Frozen Pizza Business Plan: Grocers, Taverns and Markets

A 12-inch frozen cheese pizza costs about $2.33 in dough, sauce, cheese, box and shrink wrap, and sells to a grocer for $6.50. Cheese is the biggest cost, so its price moves the margin. The plan has to cover freezer space at every step, a blast freezer, frozen storage and a freezer van, and the wages to make, top and wrap pizzas by hand. It also has to decide the toppings: a pizza with meat on it can fall under USDA's meat inspection instead of FDA's, depending on how much meat it carries, so the plan starts with cheese and vegetable pizzas. Taverns that bake from frozen, and farmers markets, fill out the year. The plan below works per pizza. In the example, a Milwaukee frozen pizza maker starts with $72,400, ends its first year about $16,900 ahead before the owner's pay, and makes about $7,000 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 pizzas, who buys, where you make them, the goals.
• Cost each pizza: dough and sauce, cheese and toppings by weight, the box, shrink wrap and label.
• Plan sales by product: grocers, taverns, markets.
• Cheese is the biggest cost; its price moves the margin.
• Meat toppings can bring USDA inspection: start with cheese and vegetable.
• Freezer space at every step: blast freezer, storage, van.
• TaroStack makes each pizza a recipe and each run a batch with its lot. More below.

Part 1: the business description

Bay View Frozen Pizza, a made-up frozen pizza maker in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, writes:

Bay View Frozen Pizza makes thin-crust cheese and vegetable pizzas in a shared commercial kitchen and sells them frozen to twelve independent grocers, to taverns that bake them from frozen, and at a year-round farmers market. In its first year it aims to reach $30,150 of sales a month.

Part 2: what a pizza costs

A cheese pizza carries 6 ounces of mozzarella at $3.00 a pound, $1.13; the dough and sauce together cost less. Taverns get extra cheese and plain shrink wrap, no box. Grocers sell the pizza for about $10.99. Packaging frozen food is in how to package frozen food for sale.

Part 3: customers, the freezer and the meat question

Grocers reorder weekly from the freezer van; taverns take a case or two and bake pizzas to order. Each pizza is topped, blast frozen, shrink wrapped and labeled with ingredients, allergens (wheat and milk), net weight and the business's name. Customers asked for sausage and pepperoni. The owner left them off for now: a food with meat in it is a meat food product under USDA's rules unless the meat is a relatively small proportion of it (9 CFR 301.2), so meat pizzas would need a talk with USDA first, in usda meat inspection requirements.

Part 4: what each product earns

At full speed the business sells $30,150 a month and keeps $19,946, 66.2%; grocer cheese pizzas bring $8,340 of it.

Part 5: the first year, month by month

Fixed costs are $12,900 every month: shared kitchen hours ($2,200), wages for two pizza makers ($8,000), frozen storage ($600), freezer van fuel and upkeep ($500), insurance ($350), store demos ($600), market fees ($200), software ($50), and other costs ($400). Sales start at 35% of full speed:

The year's sales are $259,592, and the business ends it $16,935 ahead, before the owner's pay. It breaks even at about $19,500 of sales a month, in the sixth month. The lowest cash point, −$15,632 in month 5, is covered by the $20,000 of working cash with about $4,400 to spare. Grocers add a pizza one store at a time, and a demo in each new store helps it get tried; frozen pizza sells all year.

Part 6: the startup budget

The $52,400 before working cash is earned back in about 7 months at full speed. A pizzeria selling it hot is in pizza shop business plan, and other frozen foods in frozen food business plan.

Get the template

Download the frozen pizza 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 cheese price. Mozzarella moves by the week, a heavy hand on the topping line adds an ounce a pizza, and which case of pizzas went to which grocer is in a delivery notebook.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack makes each pizza a recipe and each run a batch with its lot, so a cheese price rise and a recall are both on record.

Pizzas as recipes. Each pizza is a recipe by weight: dough, sauce, cheese, toppings, box and wrap, so its cost moves with the cheese price.

Each run a batch. A run is a batch with its date and lot, recording which cheese and flour lots it used and how many pizzas it made.

Recalls. If a lot of cheese is recalled, one report shows which runs used it and every grocer and tavern that got them.

Recipes, batches, lots and recalls 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 frozen pizza business?

The example budgets $72,400, including $20,000 of working cash; the used freezer van is the biggest item.

Is a frozen pizza business profitable?

It can be: the example makes about $7,000 a month at full speed before the owner's pay, and ends its first year ahead.

How much does a frozen pizza cost to make?

In the example, about $2.33 for a 12-inch cheese pizza: 65 cents of dough and sauce, $1.13 of cheese, and 55 cents for the box, wrap and label.

Do I need USDA inspection to sell frozen pizza?

Not for cheese or vegetable pizzas, which FDA and your state cover; a pizza with more than a small proportion of meat is a meat food product under USDA's rules.