Is Selling Empanadas Profitable? Hot, Frozen and Catering

Empanadas are profitable where the folding time is paid for: a frozen six-pack costs $9.59 in dough, filling, the bag, two minutes of folding an empanada and the card fee, and sells at a market for $18.00, a 46.7% margin. Grocers pay $12.00 for the same six-pack, which keeps 24.6%, so wholesale works only with faster folding or a co-packer. Hot empanadas at a market keep the most, and catering trays sell fifty at a time. Margin = (price − cost) ÷ price. In the example below, a month of four lines brings $12,000 of sales and about $5,450 of gross profit, before kitchen hours and the owner's pay.

The short version

• Margin = (price − cost) ÷ price; markup = (price − cost) ÷ cost.
• A frozen six-pack at the market: $9.59, sold for $18.00, 46.7%.
• Folding is the biggest cost after the filling.
• Grocer six-packs keep 24.6%.
• Hot empanadas at a market keep the most.
• TaroStack costs each six-pack from what each batch used. More below.

A six-pack, costed

Palisades Empanada Co., the made-up empanada maker in Jersey City, New Jersey, I use in these examples, counts its folding time at $20 an hour:

The six-pack's price is in how to price empanadas, and what it costs at a bulk run in how to make empanadas in bulk.

Margins by channel

The hot empanada keeps 63.4%, baked at the market and sold one at a time; the catering tray keeps 49.6%.

A month's numbers

A month for Palisades Empanada Co.:

The hot empanadas bring the most gross profit, from one Saturday market. The grocers buy more six-packs than the market sells but keep a quarter of their price; at the bulk run's cost they'd keep more than twice as much. How long the frozen six-packs keep is in empanadas shelf life.

Get the calculator

Download the empanada 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 six-pack. Cheese prices move, a new folder is slower, and the empanadas that tear in the oven change every margin.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack costs each six-pack from what each batch used, so margins sit on real cost.

True cost from the batch. Each batch takes flour, cheese and spinach 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.

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.

Questions people also ask

Is selling empanadas profitable?

It can be: the example's month of $12,000 in sales leaves about $5,450 of gross profit, before kitchen hours and the owner's pay.

What is the profit margin on empanadas?

In the example, 46.7% on a frozen six-pack at the market, 24.6% to grocers, and 63.4% on a hot empanada.

Is wholesale worth it for empanadas?

In the example, a grocer six-pack keeps 24.6% with folding counted; a co-packer's lower cost makes it better.

How much does it cost to make empanadas?

In the example, 70 cents of dough and filling an empanada, and about as much again in folding time.