Egg Roll Business Plan: A Truck, Frozen Packs and Trays

A specialty egg roll, cheesesteak, buffalo chicken, or vegetable, is wrapped, fried and sold hot, and one costs about $1.85 with its oil, boat, sauce and card fee and sells for $6 from a truck. Three with sauces make a meal for $15, frozen packs of vegetable egg rolls sell in grocers, and party trays of 50 go to offices and graduations. The plan turns on wrapping hands, since every roll is rolled by hand the morning of service; the truck and its commissary; and the meat rule: egg rolls with meat sold hot from the truck are retail food, but frozen packs with meat sold to a grocer would need USDA inspection, so the grocer gets vegetable ones. The plan below works per egg roll. In the example, a Philadelphia egg roll truck starts with $75,500, ends its first year about $473 ahead before the owner's pay, and makes about $4,000 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 egg rolls, the stops, who buys, the goals.
• Cost each roll: the wrapper, the filling, the oil, the boat and sauce, the card fee.
• Plan sales by product: single rolls, three-roll meals, frozen packs, party trays.
• Fillings are most of a specialty roll's cost.
• Frozen packs for grocers: vegetable, or USDA inspection for meat.
• Commissary, propane and permits are fixed costs.
• TaroStack costs each egg roll from its recipe and what each batch used. More below.

Part 1: the business description

Two Street Egg Rolls, a made-up egg roll truck in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, writes:

Two Street Egg Rolls runs a truck at two weekday lunch stops and weekend events in Philadelphia, selling specialty egg rolls singly and three to a meal, sells frozen six-packs of vegetable egg rolls to four Asian grocers, and makes party trays. In its first year it aims to reach $20,400 of sales a month.

Part 2: what an egg roll costs

The cheesesteak roll holds shaved beef, onions and American cheese; a three-roll meal mixes fillings, about $1.10 each on average. A vegetable roll is cabbage, carrots, scallions and glass noodles, about 15 cents of filling. A party tray of 50 is $150 and costs about $59 with its tray. The grocer sells the frozen pack for about $9.99; bags and labels for frozen food are in how to package frozen food for sale.

Part 3: the truck, the grocers and the meat rule

The truck works two weekday lunch stops and weekend events, wrapping each morning at its commissary. Frozen packs are wrapped, flash-fried, cooled, bagged and frozen on Mondays and delivered every two weeks. Fillings with beef or chicken stay on the truck: a product with meat sold to another business has to be made under inspection, in usda meat inspection requirements. The truck's permits are in food truck license.

Part 4: what each product earns

At full speed the business sells $20,400 a month and keeps $14,128, 69.3%; single specialty egg rolls bring $6,225 of it.

Part 5: the first year, month by month

Fixed costs are $10,100 every month: wages for two on the truck ($7,000), commissary ($1,200), propane and fuel ($600), permits and event fees ($400), insurance ($350), freezer storage ($150), software ($50), and other costs ($350). Sales start at 35% of full speed:

The year's sales are $175,695, and the business ends it $473 ahead, before the owner's pay. It breaks even at about $14,580 of sales a month, in the seventh month. The lowest cash point, −$16,088 in month 6, is covered by the $18,000 of working cash with about $1,900 to spare. Cold weeks thin the lunch lines; the frozen packs and trays keep selling when the truck stays home.

Part 6: the startup budget

The $57,500 before working cash is earned back in about 14 months at full speed. Another hand-wrapped favorite is in lumpia business plan, and another truck in taco truck business plan.

Get the template

Download the egg roll 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 cost per egg roll. Beef and cheese prices move by the week, a busy event runs out of one filling by noon, and which frozen packs are oldest at a grocer is anyone's guess.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack costs each egg roll from its recipe and from what each batch used.

Recipes by weight. Each egg roll is a recipe, with unit conversion from the case or sack to the gram.

True cost from the batch. Each batch takes ingredients at their real cost, from the deliveries they came from, so a price rise shows up in the next batch.

Price creep. A price-creep report per supplier shows which ingredient is quietly costing more.

Recipes, batches and true cost 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 an egg roll business?

The example budgets $75,500, including $18,000 of working cash; the used food truck is the biggest item.

Is an egg roll business profitable?

It can be: the example makes about $4,000 a month at full speed before the owner's pay, and ends its first year ahead.

How much does an egg roll cost to make?

In the example, about $1.85 for a cheesesteak egg roll with its oil, boat, sauce and card fee, and about 33 cents for a frozen vegetable one.

Can I sell frozen egg rolls to grocery stores?

Vegetable egg rolls from a licensed kitchen, labeled; egg rolls with meat sold to a store have to be made under USDA or state inspection.