Case study · FMCG and retail · Food manufacturing · 13 min read
Source: Pricing Insight workshop minutes and recommendations for Frosty Boy Australia, 23 October 2017, and engagement records. The more than A$3m of incremental EBITDA is realised, as confirmed by Pricing Insight; the measurement basis is not disclosed. The exercise quotes come from a training case, not Frosty Boy prices. None is a benchmark for another business.
More than A$3m of incremental EBITDA realised from pricing and negotiation on value. Frosty Boy, the Queensland maker of soft serve, frozen yoghurt and beverage bases, sells to quick service restaurant chains and food service customers in Australia and export markets. Advent Partners, the growth-focused private equity firm that had invested in the business, engaged Pricing Insight as part of its plan to lift customer and product profitability. The team priced on cost plus mark-up, value drivers were not written down, and the largest accounts negotiated through procurement teams that treated soft serve as a commodity. Over two days at Yatala in October 2017, Pricing Insight ran a pricing strategy diagnostic and a key account sales negotiation workshop for 30 staff. The teams ran a negotiation exercise on price anchoring, mapped three key accounts on the Customer Value Canvas, pitched to each account on value, scored the business against nine pricing capabilities and left with an action plan: a written pricing strategy, value discovery with major accounts, contracts that carry value drivers and quotes built from value rather than cost. The pricing and margin initiatives Frosty Boy implemented from that plan generated more than A$3m of incremental EBITDA.
| Client | Frosty Boy Australia, Yatala, Queensland: a manufacturer of soft serve, frozen yoghurt and beverage bases for quick service restaurant chains, cafés and food service, founded in 1976. Pricing Insight was engaged by Advent Partners, the business's private equity investor, and worked with the Frosty Boy executive team. |
| Service | Pricing strategy diagnostic and key account sales negotiation workshop, with Customer Value Discovery tools and follow-up support. |
| Status | Realised. More than A$3m of incremental EBITDA from pricing and margin initiatives implemented after the workshops, as confirmed by Pricing Insight. |
| Scope | Sales, marketing, R&D, production, finance and the executive team; three key export accounts, Jollibee, Godiva and Burger King Latin America, used as live cases. |
| Period | Planning from March 2017, workshop on 16 and 17 October 2017, minutes on 23 October 2017 and follow-up in February 2018. |
The brief
Give everyone who touches a customer one way to set prices and negotiate with key accounts from the value Frosty Boy delivers, not from its costs.
01An export manufacturer whose largest customers negotiated on price alone
A soft serve maker selling to the world's fast food chains. Frosty Boy has made soft serve bases since 1976 and today sells classic and vegan soft serve, frozen yoghurt, shakes and flavour sachets with a shelf life of up to 18 months. It manufactures at Yatala, between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, and supplies customers in about 50 countries.
Powder is the product, and powder is where the value sits. A powder base costs less to freight and store than a liquid mix, needs no refrigeration and keeps longer, which matters most in markets where the cold chain is weak. Frosty Boy's R&D team also develops recipes with customers, and its quality systems and delivery record protect the customer's brand at store level. None of that showed up in the price. Quotes were built from cost plus a mark-up, and the largest accounts bought through procurement teams that compared soft serve on price per kilogram.
The owner wanted that changed. Advent Partners, which describes itself as a growth-focused private equity firm working with founders of market-leading companies, invested in Frosty Boy in December 2016. Improving customer and product profitability was part of its plan for the business, and it engaged Pricing Insight to run the pricing work with the Frosty Boy executive team. Two of Advent's investment team took part in the planning and the debrief.
02What the diagnostic found: value the customers received but did not pay for
Three findings, one for each pillar of the Pricing Periodic Table.
Value
Value drivers were known but not written down. Every team named undefined value drivers as a margin pressure, and every team named a commodity mindset, in customers if not in themselves. One team put it plainly: the business told customers it sold a solution, then priced on product. A sales manager pointed to value the team never priced: powder sold at about 30 per cent below the price of liquid mix, with lower freight and storage costs on top.
People
Negotiation started from cost. Teams described a cost-plus culture, a reliance on discounting to win or keep business, weak follow-up on price increases and difficulty negotiating with procurement. Knowledge of each key account sat with one person. There was no pricing team, and most teams rated the business's pricing capability between repeatable and defined.
