxes.
Profit, in rubles, looks like this:
| Product | Producer profit, ₽ | Retail trade profit, ₽ |
|---|---|---|
| Chicken | 16.69 | 15.34 |
| Boiled sausage | 33.78 | 67.53 |
| Cheeses | 69.30 | 89.72 |
| Pasta | 10.85 | 16.32 |
Only for chicken the producer's profit is higher than the shop's profit, and only slightly. For the other three, trade earns more than the factory, and for sausage twice as much.
For sausage the shop's profit is twice the factory's profit (67.5 and 33.8 rubles), for cheese the difference is smaller (89.7 and 69.3), for chicken they are almost equal.
Do not read this as an accusation against trade. The profit in the table is what remains after the shop's expenses. They are listed in a separate row ("costs for delivery and sale of the product") and for sausage are almost equal to the profit: 68.80 rubles versus 67.53.
What has changed over the years
Previous releases of the table are on the website, but the products in them are described slightly differently, so comparisons should be made cautiously. Boiled sausage of the highest grade in the 2019 release cost 408.32 rubles at retail, and the trade share of the price was 25.29%. In the 2025 release boiled sausage without grade breakdown costs 512.70 rubles, with trade receiving 29.4%. This is not the same item, but the direction is clear: the trade portion has increased.
The opposite is true for pasta. Pasta and vermicelli made from the highest‑grade flour in the 2021 release cost 111.62 rubles, and trade received 46.74% of the price. In 2025 pasta products cost 142.50 rubles, and the trade share is 39.69%. The raw material share has hardly moved (32.17% then and 32.1% now). Previous releases: boiled sausage of the highest grade, 2019 and pasta made from the highest‑grade flour, 2021.
Questions and answers
How much does a store earn on sausage?
According to the Rosstat table, the retail trade profit from boiled sausage is 67.53 rubles at a retail price of 512.70, i.e., 13.17% of the price. The entire trade portion of the price (including delivery, sales costs and VAT) is larger: 150.72 rubles, 29.4%.
Why is chicken cheaper than the rest?
Because it has a shorter chain. Raw material takes 49.54% of the price, trade 14.05%, and the price itself is 257.21 rubles versus 512.70 for sausage and 904.82 for cheese.
What tax is included in the product price?
The tables show the producer's VAT (6.26% for sausage, 6.62% for cheese, 6.65% for chicken), small other taxes, and the VAT added by trade (2.81% for sausage, 2.07% for cheese, 1.35% for chicken).
Is the trade markup growing?
A definitive answer is not possible. For sausage it increased between the 2019 and 2025 releases, for pasta it decreased between 2021 and 2025. The items in these releases are described slightly differently, so direct comparison is approximate.
Summary
- In boiled sausage raw materials account for 42.98% of the price, trade 29.4%, manufacturer profit 6.59%.
- In chicken raw materials are 49.54% of the price, trade only 14.05%, but wages in it are three times heavier than in sausage.
- In cheese raw materials are 47.83%, trade 22.48%, and the shop profit (89.72 rubles) is higher than the manufacturer profit (69.30).
- In pasta raw materials are only 32.1%, but trade with intermediaries takes 39.69%.
- Taxes in the price of these products amount to 7.7-9.2%.
Source: Rosstat, structure of retail prices for food products.