Dried Fruit Business Plan, With a 12-Month Projection

A dried fruit business plan sets out what you'll dry and who buys it, what a bag costs and sells for, the equipment it needs, and the first year month by month. The number that runs the whole plan is the yield: drying takes out most of the weight, so a 2-ounce bag of apple chips starts as almost a pound of fresh apples, and a 3-ounce bag of mango as about three pounds of whole fruit. Cheap fruit with a good yield pays; expensive fruit with a poor one barely does; and fruit leather made from bruised seconds pays best of all. In the example below, a maker in Fresno sells apple chips direct and wholesale, dried mango and fruit leather, makes a profit from month 4, and ends the year about $12,500 ahead on $50,300 of sales, after paying $20 an hour for the work. Below is a description example, the yields, each part of the plan, the projection, the startup budget, and a free template.

The short version

• Describe the business in a paragraph: what you dry, where you sell, the kitchen, the goals.
• Know each fruit's yield: fresh pounds in, dried ounces out.
• Cost a bag from the fresh fruit up, with the slicing and packing time.
• Fruit leather from seconds is the best earner; whole-fruit mango the weakest.
• Wholesale apple chips leave little; price them from the cost, not the competition.
• Budget for commercial dehydrators before the first market.
• TaroStack keeps each batch with its fruit lot and yield, and costs it from what it used. More below.

Part 1: the business description

Central Valley Dried Fruit Co., a made-up dried fruit maker in Fresno, California, I use in these examples, writes:

Central Valley Dried Fruit Co. dries apple chips, mango and fruit leather in a licensed kitchen, buying fruit from local growers, including their bruised seconds for leather. We sell at two farmers markets, online and wholesale to local grocers and cafés. Every bag carries a lot code and a best-by date. In our first year we plan to supply 15 grocers.

Part 2: yields and what a bag costs

Mango loses its skin and pit before it loses its water, which is why it takes so much more fruit. Then the cost:

How a loss in weight turns into a cost per finished unit is the same arithmetic as roasting coffee, laid out in roast loss and cost per bag.

Part 3: customers and prices

Fruit leather leaves the most, $4.15 a pack, because its fruit is bruised seconds bought cheap. Mango leaves $3.25 on a $9 bag; at $3.75 of fruit, a jump in mango prices takes the margin with it. Wholesale apple chips are the biggest line and leave 91 cents a bag: they keep the dehydrators full, but they're the first price to raise. How to set a wholesale price that holds up is in how to price handmade items for wholesale.

Part 4: the first year, month by month

Fixed costs are $975 a month: the kitchen lease ($600), insurance ($50), market fees ($150), the website and online shop ($40), software and card fees ($35), and marketing ($100). Sales start at 15% of full speed and reach it by month 11:

The year's sales are $50,320 and the profit $12,542, on top of $20 an hour for the work. Fresh fruit is seasonal, so buying apples in the fall, when they're cheapest, and drying ahead is part of the plan; dried fruit keeps far longer than fresh. How buying ahead of a season ties up cash is in seasonal inventory.

Part 5: the startup budget

Whether dried fruit can be made at home for sale depends on your state's cottage food rules, which often include dried fruit; this plan uses a licensed kitchen to sell wholesale. Fruit treated with sulfites to keep its color has to declare them on the label; a lemon dip doesn't use them.

Get the template

Download the dried fruit 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

Fruit from four growers, bought by the case at prices that change with the season, dried in batches whose yields vary with the fruit's ripeness, and bagged for markets, an online shop and 15 grocers. A notebook can't say what a bag cost when the apples were cheap in October and dear in April, or which grower's fruit is in the bags a grocer has.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack keeps each batch with its fruit and its yield.

Batches with their yield. Each product is a recipe, fresh fruit by the pound with the yield it should give, and units convert: apples bought by the case, used by the pound. Recording a batch takes the fruit off stock from the lots used, at what you paid, and divides by the bags that came out, so a batch that dried down further than usual shows in its cost. Recipe truth shows, from your own batches, whether the yield you planned is the yield you get.

Fruit lots to customers. Every batch goes into a lot with its code and best-by date, and one report walks a grower's fruit lot to every bag and every customer who got it.

And the grocers' orders. Grocer reorders are sales orders that show whether the bags to fill them are on the shelf 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 a dried fruit business profitable?

It can be. In the example, a maker selling apple chips direct and wholesale, dried mango and fruit leather ends the first year about $12,500 ahead on $50,300 of sales, with $20 an hour paid for the work.

How much fresh fruit does it take to make dried fruit?

It depends on the fruit. In the example, 14 ounces of apples make a 2-ounce bag of chips, about 7 to 1, and 3.1 pounds of whole mangoes make a 3-ounce bag, about 16 to 1.

What dried fruit is most profitable to sell?

In the example, fruit leather made from bruised seconds, which leaves $4.15 a pack. Fruit that dries down a lot, or costs a lot fresh, like mango, leaves less.

How much should I charge for dried fruit?

Cost a bag from the fresh fruit up, with your time, then price each channel. In the example, a 2-ounce bag of apple chips costing $2.19 sells for $5 direct and $3 wholesale.