A candy business plan sets out what you'll make, who buys it at what price, your state's rules for making it, and the first year month by month, following the candy calendar. Candy sells around holidays, Valentine's Day, Easter, Mother's Day and above all December, and that shapes the plan in a way it doesn't for candles: you can pour candles in September for Christmas, but fudge keeps for weeks, not months, so December's candy has to be made in December. In the example below, a fudge maker sells 650 boxes in December and about a quarter of that in June, makes a profit every month, and ends the year about $16,300 ahead on top of paying for the making. The constraint isn't cash; it's that December takes four times June's hours. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, the projection, the December hours, and a free template.
The short version
- Describe the business in a paragraph: the candy, the customers, the kitchen, the goals.
- Check your state's cottage food rules: many allow fudge from a home kitchen, often with limits.
- Cost a box: ingredients, the box and liner, and your time.
- Price direct, wholesale and gift boxes separately; wholesale fudge leaves little.
- Plan the calendar: February and December carry the year.
- Count December's hours, because shelf life means you can't make it all ahead.
- TaroStack costs every batch, dates every box, and fills next December's plan from this one's sales. More below.
Part 1: the business description
Windward Roots, the made-up taro business I use in these examples, has a small candy line. Its description reads:
Windward Roots Candy makes small-batch fudge, coconut and macadamia, chocolate and lilikoi, in a home kitchen on Oʻahu under the state's cottage food rules. We sell half-pound boxes at Saturday markets and online, wholesale to two gift shops, and one-pound assorted gift boxes for the holidays. Every box carries its batch code and best-by date. In the first year we plan to sell 650 boxes in December.
Part 2: what a box costs
The costs come from how to start a candy business, where one pan of fudge is costed. For the plan, overhead moves to the monthly costs:
| Per box | Half-pound box | One-pound gift box |
|---|---|---|
| Ingredients | $1.51 | $3.02 |
| Box, liner and label | $0.85 | $1.60 |
| Your time, at $20 an hour | $3.48 (10 minutes) | $6.96 (21 minutes) |
| Variable cost, wholesale | $5.84 | |
| Card fee on a direct sale, 3% | $0.36 | $0.78 |
| Variable cost, direct | $6.20 | $12.36 |
Part 3: customers and prices
| Box and channel | Price | Variable cost | Contribution | Boxes in December |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Half-pound box, direct | $12.00 | $6.20 | $5.80 | 300 |
| Half-pound box, wholesale | $7.50 | $5.84 | $1.66 | 200 |
| One-pound gift box | $26.00 | $12.36 | $13.64 | 150 |
"Full speed" here is December. A wholesale box leaves $1.66, a quarter of what a direct box leaves, for the same ten minutes in the kitchen. Wholesale is worth having for reach in the slow months; whether it's worth having in December is the question in Part 6.
Part 4: rules and labels
Fudge and some other candies are allowed under many states' cottage food laws, often with a yearly sales cap, a label stating it was made in a home kitchen, and limits on where you can sell. Check yours first; how is in how to start a cottage food business. The label needs the product name, ingredients, allergens such as milk, soy and tree nuts, net weight, and your name and address. Test your own fudge's shelf life and put a best-by date on every box; in this example it's three weeks.
Part 5: the first year, month by month
The year starts in January, with $365 of fixed costs a month: market booths, insurance, the website and online shop, marketing and samples, software and card fees. Sales follow the candy calendar, with February at 55% of December and the summer at a quarter:
| Month | Half-pound, direct | Half-pound, wholesale | Gift boxes | Sales | Profit | Cash, year to date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 60 | 40 | 30 | $1,800 | $459 | $459 |
| February | 165 | 110 | 83 | $4,963 | $1,907 | $2,365 |
| March | 90 | 60 | 45 | $2,700 | $870 | $3,236 |
| April | 105 | 70 | 53 | $3,163 | $1,083 | $4,319 |
| May | 120 | 80 | 60 | $3,600 | $1,282 | $5,601 |
| June | 75 | 50 | 38 | $2,263 | $671 | $6,272 |
| July | 75 | 50 | 38 | $2,263 | $671 | $6,944 |
| August | 75 | 50 | 38 | $2,263 | $671 | $7,615 |
| September | 90 | 60 | 45 | $2,700 | $870 | $8,485 |
| October | 120 | 80 | 60 | $3,600 | $1,282 | $9,768 |
| November | 225 | 150 | 113 | $6,763 | $2,730 | $12,498 |
| December | 300 | 200 | 150 | $9,000 | $3,753 | $16,251 |
The year's sales are $45,078 and the profit $16,251, with November and December bringing in 35% of the sales. With small fixed costs and profit from the first month, the cash is never the problem.
