A granola business plan sets out what you'll make, who will buy it and at what price, where you'll bake it, and the first year month by month. Granola is easier to plan than most food businesses because almost nothing is fixed: you pay for kitchen hours and ingredients as you bake, so the business can be profitable early. The plan's real questions are whether you can get enough stores to carry it, and whether the wholesale margin is wide enough to be worth the volume. In the example below, a granola maker reaches 300 retail bags and 600 wholesale bags a month by month 11, makes a monthly profit from month 2, and ends the year about $17,400 ahead, on top of paying $20 an hour for every baking hour. It needs about 25 stores to get there. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, the projection, and a free template.
The short version
- Describe the business in one paragraph: the granola, the customers, where you bake, the year's goals.
- Cost a bag: ingredients by what comes out of the oven, the pouch and label, labor and kitchen hours.
- Price for three channels: retail, wholesale to stores, and bulk to cafés.
- Count the stores you need: wholesale is where the volume comes from.
- Project 12 months with sales ramping up as stores come on.
- Watch the wholesale margin: one promotion can take a third of it.
- TaroStack costs every batch from what you paid and tracks each store's orders. More below.
Part 1: the business description
Windward Roots, the made-up taro business I use in these examples, starts a granola line. Its description reads:
Windward Roots Granola makes small-batch macadamia and pineapple granola on Oʻahu, sold in 12 oz bags at farmers markets and online, wholesale to independent grocers and gift shops, and in 5 lb bulk bags to cafés. We bake in a rented commercial kitchen two days a week, using macadamia nuts and dried pineapple from island suppliers. In the first year we plan to be on the shelves of 25 stores and to sell 900 bags a month by month 11.
Part 2: what a bag costs
The costs come from how to price granola, where the batch is worked through:
| Per 12 oz bag | Cost |
|---|---|
| Granola, 0.34 kg at $7.65 a kg baked | $2.60 |
| Pouch with zipper, and label | $0.52 |
| Labor, 4 hours at $20, over 87 bags | $0.92 |
| Kitchen, 4 hours at $25, over 87 bags | $1.15 |
| Cost per bag | $5.19 |
Granola loses weight in the oven, so the cost per kilogram comes from what comes out, not what goes in. Because the kitchen and labor are paid per batch, they belong in the cost per bag, and the fixed costs stay small.
Part 3: customers and prices
| Channel | Price | Cost | Contribution | Bags a month at full speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retail, markets and online | $12.50 | $5.19 | $7.31 | 300 |
| Wholesale to stores | $7.50 | $5.19 | $2.31 | 600 |
| Bulk 5 lb bags to cafés | $42.00 | $31.56 | $10.44 | 20 |
Six hundred wholesale bags a month is about 25 stores taking two cases of 12. That's the number the plan has to make believable: which stores, how you'll reach them, and what each one asks for, from a barcode to a demo day. What stores ask of a new supplier is in requirements for selling food to grocery stores.
Part 4: operations
| Area | In the plan |
|---|---|
| Kitchen | A rented commercial kitchen, two days a week, booked ahead |
| Suppliers | Oats, nuts, honey, dried fruit and pouches: who, minimums, lead times |
| Batches | Size, yield, and a lot code and best-by date on every bag |
| Delivery | Stores and cafés by route, once a week |
| Records | Each batch's ingredient lots, so a supplier's recall can be traced |
Part 5: the first year, month by month
Sales start at 15% of full speed and reach 100% by month 11, against $700 of fixed costs a month: insurance, four market Saturdays, the website, marketing and samples, delivery, and a storage shelf at the kitchen.
| Month | Sales | Contribution | Profit | Cash, year to date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $1,364 | $568 | −$132 | −$132 |
| 2 | $1,818 | $758 | $58 | −$74 |
| 3 | $2,273 | $947 | $247 | $173 |
| 4 | $2,727 | $1,136 | $436 | $609 |
| 5 | $3,636 | $1,515 | $815 | $1,424 |
| 6 | $4,545 | $1,894 | $1,194 | $2,618 |
| 7 | $5,454 | $2,273 | $1,573 | $4,191 |
| 8 | $6,363 | $2,651 | $1,951 | $6,142 |
| 9 | $7,272 | $3,030 | $2,330 | $8,472 |
| 10 | $8,181 | $3,409 | $2,709 | $11,181 |
| 11 | $9,090 | $3,788 | $3,088 | $14,269 |
| 12 | $9,090 | $3,788 | $3,088 | $17,357 |
With so little fixed, the plan's risk isn't cash; it's the margin on wholesale. A store's 10% promotion is 75 cents a bag, a third of the $2.31, and a batch that yields 80 bags instead of 87 adds about 41 cents to every bag. How to see a batch's real yield is in batch costing example.
Part 6: the startup budget
| Item | Example |
|---|---|
| Kitchen deposit and first month's booking | $800 |
| Label design and nutrition analysis | $700 |
| First 1,000 pouches and labels | $520 |
| Ingredients for test batches | $250 |
| Scale and heat sealer | $300 |
| License and permits | $400 |
| Market tent and table | $300 |
| Barcodes from GS1, for stores | $250 |
| Website | $300 |
| Working cash | $2,000 |
| Total to start | $5,820 |
Get the template
Download the granola business plan template. Type your products with their price, cost and monthly volume at full speed, your fixed costs and startup budget, and how fast stores will come on; it works out each month's sales, profit and cash, the first month with a profit, and the lowest cash point. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
The plan's $5.19 bag holds for the first batch. Then macadamia nuts go up, a new oven runs hotter and the yield drops, two stores take a promotion in the same month, and the pouches are reordered at a different price. The plan doesn't show any of it, so the wholesale line quietly earns less than $2.31 while the volume grows.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps the cost of every bag and the orders of every store real, from the first batch.
Every batch, costed by what came out. The granola is a recipe, with units converted: buy oats by the 50 lb bag, use them by the kilogram. Record a batch and TaroStack takes the ingredients off stock from the lots used, at what you paid, and divides by the bags that came out good, so yield and price changes land in the cost per bag the day they happen. Recipe truth shows if a batch keeps yielding less than it should.
Every store, its orders and its margin. Each store and café is a customer with its sales orders, picking list and delivery note. Margins are reported by product and by customer on what each bag actually cost, so a store whose promotions eat the margin is visible.
And the bags are traceable. Each batch goes into a lot with a best-by date, sold first-expired-first-out, and one report walks any lot to the stores that got it and back to the nut and oat lots inside.
| The plan's line | In the spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per bag | $5.19, from the first batch | Every batch, by what came out |
| Wholesale margin | $2.31, assumed | Margins by customer |
| Stores and their orders | A list | Customers and sales orders |
| A recalled ingredient | Search the notebook | One report, lot to store |
Lots, recipes, batches, customers and margins are on every plan, from $49 a month; planning is on Standard at $99. 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.