Crackers Business Plan: Seeded Crackers for Cheese Shops

Crackers ride along with cheese: cheese shops, specialty grocers and restaurants building boards want something better than a supermarket sleeve. A box of seeded crackers costs under a dollar in seeds and flour; the rolling, baking and boxing time and the box are the rest. Wholesale to cheese shops is where the volume is, at about half the retail price. The plan turns on hours in a shared kitchen, a sheeter that saves rolling time, and enough shops to fill the week. In the example, a Madison cracker maker starts with $13,800, ends its first year about $18,900 ahead before the owner's pay, and makes about $2,900 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 crackers, the shops, the goals.
• Cost each box: seeds and flour, the box and liner, the time, the card fee.
• Plan sales by product: direct boxes, shop boxes, restaurant bags, gift packs.
• Cheese shops are the volume: price wholesale to leave a margin.
• A shared kitchen and a sheeter keep the start small.
• Crackers keep for weeks: plan the bakes around orders.
• TaroStack makes each cracker a recipe and each batch a lot. More below.

Part 1: the business description

Seedhouse Crackers, a made-up cracker maker in Madison, Wisconsin, writes:

Seedhouse Crackers bakes seeded rye, rosemary and everything crackers in a shared kitchen in Madison, selling boxes at a Saturday market and online, wholesale to cheese shops and specialty grocers across Wisconsin, two-pound bags to restaurants for cheese boards, and gift packs. In its first year it aims to reach $9,480 of sales a month.

Part 2: what a box costs

Labor is three minutes a box at $20 an hour: rolling, baking, breaking and boxing. Cheese shops pair the crackers with what they sell, in cheese shop business plan.

Part 3: customers, the kitchen and the shops

Two bake days a week in the shared kitchen: mix, sheet, dock, bake, cool and break. Shops order by the case of 12 every two weeks; the market and online orders take the rest. Crackers keep for weeks in a sealed box, so bakes follow the orders rather than the calendar. Another snack sold to shops is in potato chips business plan.

Part 4: what each product earns

At full speed the business sells $9,480 a month and keeps $4,809.20, 50.7%; shop boxes bring $2,400 of it.

Part 5: the first year, month by month

Fixed costs are $1,880 every month: shared kitchen hours ($1,200), delivery fuel ($150), insurance ($150), market fees ($120), storage shelf ($60), software ($50), and other costs ($150). Sales start at 35% of full speed:

The year's sales are $81,648, and the business ends it $18,860 ahead, before the owner's pay. It breaks even at about $3,710 of sales a month, in the second month. The lowest cash point, −$197 in month 1, is covered by the $5,000 of working cash with about $4,800 to spare. Shop orders build as the maker calls on more cheese shops; the plan starts at about a third of full speed and fills the two bake days by the end of the year.

Part 6: the startup budget

The $8,800 before working cash is earned back in about 3 months at full speed. A granola maker's version is in granola business plan, and pricing a box in how to price granola, which works the same way.

Get the template

Download the crackers 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 batch size and one seed price. Sesame that doubles, a bake that comes out too dark, and three flavors that sell differently change the month, and the shops want the newest boxes.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack makes each cracker a recipe and each batch a lot, so its true cost follows the price of seeds and flour.

Recipes by weight. Each cracker is a recipe by weight, with seeds and flour bought by the case or sack and used by the gram.

Each batch a lot. Each batch records the ingredient lots it used, gets its own lot and date, and counts what came out good.

Orders and the oldest first. Shop and market orders are sales orders, and the oldest lots go out first by default.

Recipes, batches, lots and orders 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 cracker business?

The example budgets $13,800, including $5,000 of working cash; the sheeter is the biggest item.

Is a cracker business profitable?

It can be: the example makes about $2,900 a month at full speed before the owner's pay, and ends its first year ahead.

How much does a box of crackers cost to make?

In the example, about $2.50 before the card fee: 95 cents of seeds and flour, 55 cents for the box and liner, and three minutes of work.

Do cheese shops buy local crackers?

In the example, yes: cheese shops and specialty grocers take 1,200 boxes a month at $4.50, about half of retail.