There’s nothing cats like more than CatSnax, the number one snack for cats. Orange and Grey are no different – no day is complete without CatSnax.
“Orange, it seems we’re out of CatSnax,” Grey complained one morning. “We need go buy some more.” So, the two headed to Cat-Mart, where they quickly located the CatSnax.
“It looks like they’re having a sale on these right now,” Grey read. “We can either get 2 small boxes of 2.7 ounces for 4.6 catcoins, 1 normal box of 3.5 ounces for 3.2 catcoins, or 1 jumbo box of 6 ounces for 5.3 catcoins. Which do you think we should get?”
Orange thought for a second before answering, “Well we want to be efficient with our money. We need to find out which is cheapest per unit. Let’s start by making a table.”
“Right,” Grey agreed. “We’ll need to write the total net weight of each package and the price. Then, we simply divide price by net weight to calculate the cost per ounce.”
| Price (catcoins) | Net Weight (ounces) | Price ÷ Net Weight | Cost/ounce |
| 4.6 | 5.4 | 4.6 ÷ 5.4 | 0.85 |
| 3.2 | 3.5 | 3.2 ÷ 3.5 | 0.91 |
| 5.3 | 6.0 | 5.3 ÷ 6.0 | 0.88 |
“So it seems the cost per ounce is 0.85, 0.91, and 0.88 respectively,” Orange concluded. “0.85, the package on sale, seems to be the lowest, followed by the jumbo at 0.88 and the normal at 0.91.
“That means the package on sale, with 5.4 ounces, is the most cost efficient. Alright! Let’s get it!” Grey exclaimed. And so, the two cats purchased their CatSnax and went home.
Today we’ve covered how to calculate the price per unit, also known as the unit cost. To get more practice, check out the CatSnax Conundrum worksheet.