How to Scale Up Food Production Without Losing Track

Scaling up food production is less about making more of the same and more about the things that stop working as you do: recipes written for a home pot, a kitchen with one oven, rules that change once you sell beyond your own customers, buying in larger minimums, cash tied up in stock and unpaid invoices, and records kept in someone's head. Each doubling breaks something different, so the way to scale is a step at a time, fixing what the next step will break before you take it. In the example below, a taro chips maker goes from 200 bags a week to 2,000. At twice the volume the recipe and the fryer need attention; at five times the kitchen and the rules change; at ten times the pouches come in minimums of 10,000 and the cash, the people and the records decide whether it works. Below is what changes at each step, the numbers, and the records that make scaling safe.

The short version

• Put every recipe in grams, and in percentages if it's a dough, before you scale it.
• Find the bottleneck first: usually one piece of equipment, or one person.
• Check the rules for the next step: selling to stores or other states can change your registration and records.
• Buy for the bigger volume: supplier minimums and lead times grow with you.
• Count the cash: stock and unpaid invoices grow faster than profit at first.
• Write down what's in your head: recipes, checks, procedures, who does what.
• TaroStack keeps recipes, batches, lots, buying and sites in one place as you grow. More below.

What breaks at each step

Windward Roots, the made-up taro business I use in these examples, makes taro chips: 25 kg of taro makes 70 bags.

Every step up is worth doing, but none of them is "the same, only more".

Step 1: recipes that scale

A recipe written for a home pot doesn't scale by multiplying: salt, seasoning and frying times don't behave in straight lines. Put every recipe in grams first, then test it at the new batch size before you rely on it. Write down the yield: how many bags 25 kg of taro really makes, which is what your cost per bag depends on. How to convert and scale is in scaling recipes for production.

Step 2: find the bottleneck

At twice the volume something is full every day: the fryer, the oven, the kitchen hours or the one person who knows how. Work out what each takes per batch and how many hours you have, and the bottleneck shows itself. Fix that one, and the next one appears. How to work out what a kitchen can make in a week is in how to calculate production capacity.

Step 3: check the rules for the next step

Selling more often means selling differently: to stores, through a distributor, across state lines. That can move you from a cottage food permit to a licensed kitchen, and into FDA's rules for food facilities, with their own records. Check before you sign the order, not after. What FSMA asks of a small food business is in FSMA requirements for small food businesses, and what stores ask is in requirements for selling food to grocery stores.

Step 4: buy for the bigger volume

Suppliers sell differently at volume: printed pouches come in minimums of thousands, taro is bought by the pallet, and lead times stretch. At 2,000 bags a week, a 10,000-pouch order at 22 cents is $2,200 paid up front for five weeks of bags. Order to a reorder point that uses the supplier's real lead time, not a hopeful one; how is in reorder point example, and how minimums change the sums is in minimum order quantity.

Step 5: count the cash

Growth eats cash before it makes it. More stock on the shelf, pouches bought in thousands, and stores paying 30 days after delivery mean the cash goes out weeks before it comes back. At 2,000 bags a week and $2.92 a bag from a distributor, 30 days of unpaid invoices is about $25,000 owed to you at any moment. A 12-month cash projection, like the ones in hot sauce business plan, is worth doing again before each step.

Step 6: write down what's in your head

At 200 bags a week, the owner knows the oil temperature, which supplier's taro fries best, and which store wants its delivery before 10. At 2,000, two other people need to know it too. Write the procedures, put the checks on the batch record, and make the records something anyone can follow.

Where this stops working

The spreadsheet that ran 200 bags a week can't run 2,000. Two people record batches in two notebooks, the pouch order is placed when someone notices the last box, the cost per bag hasn't been worked out since the taro price went up, and a store's question about a lot from last month means an afternoon of searching. Scaling turns every gap in the records into a weekly problem.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack is built to keep up as a small food business grows, from one kitchen to a few.

Recipes and batches that scale. Recipes are written once, with versions and sub-recipes, and units convert: buy taro by the pallet, fry it by the kilogram. A batch of any size takes its ingredients off stock from the lots used and records what came out good, so yield and cost per bag are known for every batch, whoever recorded it. Batch record forms carry your own checks, like oil temperature, with limits.

Buying that keeps up. Suppliers carry their lead times and minimums, the reorder list shows days of cover against how long deliveries really take, and purchase orders carry approval above a threshold you set. Every lot is recorded at the door, so a store's or a supplier's question is one report.

And room to grow. Starter covers one site and up to three people. Standard adds up to three sites and ten people, so a commissary and a warehouse can sit beside the first kitchen, and planning, which works out what to make and buy across them against each kitchen's hours. Roles limit each person to the sites they work at.

Recipes, batches, lots and the reorder list are on every plan, from $49 a month; more than one site and planning are 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.

Questions people also ask

How do you scale up food production?

A step at a time: put recipes in grams and test them at the new size, find and fix the bottleneck, check the rules for where you'll now sell, buy for the bigger volume, count the cash, and write down the procedures.

When should a food business move to a commercial kitchen?

When your current kitchen's hours or equipment are full every week, or when where you want to sell requires a licensed kitchen. A commissary kitchen rented by the hour is a common next step.

What's the hardest part of scaling a food business?

Usually cash and records rather than cooking. Stock and unpaid invoices grow before profit does, and records kept in one person's head stop working once two people do the work.

Should I scale with a co-packer or my own kitchen?

It depends on your volume, your recipe and how much control you want. The trade-offs, with numbers, are in co-packer vs commercial kitchen.