Dumpling Business Plan, With a Projection

A dumpling business plan is a plan for folding. The wrapper and filling in a dumpling cost about 13 cents, and folding it takes about fifteen seconds, so a bag of 24 frozen dumplings costs under $7 to make and sell and goes for $16 at a market. Most of the work, and most of the cost after ingredients, is hands, and the freezer is what lets a week's folding sell over a month. In the example below, a dumpling maker in Massachusetts sells frozen bags at markets and online, bags to grocers, pan-fried plates at its market stall, and bulk bags to restaurants, and ends its first year about $27,100 ahead on $92,800 of sales, with every hour paid at $20. Below is a description example, 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 dumplings, who buys, the goals.
• Cost a bag from the wrapper up: wrapper and filling, folding time, bag, freezing, fees.
• The hot plate at the market sells the frozen bags; count the stall's time in it.
• Grocers buy at well under the market price; restaurants buy in bulk.
• A meat filling brings in the meat inspection rules, so this plan's dumplings are vegetable and tofu.
• Date every batch in the freezer and sell the oldest first.
• TaroStack makes each batch from the dough and filling recipes, dates every bag, and shows what's close to its date. More below.

Part 1: the business description

Wollaston Dumpling Co., a made-up dumpling maker in Quincy, Massachusetts, I use in these examples, writes:

Wollaston Dumpling Co. hand-folds cabbage and tofu, chive and egg, and mushroom dumplings in a shared commercial kitchen, freezes them, and sells them at two markets, where it also pan-fries plates to order, online for local pickup, to Asian grocers and specialty shops, and in bulk to restaurants. In its first year it aims to fold 20,000 dumplings a month.

Part 2: what a bag costs

The ingredients are about half of a bag's cost and the folding a third. A faster fold, or a dough sheeter that rolls the wrappers, does more for the margin than cheaper cabbage.

Part 3: customers and prices

In a month at full speed the market plates bring $3,180 of the $7,086 of contribution, the direct bags $2,330, the grocers $1,164 and the restaurants $412. The plates do two jobs: they earn the most, and a customer who's just eaten eight dumplings is the one most likely to take a frozen bag home. What a market stall costs is in cost to sell at a farmers market, and what grocery buyers ask of a new supplier in selling to grocery stores requirements.

Part 4: the first year, month by month

Fixed costs are $1,755 every month: the shared commercial kitchen ($1,000), rented freezer space ($150), market fees ($300), insurance ($80), the website ($40), ads ($150), and software and card fees ($35). Sales start at 15% of full speed:

The year's sales are $92,806 and the profit $27,147, with every hour paid at $20. A full month is about 20,000 dumplings, around 84 hours of folding and 42 at the stall, so the plan adds a folder as it grows. How many bags to keep in the freezer as a cushion is in safety stock formula.

Part 5: the startup budget

The $6,300 spent before working cash is earned back in month 8, when the cash reaches $7,949.

Get the template

Download the dumpling business plan workbook. Four sheets: your bags, plates and bulk with price, variable cost and a month at full speed; the first 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

Three fillings, each made in batches, wrappers rolled by the hundred, bags frozen on different days in two freezers, grocers that want plenty of date left on every bag, and a market stall that needs a thousand dumplings ready by Saturday. A notebook can't say which bags in the freezer are oldest, or whether there's enough mushroom filling for Friday's fold. Which bags go first is in FEFO vs FIFO, and how much date grocers expect in minimum remaining shelf life.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack makes each batch from the dough and filling recipes, dates every bag, and shows what's close to its date.

Recipes inside recipes. A bag of cabbage and tofu dumplings is a recipe made from sub-recipes for the dough and the filling, so each fold takes the flour, cabbage and tofu off stock and is costed from what they cost, with the labor minutes recorded. "What could I make right now" says how many bags the filling on hand allows.

Every bag dated. Each batch gets a lot and a best-by date, recorded automatically, and picking lists put the earliest dates first, so the oldest bags leave the freezer first. Lots close to their date raise an alert.

Grocers and restaurants. Each order is a sales order, with one picking list for the day's deliveries, and the lots each customer got are recorded as it ships.

Recipes, sub-recipes, lots and expiry dates 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 dumpling business profitable?

It can be. In the example, a dumpling maker ends its first year about $27,100 ahead on $92,800 of sales, with every hour paid at $20, and the market plates bringing the most.

How much does it cost to make a dumpling?

In the example, about 13 cents of wrapper and filling and 15 seconds of folding, about 21 cents a dumpling before the bag and fees.

Can I sell frozen dumplings to grocery stores?

Yes, made in a licensed kitchen and labeled for retail. In the example, grocers pay $10 for a bag that sells for $16 at a market. A meat filling brings in the meat inspection rules, so check those before planning on pork.

How much does it cost to start a dumpling business?

In the example, $10,300, with the freezers, the mixer and sheeter, the market setup and $4,000 of working cash the biggest parts.