Apple Orchard Business Plan, With a Projection

An apple orchard business plan is a year of orchard work paid for by one autumn. The pruning, thinning and spraying run from winter to summer, and nearly all the money arrives from August to November, so the plan has to show the cash it takes to reach the first picking weekend. It also has to choose what to do with the apples: pick-your-own leaves the most for each pound, because the customer does the picking; a farm market, cider and pies turn the rest, and the seconds, into money. In the example below, an orchard of eight acres in Pennsylvania sells pick-your-own bags, pre-picked apples, pasteurized cider and pies, and ends a year about $58,800 ahead on $138,900 of sales, before paying the family, but it needs $29,000 of cash to reach August. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, the rules for cider, the year month by month, the startup budget, and a free template.

The short version

• Describe the orchard in a paragraph: the acres, the varieties, how you sell, the goals.
• The growing is a fixed cost: pruning, thinning, spraying and the land, paid all year.
• Pick-your-own leaves the most for each bag; pre-picked apples, cider and pies use the rest.
• Cider sold to anyone but your own customers brings juice HACCP; pasteurizing changes the label.
• Budget the cash for January to July.
• TaroStack keeps apples by variety and bin, cider and pies as recipes, and the autumn's batches with their lots. More below.

Part 1: the business description

Cashtown Ridge Orchard, a made-up orchard near Biglerville, Pennsylvania, I use in these examples, writes:

Cashtown Ridge Orchard grows eight acres of apples in a dozen varieties, open for pick-your-own on autumn weekends, with a farm market selling pre-picked apples, cider pressed and pasteurized at a cider mill nearby, and pies from a licensed farm kitchen.

Part 2: what each sale costs

The orchard's growing costs, pruning, thinning, spraying, the land, are in the fixed costs, because they're paid whatever the autumn brings. The variable costs are what selling one more costs.

Cider is where the seconds go: apples too marked or small to sell fresh, at about 10 cents a pound, pressed into a product that sells for $7 a half gallon. How a farm turns what it grows into products that sell is in value added products for farms.

Part 3: customers and prices

Pick-your-own brings 70% of a full month's contribution, because the customers do the picking and pay for the outing. Cider and pies bring less each, but they bring people back after the picking ends and use apples that wouldn't sell fresh. The orchard grows more than it sells this way, about twice as much in a good year; the rest goes to a processor at a low price, which this projection leaves out. What it costs to sell at a farmers market as well is in cost to sell at a farmers market.

Part 4: the rules for cider

Federal juice rules call anyone who makes juice for sale a processor who works to a juice HACCP plan, except a retail establishment: one that sells juice only directly to consumers, and not to other businesses as well (21 CFR 120.1, 120.3). An orchard pressing cider for its own farm market only can be that retail establishment; one that also sells cider to shops can't. Cider in a container that hasn't been pasteurized or otherwise treated to reduce pathogens carries a bold warning statement on its label (21 CFR 101.17(g)). This plan has its cider pressed and pasteurized by a cider mill nearby, which works to its own juice HACCP plan, so the jugs need no warning. Pies and cider also fall under your state's food rules; check with its agriculture or health department before the first jug or pie. This is general information, not legal advice.

Part 5: the year, month by month

Fixed costs are $4,535 a month, averaged over the year: the pruning and thinning crew ($2,000), the spray program and fertilizer ($1,200), the land lease and taxes ($400), insurance ($250), equipment fuel and repairs ($300), power for the farm market and coolers ($150), marketing ($200), and software and card fees ($35). Month 1 is January:

The year's sales are $138,915 and the profit $58,750, before paying the family who run it. Cash falls to −$28,152 by the end of July, which is why the plan keeps $29,000 of working cash, and every year after needs that much put aside from the autumn before. A hailstorm or a late frost takes a crop, not a weekend, so the working cash matters more here than in most plans. How to plan stock around a season is in seasonal inventory.

Part 6: the startup budget

This plan leases an orchard that's already bearing. Planting one from bare ground means years of care before a full crop, the same problem as the years before a Christmas tree harvest. At $58,800 a year, the $63,000 spent before working cash takes a little over a year to earn back. Keeping apples in a cooler so they last into December is in walk-in cooler organization.

Get the template

Download the apple orchard business plan workbook. Four sheets: your pick-your-own, apples, cider and pies with price, variable cost and September's volume; the year, month by month, with sales, profit and cash, and month 1 set to January; your fixed costs; and your startup budget with working cash. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.

Where this stops working

A dozen varieties ripening a week apart, bins in the cooler by variety and picking date, seconds set aside for cider, jugs back from the mill by the pallet, pies baked every morning, and a farm market open seven days. A notebook can't say how many bushels of Honeycrisp are left in the cooler, which pressing a jug of cider came from, or what a pie costs now that butter went up.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack keeps apples by variety and bin, cider and pies as recipes, and the autumn's batches with their lots.

Apples by variety and bin. Each variety is an item, and each picking a lot with its date, counted in the cooler on a phone, so the Honeycrisp left is a number, picking by picking.

Cider and pies as recipes. A pie is a recipe of apples, crust, sugar and spice; a day's baking is a batch that takes them off stock and gives the pies a lot. Cider back from the mill is received with the mill's lot, so a jug can be traced to its pressing.

What a pie costs. Batches are costed at what the butter and flour cost, and the price creep report shows when a supplier raised prices, so the $20 pie is checked against this autumn's costs.

Counting, lots, recipes and batches are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.

Questions people also ask

How profitable is an apple orchard?

It can be, with pick-your-own. In the example, an eight-acre orchard ends a year about $58,800 ahead on $138,900 of sales, before paying the family, with 70% of the money from pick-your-own; a bad frost year can take most of that.

How much does it cost to start an apple orchard?

In the example, $92,000 to lease an orchard that's already bearing: a used tractor and sprayer, a mower, bins and ladders, a farm market and walk-in cooler, a farm kitchen, signs and website, and $29,000 of working cash to reach August. Planting from bare ground costs more and takes years.

Do you need a license to sell apple cider?

Federal juice rules treat anyone making juice for sale as a processor with a juice HACCP plan, unless they sell only directly to consumers. Unpasteurized cider in a container carries a warning statement. Your state may also license it.

How much should pick-your-own apples cost?

Enough to pay for the growing, priced against nearby orchards. In the example, a half-bushel bag of about 20 pounds sells for $35 and leaves $31.55 after staff, the bag and card fees.