An Indian grocery sells the staples its customers buy every week in quantities a supermarket doesn't: basmati rice and atta in 20-pound bags, a dozen kinds of dal, a wall of spices, pickles and snacks, fresh okra, curry leaves and mangoes in season, and frozen parathas and samosas. Many add a sweets counter, making mithai in house, and a weekend snack counter. The staples keep little of each dollar; spices, snacks and above all the sweets keep more. The plan turns on Diwali and the other festivals, when sweets and gift boxes sell for weeks, and on milk sweets that need the fridge and a short date. The plan below works in departments per $100 of sales. In the example, a Morrisville Indian grocery starts with $207,500, ends its first year about $5,800 behind before the owner's pay while sales build, and makes about $4,600 a month at full speed. Below is each part of the plan, the first year month by month, the startup budget, and a free template.
The short version
- Describe the store in a paragraph: the community, the regions it cooks for, what's missing nearby, the goals.
- Cost a few items: distributor price, the card fee, the shelf price.
- Plan sales by department per $100: staples, spices and snacks, vegetables, frozen, sweets, snack counter.
- Rice, atta and dal bring people in and keep little.
- Sweets made in house keep the most; milk sweets need refrigeration and a short date.
- Plan for Diwali: sweets and gift boxes ordered weeks ahead.
- TaroStack makes each sweet a recipe and each batch a lot with its date. More below.
Part 1: the business description
Saffron Lane Market, a made-up Indian grocery in Morrisville, North Carolina, writes:
Saffron Lane Market is a 3,000-square-foot Indian grocery in Morrisville with rice, atta and dal in bulk bags, spices, pickles and snacks from North and South Indian brands, fresh vegetables twice a week, a freezer aisle, a sweets counter making mithai in house, and samosas and chaat at a weekend counter. In its first year it aims to reach $73,000 of sales a month.
Part 2: what an item costs
| Item | Cost | Card fee | Total cost | Price | Cost share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basmati rice, 20 lb bag | $22.00 | $0.70 | $22.70 | $27.99 | 81.1% |
| Toor dal, 4 lb | $6.40 | $0.25 | $6.65 | $9.99 | 66.6% |
| Okra, per lb | $1.60 | $0.07 | $1.67 | $2.99 | 55.9% |
| Kaju katli, 1 lb box made in house | $5.90 | $0.50 | $6.40 | $19.99 | 32.0% |
| Two samosas at the counter | $0.90 | $0.12 | $1.02 | $4.99 | 20.4% |
A pound of kaju katli is about 0.6 pounds of cashews at $8 a pound, $4.80, with sugar, silver leaf and the box. The department costs in Part 4 run higher than these items, because they carry shrink and the cheaper lines. Prepackaged sweets need an ingredient list and allergens, cashews and milk among them, in food allergen labeling requirements.
Part 3: suppliers, the sweets and the festivals
Staples, spices and frozen foods come every week by truck from Indian distributors; vegetables twice a week; the sweets are made in the store's kitchen each morning. Milk-based sweets like rasmalai and kalakand go in the cold case with a date a few days out, while cashew and gram flour sweets keep longer. Diwali gift boxes are taken as orders from September, and the kitchen runs extra days for three weeks. The snack counter needs a food service permit, in grocery store license.
Part 4: what each category earns
| Category | Sales | Variable cost | Contribution | Margin | Hundreds a month at full speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rice, atta and dal in bulk | $100.00 | $80.00 | $20.00 | 20% | 200 |
| Spices, pickles, snacks and groceries | $100.00 | $66.00 | $34.00 | 34% | 220 |
| Vegetables and fruit | $100.00 | $62.00 | $38.00 | 38% | 120 |
| Frozen foods | $100.00 | $68.00 | $32.00 | 32% | 100 |
| Sweets made in house | $100.00 | $38.00 | $62.00 | 62% | 50 |
| Snack counter | $100.00 | $35.00 | $65.00 | 65% | 40 |
At full speed the business sells $73,000 a month and keeps $24,940, 34.2%; spices, pickles and snacks bring $7,480 of it.
Part 5: the first year, month by month
Fixed costs are $20,300 every month: rent ($5,000), wages ($11,000), utilities ($2,200), insurance ($450), equipment upkeep ($400), register and software ($250), ads ($300), and other costs ($700). Sales start at half of full speed:
| Month | Sales | Profit | Cash, year to date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $36,500 | −$7,830 | −$7,830 |
| 2 | $40,800 | −$6,374 | −$14,204 |
| 3 | $45,200 | −$4,853 | −$19,057 |
| 4 | $49,700 | −$3,325 | −$22,382 |
| 5 | $54,100 | −$1,804 | −$24,186 |
| 6 | $58,400 | −$348 | −$24,534 |
| 7 | $62,100 | $930 | −$23,604 |
| 8 | $65,100 | $1,968 | −$21,636 |
| 9 | $68,000 | $2,941 | −$18,695 |
| 10 | $70,000 | $3,602 | −$15,093 |
| 11 | $73,000 | $4,640 | −$10,453 |
| 12 | $73,000 | $4,640 | −$5,813 |
The year's sales are $695,900, and the business ends it $5,813 behind, before the owner's pay. It breaks even at about $59,420 of sales a month, in the seventh month. The lowest cash point, −$24,534 in month 6, is covered by the $35,000 of working cash with about $10,500 to spare. Diwali, Holi and the wedding season bring the busiest weeks, for sweets above all; the plan spreads them as monthly averages, so plan the kitchen's extra days and the gift boxes early.
Part 6: the startup budget
| Item | Example |
|---|---|
| Opening inventory | $55,000 |
| Build-out | $35,000 |
| Coolers and freezers | $25,000 |
| Sweets kitchen and hood | $22,000 |
| Shelving | $10,000 |
| Lease deposit and first month | $10,000 |
| Sweets display case | $6,000 |
| Register | $3,500 |
| Signs | $3,500 |
| Licenses and permits | $2,500 |
| Working cash | $35,000 |
| Total to start | $207,500 |
The $172,500 before working cash is earned back in about three years at full speed. A general small grocery is in small grocery store business plan, and where a store loses money to waste in grocery store shrink.
Get the template
Download the Indian grocery store business plan workbook. Four sheets: your categories, each per $100 of sales with its variable cost and hundreds a month at full speed; the first year, month by month, with sales ramping up, profit, cash, the first profitable month, the lowest cash point and whether the working cash covers it; your fixed costs; and the startup budget. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
The plan uses one cost for the sweets. Cashews move by the month, a Diwali batch of kaju katli is ten times a Tuesday's, and the rasmalai that didn't sell by its date is thrown out without a note.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack makes each sweet a recipe and each batch a lot with its date, and counts the staples in the units they come in.
Sweets as recipes. Kaju katli and rasmalai are recipes by weight, so a batch takes the cashews, milk and sugar off stock and is costed from what they cost.
Dates on milk sweets. Each batch is a lot with its date, the oldest goes first, and an alert comes before a date runs out.
Staples in their units. Rice and atta come by the sack and sell by the bag, with unit conversion between them.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| What a box of kaju katli costs | Last year's sheet | True cost from the batch |
| Rasmalai near its date | Found in the case | An alert before the date |
| Sacks of atta on hand | Count the back room | Stock in its own units |
Recipes, batches, lots and expiry 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.