Hot Honey Business Plan, With a Projection

A hot honey business plan doesn't need beehives. A hot honey maker can buy raw honey by the pail, infuse it with dried chilis and a splash of vinegar, strain it and jar it, so the plan is about the price of honey, the label, and who buys. A 12-ounce jar holds about $2.60 of honey and sells for $14; a gallon jug for a pizza restaurant holds $42 of honey and sells for $85. Once honey has chilis in it, it isn't plain honey any more, and the label has to say so. In the example below, a hot honey maker in Nashville sells jars direct and to shops, gallons to restaurants and gift trios, and ends its first year about $17,300 ahead on $61,600 of sales, with the making paid. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, the labeling, the first year month by month, the startup budget, and a free template.

The short version

• Describe the business in a paragraph: the honey, the heat, who buys, the goals.
• Cost a jar from the honey up: honey by the pound, chilis, jar, label, time, fees.
• Honey is the biggest cost; its price moves, so watch it.
• Name it for what it is, such as honey infused with chili peppers, and list every ingredient.
• Keep it dry: dried chilis, a little vinegar, no water-based additions without a process review.
• Restaurants buy by the gallon and reorder every week; shops buy by the case.
• TaroStack keeps the honey by the pound, makes each batch from its recipe, and watches what honey costs. More below.

Part 1: the business description

Cumberland Heat Hot Honey Co., a made-up hot honey maker in Nashville, Tennessee, I use in these examples, writes:

Cumberland Heat Hot Honey Co. infuses raw Tennessee wildflower honey with dried chilis in a commercial kitchen, and sells hot, extra hot and smoked hot honey at Nashville markets, online, to about 30 shops, and by the gallon to pizza and chicken restaurants. In its first year it aims to sell 660 jars a month.

Part 2: naming and labeling

Honey on its own is labeled "honey" and needs no ingredient list. Add anything else and it isn't plain honey: FDA's guidance on honey says a product made of honey and other ingredients needs a name that accurately describes the food, and an ingredient statement listing each ingredient (FDA). That follows from the rule that a food's common or usual name has to describe its basic nature or its characterizing ingredients (21 CFR 102.5). So the jar says what's in it, such as "honey infused with chili peppers", with "honey, chili peppers, apple cider vinegar" underneath, plus the net weight and the other parts of a food label. Honey is low in water, which keeps it stable; fresh peppers, garlic or anything watery change that, so have a process authority look at any recipe that isn't honey and dried chilis. How water activity is measured is in water activity for food makers, and what a reviewer's letter says in process authority letter. This is general information, not legal advice.

Part 3: what a jar costs

Honey bought in 60-pound pails at about $3.50 a pound is the biggest cost of every jar.

A rise of 50 cents a pound in honey adds about 38 cents to every jar and $6 to every gallon. How beekeepers price the honey you're buying is in honey business profit margin.

Part 4: customers and prices

In a month at full speed the direct jars bring $2,493 of the $4,595 of contribution, the shops $1,102, the gift trios $690 and the restaurants $311. The restaurants matter more than their share: a pizza place that drizzles hot honey on every pie reorders every week, and its customers ask where to buy a jar. If you keep bees too, the honey side of the plan is in honey business plan.

Part 5: the first year, month by month

Fixed costs are $1,165 every month: commercial kitchen hours ($500), market fees ($250), insurance ($70), the website ($40), ads ($250), equipment upkeep ($20), and software and card fees ($35). Sales start at 15% of full speed:

The year's sales are $61,625 and the profit $17,300, with the making paid at $20 an hour. A full month uses about 645 pounds of honey, eleven pails, and about 28 hours of infusing and filling.

Part 6: the startup budget

The $6,600 spent before working cash is earned back in month 9, when the cash reaches $7,468.

Get the template

Download the hot honey business plan workbook. Four sheets: your jars, gallons and gift sets 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

Pails of honey from two beekeepers at different prices, three heat levels each infused in its own batch, jars and gallons filled from the same tank, 30 shops and a dozen restaurants reordering. A notebook can't say which beekeeper's honey went into a batch, what this month's jars cost after the honey price went up, or whether there's enough extra hot for the restaurants' Friday order.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack keeps the honey by the pound, makes each batch from its recipe, and watches what honey costs.

Honey by the pound, pail by pail. Each pail is received as a lot with its beekeeper's details and weight, stocked by the pound, so the honey on hand is a number, and each batch records which pails it used.

Batches from a recipe. Each heat level is a recipe of honey, chilis and vinegar, so an infusion takes them off stock and gets a lot of its own, and filling jars or gallons from it is a batch that records the infusion lot it used, automatically. "What could I make right now" says how many jars the honey and glass on hand allow.

What honey costs. Each batch is costed from what its honey actually cost, and a beekeeper's price rises show up in the price-creep report, so a 50-cent rise is seen the week it happens.

Recipes, batches, lots and costing 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 hot honey business profitable?

It can be. In the example, a hot honey maker buying honey by the pail ends its first year about $17,300 ahead on $61,600 of sales, with the making paid.

How do you label hot honey?

As a honey product, not plain honey: a name that describes it, such as honey infused with chili peppers, and an ingredient list, following FDA's guidance on honey labeling, plus the net weight and the other parts of a food label.

Do you need to keep bees to sell hot honey?

No. The example buys raw honey in 60-pound pails at about $3.50 a pound from beekeepers and infuses it.

How much does it cost to start a hot honey business?

In the example, $9,600, with the first 600 pounds of honey, the honey warmer and tank, the first jars and labels and $3,000 of working cash the biggest parts.