pricing

Please can you check which exam you mean?
The December 2010 exam did not have a pricing question (and Q3 was linear programming).

It is NOT December 2010.

I think you must mean June 2011 Q3, although this is not a pricing question. Part (a) is asking for a flexed budget. (Parts (b) and (c) are variances).

A flexed budget means rewriting the original budget for the actual level of activity.

So… the original budget was based on there being 1,200 meals, and the budgeted food cost was $48,000. This means that they were budgeting on a cost of 48,000/1200 = $40 for each meal.

The actual number of meals served was 1,560, and so this would mean that they would have expected the food cost to be 1,560 x $40 = $62,400. This is the figure for the flexed budget.

(The actual cost was only 60840 – the difference between this and the flexed budget is the variance).

The same sort of exercise needs doing for all the variable costs – the examiner has shown the workings in his answer.

What extra 15 per day? For food costs there is no extra 15 a day – I have shown you above how the flexed food cost figure is calculated.

The only extra 15 a day is for the number of order (i.e. meals served a day) and this is only relevant for the wages.
The examiners answer explains why there are 65 meals served per day. The question says that in the original budget there are 50 order per day, and so 65 a day means an extra 15 a day.

You are welcome 🙂

Note 5 of the question says that for every 5 extra orders, the staff have to work 0.5 hours of overtime. Because the actual number of orders is 15 more than the original budget (I explained the 15 to you earlier), it means the staff all have to work an extra 1.5 hours a day. Note 5 also says that the overtime is paid an $12 per hour.
The number of staff/hours/days/weeks are all given in the question.
It therefore means that the flexed budget wages will be $3456 more than the original budget.