To make granola in bulk, write the recipe by weight as percentages of the mix, size each batch to the smallest thing in the kitchen (the mixer, the pans or the oven), bake every pan the same thickness for the same time, and weigh what comes out. Cups don't scale: a cup of oats packed into a 60-quart bowl isn't a cup of oats on the kitchen table. Done this way, a granola maker that made 4 pounds at a time on two sheet pans makes 120 pounds in a day, and the cost of a 12-ounce bag falls from $9.67 to $3.30. Below is the recipe at three sizes, the steps, the bake loss, what a bag costs at each size, and a free scaling calculator.
The short version
- Weigh every ingredient once and turn the recipe into percentages of the mix.
- Multiply the percentages by the size of the run; the recipe scales to any weight.
- Size a batch to the bottleneck: mixer, pans or oven, whichever fills first.
- Spread every pan the same weight, bake by time and color, stir and turn halfway.
- Weigh what goes in and what comes out, and use your real bake loss to cost a bag.
- Add dried fruit after baking, and let it cool fully before it's bagged.
- TaroStack keeps the recipe by weight, takes each batch's ingredients off stock and checks its yield. More below.
The recipe, by percentage
Cache Valley Granola Co., a made-up granola maker in Logan, Utah, I use in these examples, wrote its recipe in cups for years. Weighed once, it becomes:
| Ingredient | % of the mix | Kitchen batch, 4 lb | One mix, 30 lb | The run, 120 lb | Cost a lb, bought in bulk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rolled oats | 44% | 1.76 lb | 13.2 lb | 52.8 lb | $0.75 |
| Almonds, chopped | 12% | 0.48 lb | 3.6 lb | 14.4 lb | $5.50 |
| Pumpkin seeds | 6% | 0.24 lb | 1.8 lb | 7.2 lb | $4.00 |
| Coconut flakes | 5% | 0.20 lb | 1.5 lb | 6.0 lb | $3.00 |
| Honey | 14% | 0.56 lb | 4.2 lb | 16.8 lb | $3.20 |
| Brown sugar | 4% | 0.16 lb | 1.2 lb | 4.8 lb | $0.90 |
| Sunflower oil | 9% | 0.36 lb | 2.7 lb | 10.8 lb | $1.40 |
| Dried cranberries, after baking | 5% | 0.20 lb | 1.5 lb | 6.0 lb | $3.50 |
| Salt | 0.5% | 0.02 lb | 0.15 lb | 0.6 lb | $0.50 |
| Cinnamon and vanilla | 0.5% | 0.02 lb | 0.15 lb | 0.6 lb | $10.00 |
| The whole mix | 100% | 4 lb | 30 lb | 120 lb |
The 120 pounds of ingredients cost $266.10. Percentages make the recipe one line of arithmetic at any size, and they make a change easy to see: more honey means a percentage goes up and another comes down, not a new recipe card. How percentages work for other recipes is in scaling recipes for production.
The steps, at 120 pounds
- Size the batch to the mixer. A 60-quart mixer takes about 30 pounds of granola mix before the oats spill, so the run is four mixes. Warm the honey and oil together so they coat evenly, and mix the dry ingredients first.
- Weigh each pan. At 2.5 pounds to a full sheet pan, the layer stays thin enough to toast evenly; a heavier pan stays soft in the middle and burns at the edges. The run fills 48 pans.
- Bake by the oven load. Ten pans to a bake is five bakes. Same temperature, same time, stirred and the pans turned halfway, until they're the color you want, not until the timer says so.
- Cool completely. Warm granola bagged seals in its steam and goes soft. Stir in the cranberries once it's cool, so they don't scorch or harden.
- Weigh what comes out. The honey and oats lose water in the oven. Weighed over three runs, Cache Valley's mix loses about 6%, so 120 pounds in is 112.8 pounds out, 150 bags of 12 ounces. How to measure a yield and use it is in batch yield formula.
- Bag by weight, with a lot code. Each bag on a scale, and every bag from the run labeled with the run's lot and date.
The run takes one person about seven and a half hours, mixing the next batch while one bakes, from weighing to the last bag.
What a bag costs at each size
| Per 12 oz bag | Kitchen batch, 4 lb | Bulk run, 120 lb |
|---|---|---|
| Granola | $3.32 (grocery prices) | $1.77 (50 lb sacks and cases) |
| Bag and label | $0.95 | $0.63 |
| Labor at $18 an hour | $5.40 (18 min a bag) | $0.90 (3 min a bag) |
| Cost of a bag | $9.67 | $3.30 |
Two things fall at once. The ingredients nearly halve, because oats at $0.75 a pound in a 50-pound sack replace oats at $2.20 a pound in a bag, and almonds by the case replace almonds by the pound. And the labor falls by five-sixths, because a mixer and a full oven take about the same minutes for 30 pounds as a bowl does for 4. At a $9 retail price, the kitchen batch loses money on every bag; the bulk run leaves room for a shop's margin. How to set those prices is in how to price granola.
Buying and storing in bulk
Fifty-pound sacks of oats and cases of nuts are where the savings come from, and also where the waste comes from. Nuts and seeds go rancid in months in a warm room, so buy them in quantities you'll use, keep them cool and sealed, and use the oldest first. Write the date received on every sack. How to plan the move from a home kitchen to a bigger one is in how to scale up food production.
Get the calculator
Download the granola scaling calculator. Two sheets: scale the recipe, where you type each ingredient's percentage and cost a pound and the raw mix you want, and each ingredient's weight for one mix and the run fills in, with the mixes, pans and bakes, what comes out after the bake loss, the bags it fills and the cost of each bag; and weigh the loss, where what went in and came out over a few runs gives your average bake loss. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Three granolas, each a recipe of the same oats and different nuts, a run every Tuesday and Thursday, 50-pound sacks opened on different days, and a bag of almonds that turned. A sheet can say how much of each ingredient a run needs, but not whether there's enough on the shelf for Thursday, which sack of almonds went into which run, or whether the bake loss has crept from 6% to 9% since the new oven.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps the recipe by weight, takes each batch's ingredients off stock and checks its yield.
The recipe in the units you use. A recipe holds each ingredient by weight, with the oats bought by the 50-pound sack and used by the pound, and the cost of every bag comes from what you paid. "What could I make right now" says how many runs the oats and almonds on the shelf allow.
Each run a batch. A run takes its ingredients off stock, records the lots of oats and almonds it used, and gets a lot of its own for the bags, with how much came out good, how much was rejected and the labor minutes.
Yield checked from history. From your own batch history, TaroStack says whether a recipe yields what it claims and which ingredient's quantity is off, so a bake loss that creeps up shows in the numbers. The almonds that turned are an adjustment with its reason, spoiled, and show in the waste report.
| The job | Spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Ingredients for Thursday's run | Multiply, then check the shelf | What could I make right now |
| Which almonds went into a run | Not written down | Lots recorded on the batch |
| The real bake loss | Weighed now and then | Good and rejected on every batch |
| Nuts that went rancid | Thrown out, forgotten | Adjustment with a reason |
Recipes, batches, lots and yield 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.