Structures
There was no price structure for exports. Export prices were set customer by customer, domestic customers had a list, and the only volume incentive was a minimum order quantity. Customer agreements were inconsistent and rarely carried value drivers or price increase terms. Three systems held customer and cost data and did not connect, so a quote took too long and was built from the costing model, which is not a pricing tool.
Six priorities followed.
Document the value drivers.
Score each key account's value drivers for importance and for Frosty Boy's performance, and share them across the business.
Negotiate from an anchor.
Open each key account negotiation with a price set from value, not from cost plus mark-up.
Write the pricing strategy.
Communicate the business model strategy, then publish a pricing strategy and policy.
Put value into contracts.
Agreements for every key account, with value drivers and price increase terms included.
Build export price lists.
A starting price for distributors and tiers that reward container orders over the minimum order quantity.
Price and negotiate every key account from the value Frosty Boy delivers, not from its costs.
03What Pricing Insight did: a pricing diagnostic and a key account negotiation workshop for 30 staff
Six exercises over two days. Each built named elements of the Pricing Periodic Table, shown in brackets and mapped in section 05. Before the workshop every participant completed the online pricing diagnostic.
Negotiation anchoring.
Four teams quoted for the same machine. Two were briefed on the customer's value and the price of the old model; two had cost and competitor prices only. (34 Ng)
Customer Value Canvas.
Each team scored a key export account on the value it gets in use and the value at risk if supply, product or support fails, for importance and for Frosty Boy's performance. (03 Vq, 39 Ka)
Pitch Fest.
Each team pitched its key account on value: the idea, what is changing, the customer's pain, the solution, the capability and a closing question. (29 Vs)
Pricing Diagnostic canvas.
Each team assessed the issues and opportunities in nine pricing capabilities across Value, People and Structures. (21 Ca, 28 Cc)
Margin expansion plan and priority planner.
Initiatives across price, cost, volume and mix, then actions with owners from immediately to six months.
“It was a fantastic session and it will truly be useful tool for us going forward.” General Manager, Greater China and Myanmar, Frosty Boy Australia.
The negotiation exercise set the tone. The two teams that knew the customer's value and the old machine's price of $12,000 quoted $51,000 and $35,000. The two teams with costs and competitor prices quoted $14,500 and $16,000. The first price on the table predicts where a negotiation ends, so the price the team anchors on decides the margin it keeps.
The key accounts were real. The teams worked on three of Frosty Boy's largest export customers: Jollibee, the Philippine quick service restaurant chain; Godiva, the premium chocolate brand; and Burger King in Latin America. On Godiva, the team scored price 7 for importance and 9 for Frosty Boy's performance, and read that as underpricing. It scored delivery in full and on time 9 for importance and 4 for performance, the gap to close first. On Jollibee, which has a policy of using two suppliers in every category, the team worked through how a second supplier could be kept to a small share by showing the cost of store downtime and waste, rather than matching on price.
04What changed: more than A$3m of incremental EBITDA from initiatives the team implemented
More than A$3m of incremental EBITDA realised. Frosty Boy implemented a range of pricing and margin initiatives from the workshop plan, and together they generated more than A$3m of incremental EBITDA. The teams agreed an action plan built on value discovery with customers, a written pricing strategy, contracts that carry value drivers and the programs to support them. Immediate actions were to finalise the business strategy, name the accounts for value discovery and review how quotes were built. Within four weeks the pricing strategy and the first customer canvases were to be drafted. Within three months customers were to be interviewed, contract templates carrying value drivers completed and a pricing team established; within six months the sales and ERP systems were to be connected and sales KPIs set for each person.
Pricing Insight followed up. The minutes and recommendations went to all 30 participants and to Advent within a week. The managing director asked for a certification for everyone who attended, and in February 2018 Pricing Insight delivered a Customer Value Discovery scorecard and pitch model that compares Frosty Boy's value drivers and scores with competitors' before a quote is set, and went through it with the managing director and the general manager of sales and marketing.
Status: realised. More than A$3m of incremental EBITDA from the pricing and margin initiatives implemented after the strategy and negotiation workshops, as confirmed by Pricing Insight. The exact figure, the split by initiative and the measurement basis are not disclosed. The exercise quotes are from a training case. Canvas scores are the teams' own estimates.
