Edible Cookie Dough Business Plan, With a Projection

An edible cookie dough business plan sets out what you'll make and where you'll sell it, what a tub and a scoop cost, the food safety that makes raw dough edible, and the first year month by month. Edible cookie dough is cookie dough made to be eaten unbaked, which means two changes from a home recipe: no raw eggs, and flour that's been heat-treated, because flour is a raw food that can carry harmful bacteria. It's sold by the tub, by the scoop at events, and to cafés and grocers, and it's kept cold. In the example below, a dessert maker in Richmond, Virginia, sells tubs direct and wholesale, scoops at events and party packs, makes a profit from month 2, and ends the year about $22,100 ahead on $62,400 of sales, after paying $20 an hour for the work. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, the flour and the cold, the projection, the startup budget, and a free template.

The short version

• Describe the business in a paragraph: what you make, where you sell, the kitchen, the goals.
• Use commercially heat-treated flour and no raw eggs; don't heat-treat flour at home.
• Cost a tub from the flour up: butter and chocolate are the biggest ingredients.
• Price tubs, event scoops, wholesale tubs and party packs separately.
• Event scoops carry the staff at the table; price them for a slow day.
• Keep it cold, and plan on a licensed kitchen.
• TaroStack keeps every batch with its lot and date, and the flour lot on each. More below.

Part 1: the business description

Riverbend Dough Co., a made-up dessert maker in Richmond, Virginia, I use in these examples, writes:

Riverbend Dough Co. makes edible cookie dough with heat-treated flour and no eggs in a commercial kitchen, sold in tubs online and at markets, by the scoop at events, wholesale to cafés and grocers, and in party packs. Every tub carries its batch date. In our first year we plan to supply 15 cafés and grocers.

Part 2: what a tub costs

Heat-treated flour costs more than ordinary flour, about $2.40 a pound here, but butter and chocolate chips are still the biggest lines in a tub. At events, one person at the table for five hours is $100 over about 100 scoops. How to put labor into the cost of anything you make is in how to compute labor cost in baking.

Part 3: customers and prices

A wholesale tub leaves $2.34, less than half a direct one, but cafés and grocers sell every day. An event scoop leaves $2.77 on a typical day; on a slow day the table's staff is spread over fewer scoops, so the price shouldn't be cut to draw a crowd. How to set a wholesale price that holds up is in how to price baked goods for wholesale.

Part 4: the flour and the cold

Flour is a raw food: it can carry harmful bacteria like Salmonella and E. coli, and the FDA advises against trying to heat-treat flour at home, because home methods may not kill them (FDA). So the plan buys flour that's been heat-treated commercially, keeps each delivery's lot number, and uses no raw eggs. The dough is made with butter and milk and kept refrigerated, which usually puts it outside cottage food rules written for room-temperature foods, so this plan uses a commercial kitchen; check your state's rules. Wheat, milk and soy in the chocolate are the allergens to declare, plus nuts in any mix-ins. How cottage food rules work is in how to start a cottage food business.

Part 5: the first year, month by month

Fixed costs are $985 a month: commercial kitchen time ($500), cold storage ($100), event and market fees averaged over the year ($250), insurance ($60), the website and online shop ($40), and software and card fees ($35). Sales start at 15% of full speed and reach it by month 11:

The year's sales are $62,424 and the profit $22,119, on top of $20 an hour for the work.

Part 6: the startup budget

Get the template

Download the edible cookie dough business plan workbook. Four sheets: your products with price, variable cost and monthly volume at full speed; the year, month by month, with sales, profit and cash; 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

Eight flavors, tubs dated by batch, a refrigerator shared between retail tubs and wholesale orders, and heat-treated flour bought from one supplier. If that supplier recalls a lot of flour, a notebook can't say which batches used it or which cafés got tubs from them.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack keeps every batch with its flour lot.

Batches with their lots. Each flavor is a recipe, and units convert: heat-treated flour bought by the 50-pound bag, weighed by the gram. Recording a batch takes the flour, butter, chips and tubs off stock from the lots used, at what you paid, notes the lots automatically, and gives the tubs a lot and best-by date.

One report, flour lot to customer. If a flour supplier recalls a lot, one report walks it to every batch it went into and every café, grocer and online customer who got tubs from them. Picking takes the oldest tubs first, and lots close to their date show in your alerts.

And the orders. Café and grocer orders are sales orders that show whether the tubs to fill them are in the refrigerator while you're still typing, and margins are reported by product and by customer.

Recipes, batches, lots, recalls and margins by product and customer 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 edible cookie dough safe to sell?

It's made safe to eat raw by using commercially heat-treated flour and no raw eggs, and by keeping it cold. The FDA advises against heat-treating flour at home, because home methods may not kill harmful bacteria.

How much does it cost to make edible cookie dough?

In the example, $1.76 of ingredients in an 8-ounce tub, and $3.33 in all sold direct, with the tub, mixing and portioning time and the card fee.

How much should I charge for edible cookie dough?

Cost it with your time, then price each channel. In the example, an 8-ounce tub sells for $9 direct and $5.50 wholesale, and a 4-ounce scoop at events for $5.

Is an edible cookie dough business profitable?

It can be. In the example, a maker selling tubs, event scoops, wholesale and party packs ends the first year about $22,100 ahead on $62,400 of sales, with $20 an hour paid for the work.