Biltong Business Plan: Costs, USDA Rules and a Projection

A biltong business plan sets out the products and who buys them, what each bag costs, the rules, and the year month by month. Biltong is beef marinated in vinegar and spices and air-dried, so a pound of raw beef becomes well under half a pound of biltong, and the beef is most of the cost. The rules come first, because biltong is a meat product: to sell it to shops or online, you make it in a USDA-inspected establishment with a HACCP plan whose drying process is shown to kill pathogens, which FSIS's jerky guideline for small plants explains. A state-inspected plant can sell inside its state. A retail shop can make it from inspected beef and sell it to its own customers under the retail store exemption, but not wholesale. In the example below, a Raleigh biltong maker loses money for three months, needs about $2,000 to get through them, and ends the year about $19,700 ahead on $127,500 of sales, after paying $20 an hour for the making. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, the rules, the year, the startup budget, and a free template.

The short version

• Describe the business in a paragraph: the products, where you sell, the plant, the goals.
• Cost each bag: beef at its dried yield, spices and vinegar, bag and label, time, card fees.
• The beef is the big line; a pound of raw beef makes well under half a pound of biltong.
• Shops and online sales need a USDA-inspected plant; state inspection covers in-state sales.
• The HACCP plan has to show the drying process kills pathogens; a dehydrator at 130 to 140°F doesn't.
• A retail shop can make biltong under the retail exemption, for its own customers only.
• Wholesale to shops brings volume; bags sold direct leave the most.
• TaroStack keeps each batch's yield, its true cost, and where every lot went. More below.

Part 1: the business description

Highveld Biltong Co., a made-up biltong maker in Raleigh, North Carolina, I use in these examples, writes:

Highveld Biltong Co. makes South African biltong and droewors from a family recipe, in a small room we rent and run under our own USDA grant of inspection. We sell at two markets, online across the country, and wholesale to specialty shops. Every bag carries its batch code.

Part 2: what each bag costs

Beef at $7.00 a pound raw and a 45% dried yield is $15.56 a pound of biltong, $1.94 for 2 ounces. Droewors, the dried sausage, uses trim and fat, which cost less. How a batch's yield sets its cost is in batch yield formula.

Part 3: customers and prices

Shops take the most bags and leave the least on each; direct bags leave two and a half times as much. How margin and markup differ is in markup vs margin.

Part 4: the rules

An inspected establishment's HACCP plan, under 9 CFR part 417, has to show its process makes the product safe. FSIS's compliance guideline for jerky made in small plants sets out the key steps and the scientific support a dried meat process needs. FSIS's jerky page names biltong as a dried meat and warns that pathogens are likely to survive the 130 to 140°F of a food dehydrator, which is why the drying is validated, not guessed. The retail exemption is 9 CFR 303.1(d), explained in butcher shop business plan. This is general information, not legal advice.

Part 5: the year, month by month

Fixed costs are $3,920 a month: plant space with a cooler ($2,500), utilities for the drying room ($400), insurance ($150), lab tests for water activity and pathogens ($250), HACCP help ($150, averaged), market fees ($160), the website ($50), software ($60) and marketing ($200). Sales start at 35% of full speed:

The year's sales are $127,484 and the profit $19,665, on top of $20 an hour for the making. The lowest cash point is −$1,979 in month 3. Biltong takes days to dry, so beef is bought and paid for before it sells, which is why the budget carries $6,000 of working cash.

Part 6: the startup budget

How a smoked meat's HACCP plan looks is in bacon HACCP plan.

Get the template

Download the biltong business plan template. Four sheets: products with price, variable cost and units at full speed; the year month by month with a ramp you can change; 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

Every batch of biltong loses a different share of its weight, so its true cost moves with the beef and the drying. A plan's 45% yield doesn't say what this week's silverside made, or which shops got the batch with the low reading.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack keeps each batch's yield, its true cost, and where every lot went.

Each batch a lot. A batch of biltong records the beef lots it used, automatically, gets its own lot and dates, and lot labels print for the bags.

Yield from your own batches. TaroStack shows from your batch history whether the yield in your recipe holds, so the cost of a bag follows what the drying really lost.

Where it went. Each shop's order records the lots it got, so one recall report shows every customer a batch reached, and margins show by product and by customer.

Recipes, batches, lots 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

Is a biltong business profitable?

It can be: in the example, $19,665 on $127,484 of sales in the first year, after paying $20 an hour for the making, with bags sold direct leaving the most.

Do you need USDA approval to sell biltong?

To sell to shops or online across state lines, yes: it's made in a USDA-inspected establishment with a HACCP plan. A state-inspected plant covers in-state sales, and a retail shop can sell its own to its customers.

Can I make biltong at home to sell?

Generally not. Cottage food laws generally exclude meat, so biltong for sale is made in an inspected establishment or a retail shop under the exemption.

How much does it cost to start a biltong business?

In the example, $34,000, including drying cabinets, a slicer, a water activity meter, process validation and $6,000 of working cash.