Banana Pudding Business Plan: Cups, Pans and Restaurants

Banana pudding sells in cups: an 8-ounce cup of homemade vanilla custard, bananas, wafers and whipped cream costs about $1.81 with its cup and card fee and sells for $7 at a pop-up. A 16-ounce cup sells for $12, half pans feed a party, and barbecue and soul food restaurants buy cups for their dessert menu. The plan turns on cold: custard and whipped cream need refrigeration from the kitchen to the customer, which rules out a home kitchen under Alabama's cottage food law; on the bananas, which brown in days; and on preorders, so each batch is close to what's sold. The plan below works per cup. In the example, a Mobile banana pudding maker starts with $22,800, ends its first year about $9,200 ahead before the owner's pay, and makes about $3,300 a month at full speed. Below is each part of the plan, the first year month by month, the startup budget, and a free template.

The short version

• Describe the business in a paragraph: the puddings, who buys, where you make them, the goals.
• Cost each cup: custard and cream, bananas and wafers, the cup and lid, the card fee.
• Plan sales by product: small and large cups, restaurant cups, catering pans.
• It needs refrigeration: a licensed kitchen, coolers, 41°F or below.
• Bananas brown in days: make close to the sale and date every cup.
• Restaurants buying cups every week are the steady part.
• TaroStack costs each cup from its recipe and what each batch used. More below.

Part 1: the business description

Dauphin Street Pudding Co., a made-up banana pudding maker in Mobile, Alabama, writes:

Dauphin Street Pudding Co. makes banana pudding from scratch in a shared commercial kitchen in Mobile and sells 8- and 16-ounce cups at weekend pop-ups and by preorder, cups to six barbecue and soul food restaurants, and half pans for parties. In its first year it aims to reach $12,775 of sales a month.

Part 2: what a cup costs

The custard is milk, eggs, sugar, cornstarch, butter and vanilla, cooked on the stove; the cream is whipped fresh. Wafers are bought by the case. Restaurants sell the cup for $7 to $8 on their own menus. Cups need a label with the ingredients and allergens, milk, egg and wheat at least, in food allergen labeling requirements.

Part 3: keeping it cold, pop-ups and restaurants

Banana pudding needs refrigeration, so Alabama's cottage food law doesn't cover it, as alabama cottage food law shows, and it's made in a shared kitchen. Custard is cooked and chilled the day before; cups are layered the morning of a pop-up or a delivery and held at 41°F or below, in coolers with ice packs at pop-ups and a plug-in cooler in the van, as in hot and cold holding temperatures. Each cup is dated from the owner's own test of how fast the bananas brown and the wafers soften. Restaurants take cups twice a week on a standing order, so their batch is known ahead.

Part 4: what each product earns

At full speed the business sells $12,775 a month and keeps $9,013.25, 70.6%; 8-ounce cups sold direct bring $4,152 of it.

Part 5: the first year, month by month

Fixed costs are $5,710 every month: wages for a part-time helper ($2,800), shared kitchen hours ($1,200), van fuel ($350), pop-up and market fees ($300), insurance ($250), ads ($250), cold storage ($200), website and ordering ($60), software ($50), and other costs ($250). Sales start at 35% of full speed:

The year's sales are $110,136, and the business ends it $9,184 ahead, before the owner's pay. It breaks even at about $8,090 of sales a month, in the sixth month. The lowest cash point, −$6,421 in month 5, is covered by the $8,000 of working cash with about $1,600 to spare. Summer pop-ups sell the most cups; restaurant orders and holiday pans hold the winter.

Part 6: the startup budget

The $14,800 before working cash is earned back in about 4 months at full speed. Another dessert that needs the cooler is in cheesecake business plan, and one sold by the slice and whole in pie business plan.

Get the template

Download the banana pudding business plan workbook. Four sheets: your products, each with its price, variable cost and units a month at full speed; the first year, month by month, with sales ramping up, profit, cash, the first profitable month, the lowest cash point and whether the working cash covers it; your fixed costs; and the startup budget. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.

Where this stops working

The plan uses one cost per cup. Banana and milk prices move, a hot pop-up sells out or leaves a cooler full, and how many cups were made, sold and thrown out each week is what sets the next batch.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack costs each cup from its recipe and from what each batch used.

Recipes by weight. Each cup is a recipe, with unit conversion from the case or sack to the gram.

True cost from the batch. Each batch takes ingredients at their real cost, from the deliveries they came from, so a price rise shows up in the next batch.

Price creep. A price-creep report per supplier shows which ingredient is quietly costing more.

Recipes, batches and true cost 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 much does it cost to start a banana pudding business?

The example budgets $22,800, including $8,000 of working cash; the used minivan is the biggest item.

Is a banana pudding business profitable?

It can be: the example makes about $3,300 a month at full speed before the owner's pay, and ends its first year ahead.

How much does a cup of banana pudding cost to make?

In the example, about $1.81 for an 8-ounce cup with its cup, lid and card fee, sold for $7.

Can I sell banana pudding from home?

It depends on the state: Alabama's cottage food law doesn't allow it, since it needs refrigeration; Tennessee's allows it, sold face to face.