05The Pricing Periodic Table elements this work built
Six elements built, eight identified for the action plan. The Pricing Periodic Table maps 61 elements of pricing capability in nine domains across three pillars: Value, People and Structures. The workshop built capability in People, in negotiation, value selling and alignment across functions, and named the Structures the business then worked on.
| Negotiation | 34 Ng Negotiation skills, 39 Ka Key-account negotiation plans: the anchoring exercise and value plans for three key accounts. |
| Value | 03 Vq Value quantification, 29 Vs Value selling: Customer Value Canvas scores and a value pitch to each account. |
| Alignment | 21 Ca Cross-functional alignment, 28 Cc Commercial capability and training: 30 staff from sales, R&D, production and finance on one diagnostic. |
| Identified | 06 Ws Written pricing strategy, 15 Va Value-based agreements, 26 Pf Pricing function mandate, 43 Pi Price increase process, 50 Md Price-setting method, 52 Rl Price relativities and volume breaks, 59 Is Integrated pricing systems, 60 Pl Price-list publishing: the strategy, contracts, pricing team, quotes from value, export price lists and connected systems in the action plan. |
06Three lessons for a private equity owner or CEO
Price the value the customer already gets
Frosty Boy's powder saved customers freight, storage and refrigeration against liquid mix, and its R&D and delivery record protected their brands. Quotes were built from cost plus mark-up. Writing the value drivers down, account by account, is the first step to charging for them.
Anchor the key account negotiation
In the exercise, teams that knew the customer's value quoted two to three times more than teams that knew only cost. The first price on the table sets where a negotiation ends, so it should come from value, set before the meeting with procurement.
Put everyone who touches a customer in the room
Sales, R&D, production and finance each held part of the value story. Thirty people in four mixed teams found value no single function had priced, and left with actions owned across the business.
07Questions this case study answers
How do you negotiate price with a key account's procurement team?
Start from the customer's value, not your cost. Frosty Boy's pricing and margin initiatives after its strategy and negotiation workshops generated more than A$3m of incremental EBITDA. At Frosty Boy, each team mapped a key account on the Customer Value Canvas, scoring the value it gets in use and the value at risk if supply, product or support fails, then built a pitch around the account's pain and the cost of doing nothing. In the negotiation exercise, teams that knew the customer's value quoted two to three times more than teams briefed on cost, because the first price on the table sets the range.
What does a pricing strategy workshop cover for a food manufacturer?
At Frosty Boy, two days covered a negotiation exercise on price anchoring, a Customer Value Canvas for three key accounts, a value pitch to each, a diagnostic of nine pricing capabilities across Value, People and Structures, a margin expansion plan and a priority planner. Thirty staff from sales, R&D, production, finance and the executive team took part, and the output was an action plan with owners and dates.
How can private equity owners improve pricing in a portfolio company?
Start with a diagnostic the whole commercial team takes part in. Advent Partners engaged Pricing Insight to work with Frosty Boy's executive team as part of its plan to improve customer and product profitability. The workshop named the gaps, cost-plus quoting, undocumented value drivers, no export price structure and contracts without value terms, and turned them into an action plan the management team owned. The initiatives implemented generated more than A$3m of incremental EBITDA.
Related case studies · FMCG and retail
Are your key accounts paying for the value you deliver?
A first conversation covers how your quotes are built, how your team negotiates with procurement and whether a diagnostic fits. Ron Wood, +61 410 534 099.
Ron Wood is the Founder and Managing Director of Pricing Insight, an Australian pricing strategy consultancy he established in 2007. He has worked in pricing for around 30 years, first as a pricing and commercial manager in consumer goods, building materials and capital equipment, and since then across 160+ pricing engagements. He also founded Pricing University, which has trained more than 5,000 executives.
To discuss pricing and key account negotiation for your business, contact Ron Wood at info@pricinginsight.com.au or on +61 410 534 099, or visit Pricing Insight.
Company facts are from frostyboy.com, reviewed 12 November 2026, and published transaction records. Advent's description is from advent.com.au, reviewed 12 November 2026. Advent's investment in December 2016 is from public transaction records. Engagement details are from Pricing Insight's workshop minutes and recommendations of 23 October 2017 and engagement records. Exercise quotes are from a training case. Canvas scores are team estimates. The more than A$3m is realised incremental EBITDA, as confirmed by Pricing Insight, and not independently audited. No figure on this page is typical or guaranteed.
.jpg)
