Hummus scales by weight: chickpeas, tahini, lemon and the rest as percentages of the batch, so the same recipe makes 5 pounds or 300. Cook dried chickpeas in a steam kettle instead of opening cans, blend in a vertical cutter mixer that does 50 pounds at a time, cool it fast, because hummus is a refrigerated food, and fill every tub by weight. Done this way, a hummus maker that blended 5 pounds in a food processor makes about 470 tubs in a day, and the cost of a 10-ounce tub falls from $4.40 to $1.84. Below is the recipe at three sizes, the steps, the loss, what a tub costs at each size, and a free scaling calculator.
The short version
- Write the recipe as percentages by weight: tahini 15% in the example.
- Cook dried chickpeas in a steam kettle; they cost a fraction of canned.
- Blend in a vertical cutter mixer, 50 pounds at a time.
- Cool fast: hummus needs refrigeration.
- Fill every tub by weight.
- Tahini is most of the ingredient cost; watch its price.
- TaroStack keeps the recipe by weight, takes each batch's ingredients off stock and checks its yield. More below.
The recipe, by percentage
Cedar and Lemon Hummus, the made-up hummus maker in Dearborn, Michigan, I use in these examples, blended 5 pounds at a time in a food processor until eight grocers took it on. Its recipe, weighed:
| Ingredient | % of the mix | Kitchen batch, 5 lb | One batch, 50 lb | The run, 300 lb | Cost a lb, bought in bulk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cooked chickpeas | 48% | 2.40 lb | 24.0 lb | 144.0 lb | $0.50 |
| Tahini | 15% | 0.75 lb | 7.50 lb | 45.0 lb | $5.70 |
| Water and cooking liquid | 22% | 1.10 lb | 11.0 lb | 66.0 lb | $0.00 |
| Lemon juice | 7% | 0.35 lb | 3.50 lb | 21.0 lb | $1.50 |
| Olive oil | 5% | 0.25 lb | 2.50 lb | 15.0 lb | $4.00 |
| Garlic | 2% | 0.10 lb | 1.00 lb | 6.00 lb | $2.50 |
| Salt | 1% | 0.05 lb | 0.50 lb | 3.00 lb | $0.30 |
| The whole mix | 100% | 5 lb | 50 lb | 300 lb |
The 300 pounds cost $435.90 in ingredients; tahini is 15% of the weight and more than half the cost. What the tubs earn is in hummus profit margin.
The steps, at 300 pounds
- Soak and cook the chickpeas. Dried chickpeas soaked overnight, cooked in the steam kettle until soft, some cooking liquid kept.
- Weigh the batch. Chickpeas, tahini, lemon, oil, garlic and salt by weight for 50 pounds.
- Blend. In the vertical cutter mixer to the texture the recipe calls for, cooking liquid added for smoothness.
- Cool fast. Spread in shallow pans in the walk-in, to 41°F as fast as the kitchen's cooling plan says.
- Fill by weight. 10 ounces a tub on a scale, lids on.
- Label and date. Each tub with its lot and use-by date.
- Into the cooler. Held cold until the delivery run the next morning.
The run takes two people about six hours, blending one batch while the last one cools.
What a tub costs at each size
| Per tub | Kitchen batch, 5 lb | Bulk run, 300 lb |
|---|---|---|
| Ingredients | $1.95 (grocery prices) | $0.93 (bought in bulk) |
| Packaging | $0.45 | $0.40 |
| Labor at $20 an hour | $2.00 (6 min a tub) | $0.51 (1.5 min a tub) |
| Cost of a tub | $4.40 | $1.84 |
Dried chickpeas cooked in house cost a third of canned, tahini by the pail costs less than by the jar, and the labor falls from 6 minutes a tub to about 1.5. The tub and lid don't fall as much. How long the tubs keep is in hummus shelf life, and the year in hummus business plan.
Cooling at scale
Five pounds of hummus cools in a bowl in the fridge; 50 pounds in a deep tub stays warm in the middle for hours. Spreading each batch in shallow pans in the walk-in, and checking the temperature, is what keeps a bulk run as safe as a kitchen batch.
Get the calculator
Download the hummus 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 the run fills in, with the batches, what comes out after the blend and fill loss, the tubs it fills and the cost of each tub; and weigh the loss, where what went in and came out over a few batches gives your average blend and fill loss. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Three flavors, a batch twice a week, tahini from two pails opened on different days, and a grocer asking about one tub. A sheet can say how much tahini a run needs, but not which pail went into which tub, or how many tubs are left.
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 chickpeas bought by the 50-pound sack and tahini by the pail, and the cost of every tub comes from what you paid. "What could I make right now" says how many runs the chickpeas and tahini on the shelf allow.
Each run a batch. A run takes its ingredients off stock, records the lots of chickpeas and tahini it used, and gets a lot of its own for the tubs, 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 blend and fill loss that creeps up shows in the numbers. A batch that went sour is an adjustment with its reason, spoiled, and shows in the waste report.
| The job | Spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Ingredients for Monday's run | Multiply, then check the shelf | What could I make right now |
| Which tahini went into a run | Not written down | Lots recorded on the batch |
| The real blend and fill loss | Weighed now and then | Good and rejected on every batch |
| Tubs past their date | 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.