A bag of 24 frozen dumplings costs $6.00 in wrappers, filling, the bag, 15 seconds of folding each and the card fee, and sells direct for $16.00, a 62.5% margin. Folding is the cost to watch: six minutes a bag. Grocers pay $10.00, which keeps 44.8%, and restaurants buying 100 at a time keep 41.8%. Pan-fried plates at a market stall keep the most of each sale, cooked to order. Margin = (price − cost) ÷ price. In the example below, a month of four lines brings $13,640 of sales and about $7,670 of gross profit, before kitchen hours and the owner's pay.
The short version
- Margin = (price − cost) ÷ price; markup = (price − cost) ÷ cost.
- A bag of 24, direct: $6.00, sold for $16.00, 62.5%.
- Folding, 15 seconds a dumpling, is the cost to watch.
- Grocers keep 44.8%; restaurants 41.8%.
- Pan-fried plates at the stall keep the most.
- TaroStack costs each bag from what each batch used. More below.
A bag, costed
Wollaston Dumpling Co., the made-up dumpling maker in Quincy, Massachusetts, I use in these examples, counts folding at $20 an hour:
| A bag of 24, direct | Cost |
|---|---|
| Wrappers and filling | $3.12 |
| Bag and label | $0.40 |
| Folding, 6 minutes at $20 an hour | $2.00 |
| Card fees, 3% of $16.00 | $0.48 |
| Cost | $6.00 |
The bag's price is in how to price dumplings, and the business's year in dumpling business plan.
Margins by channel
| Product | Sold where | Price | Cost | Gross profit | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bag of 24 | Market and online pickup | $16.00 | $6.00 | $10.00 | 62.5% |
| Bag of 24 | Asian grocers | $10.00 | $5.52 | $4.48 | 44.8% |
| Plate of 8, pan-fried | Market stall | $11.00 | $4.31 | $6.69 | 60.8% |
| 100 count | Restaurants, invoiced | $38.00 | $22.13 | $15.87 | 41.8% |
The pan-fried plate keeps 60.8%, cooked and served at the stall; 100 count to restaurants keeps 41.8%.
A month's numbers
A month for Wollaston Dumpling Co.:
| Product | Units | Sales | Gross profit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bag of 24, market and online pickup | 250 | $4,000 | $2,500 |
| Bag of 24, asian grocers | 300 | $3,000 | $1,344 |
| Plate of 8, pan-fried, market stall | 500 | $5,500 | $3,345 |
| 100 count, restaurants | 30 | $1,140 | $476 |
| Month | $13,640 | $7,665 |
The stall's plates bring the most gross profit, on two market days a week. The grocers take 300 bags at 44.8%: steady, and the reason a faster fold matters more than a higher price. What a bag costs at a bulk run is in how to make dumplings in bulk.
Get the calculator
Download the dumpling margin calculator. One sheet: one line for each product and channel, with its price, materials, packaging, labor and fee rate; the cost, gross profit, margin, markup and the price your target margin needs 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 holds one cost per bag. Cabbage prices move, a new folder is slower, and dumplings that tear in the freezer change every margin.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack costs each bag from what each batch used, so margins sit on real cost.
True cost from the batch. Each batch takes wrappers, cabbage and tofu at the price of the deliveries they came from, so a price rise shows in the next batch's cost.
Labor on the batch. The minutes a batch took are recorded on it, so the hours behind each product are on record.
Margins by product. Margins are reported per product on that actual cost, and a price-creep report per supplier shows whose prices moved.
| The job | Spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| What a bag cost | One price from last season | Cost from the batch's deliveries |
| The hours behind a batch | Remembered | Labor minutes on the batch |
| An ingredient creeping up | Noticed late | A price-creep report |
| Margins by product | Re-worked by hand | Margins on real cost |
Recipes, batches, costing and margin reports 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.