To price a pound of aged cheddar you add up its full cost first: the milk, culture and rennet by the batch, your time at an hourly rate, the vacuum wrap and label, and a share of overhead like rent and power. That's what one pound costs you. Then set the price so that, after card and selling fees, it leaves the margin you want: price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin − fee rate). For a pound of six-month cheddar that costs $8.93 to make, a 50% margin after 3% fees means $19.01, rounded up to $19.25. Milk is the cost, and 100 gallons of milk make only about 86 pounds of cheddar, so the yield decides the price. Wholesale to cheese shops is a different price, set so it still covers the full cost with something left. In the example below, a Long Island creamery prices its aged cheddar for the farm shop and a cheese shop.
The short version
- Full cost = ingredients a pound + your time + wrap and label + overhead.
- Price = full cost ÷ (1 − margin − fee rate).
- Count your time at a real hourly rate, even if you don't pay yourself yet.
- Divide by the cheese that comes out of the vat, not the milk that goes in.
- Count aging: months of turning and cave space are overhead.
- Check what wholesale leaves after full cost before saying yes.
- TaroStack costs each pound from its recipe and what each batch used. More below.
What goes into a pound's cost
| Part | How to count it |
|---|---|
| Ingredients | The batch's cost ÷ pounds a batch |
| Your time | Hands-on minutes for the batch ÷ pounds × your hourly rate |
| Wrap and label | Per pound |
| Overhead | Rent, power, tools, spread over the pounds you make |
| Fees | Card and market fees as a share of the price |
What a cheese business looks like over a year is in cheese making business plan, and the label in cheese labeling requirements.
An example: a pound of cheddar
North Fork Creamery, the made-up creamery on Long Island, New York, I use in these examples, makes cheddar from 100 gallons of its own milk at a time, about 86 pounds after pressing:
| Ingredient | Amount | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Milk | 100 gal | $350.00 |
| Culture and rennet | $25.00 | |
| Salt and wax | $30.00 | |
| A batch | $405.00 |
| A pound | Cost |
|---|---|
| Ingredients, $405.00 ÷ 86 | $4.71 |
| Time, 600 minutes for the batch at $20 an hour ÷ 86 | $2.33 |
| Wrap and label | $0.40 |
| Overhead | $1.50 |
| Full cost | $8.93 |
At a 50% margin after 3% card fees, the price is $8.93 ÷ 0.47 = $19.01, so $19.25. At $19.25 a pound, each leaves $9.74. It had been asking $18, which leaves $8.53, and moved to $19.25. A cheese shop asked for wheels at $12.50 a pound, which leaves $3.19, and buys four 10-pound wheels a month. Milk is $4.07 of each pound's cost. The food safety plan behind it is in cheese HACCP plan.
Get the calculator
Download the cheese price calculator. One sheet: type the batch's ingredients, amounts and costs, the pounds it makes, the hands-on minutes, the wrap and label and overhead, your hourly rate, card fees and the margin you want; the full cost, the price for your margin rounded up, and what a wholesale price and a test price leave fill in. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
The calculator prices a pound on paper. A vat that yields 80 pounds instead of 86, and wheels that lose weight as they age, change what each pound really cost.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack costs each pound from its recipe and from what each batch used.
Recipes by weight. Each pound is a recipe, with unit conversion from the case or sack to the gram.
True cost from the batch. Each batch takes ingredients at their real cost, from the deliveries they came from, so a price rise shows up in the next batch.
Price creep. A price-creep report per supplier shows which ingredient is quietly costing more.
| The job | Spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| What a pound costs this week | Last season's sheet | True cost from the batch |
| Weight lost in aging | Not counted | Input and output on each batch |
| An ingredient creeping up | Noticed at tax time | A price-creep report |
| Whether wholesale still pays | A guess | Margins on real cost |
Recipes, batches and true cost 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.