Part 6: the December hours
| Hours in the kitchen | June | December |
|---|---|---|
| Half-pound boxes, 10 minutes each | 22 | 87 |
| Gift boxes, 21 minutes each | 13 | 52 |
| Total | 35 | 139 |
December needs about 139 hours of making, four times June's 35, plus the market days, and with a three-week best-by date almost all of it falls in the first three weeks of the month. Candles can be poured in September and stored; fudge can't. So December's plan is a time plan:
| In December, each hour earns, beyond $20 | |
|---|---|
| Gift boxes | $39.20 |
| Half-pound boxes, direct | $33.33 |
| Half-pound boxes, wholesale | $9.54 |
When hours are the limit, the wholesale boxes are the first to go: tell the shops by October what you can supply in December, or price December wholesale higher. Booking extra kitchen help for the first three weeks is the other answer. How a week's hours become a plan is in how to calculate production capacity.
Part 7: the startup budget
| Item | Example |
|---|---|
| Candy thermometer, heavy pots and pans | $300 |
| Scale, knives and gloves | $100 |
| Boxes, liners and labels, first 500 | $425 |
| First ingredients | $300 |
| Label design | $250 |
| Cottage food permit or registration | $150 |
| Product liability insurance, first year | $400 |
| Market tent and table | $300 |
| Website | $200 |
| Working cash | $1,000 |
| Total to start | $3,425 |
What a market stall costs over a season is in cost to sell at a farmers market.
Get the template
Download the candy business plan template. Type your boxes with their price, variable cost and monthly volume at full speed, your fixed costs and startup budget, and the share of full speed for each month; it works out each month's sales, profit and cash, the first month with a profit and the lowest cash point. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
In December the plan becomes a daily question: which flavors to make today, so that Saturday's market and Tuesday's shop order both get boxes with enough days left, and which boxes made on the 2nd have to go out first. Six flavors, three box sizes, two shops and a website, with butter and chocolate bought in whatever size the store had, and the cost of a box worked out in October.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack costs every batch, dates every box, and remembers what December looked like.
Every batch, costed and dated. Each fudge is a recipe, with units converted: buy butter by the case, cook by the gram. Recording a batch takes ingredients off stock from the lots used, at what you paid, divides by the boxes that came out good, and puts them into a lot with a best-by date from the item's shelf life. Batch record forms carry your own fields, like the temperature the batch reached, with limits.
Oldest boxes out first. Stock is picked first-expired-first-out, and a customer's days-of-shelf-life rule is kept with the customer, so a shop gets boxes with the life it asked for. Lots close to their date show in your alerts while there's time to sell them.
And next December, from this one. Margins are reported by product and by customer, so December's wholesale boxes show what they really leave. On Standard, planning fills forecasts from your own sales history and checks a week's plan against your hours, so next December's batches start from this December's numbers.
| The question | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| What does a box cost now? | October's sums | Every batch, at what you paid |
| Did the batch reach temperature? | Someone remembers | A batch record field with limits |
| Which boxes go out first? | The ones at the front | First-expired-first-out |
| How much for December? | A guess | Forecasts from your history, on Standard |
Recipes, batches, lots and first-expired-first-out are on every plan, from $49 a month; planning, with forecasts and capacity, is on Standard at $99. 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.