Muffin Business Plan, With a First-Year Projection

A muffin business plan sets out the muffins you'll bake and who buys them, what each one costs with your time in it, the kitchen and the rules, and the year month by month. Muffins are a morning product, which shapes everything: cafés want them delivered fresh before they open, offices order boxes of minis for meetings, and markets sell singles to eat on the spot. Café wholesale is where a muffin business finds its volume, at a thinner margin than market singles, so the plan balances the two. In the example below, a baker in a shared kitchen in Memphis, Tennessee, makes a profit from the first month and ends the year about $20,800 ahead on $69,900 of sales, after paying $20 an hour for the baking. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, the year, the startup budget, and a free template.

The short version

• Describe the business in a paragraph: the muffins, where you sell, the kitchen, the goals.
• Cost a muffin with your time in it: batter, fruit, liner, bag or box, oven, card fees.
• Price market singles, preorder half dozens, café dozens and office minis separately.
• Café wholesale brings volume at 40%; singles and preorders carry the margin.
• Muffins that don't need refrigeration fit most cottage food laws, sold directly to customers.
• Bake before dawn for cafés: delivery time is part of the plan.
• TaroStack turns orders into what to bake and keeps each batch's true cost. More below.

Part 1: the business description

Bluff City Muffin Co., a made-up muffin bakery in Memphis, Tennessee, I use in these examples, writes:

Bluff City Muffin Co. bakes blueberry, banana nut, lemon poppy seed and seasonal muffins in a shared commercial kitchen, sold at two farmers markets, by preorder half dozen, wholesale to six cafés with early-morning delivery, and in mini-muffin boxes for offices. In our first year we plan to deliver 120 dozen a month to cafés.

Part 2: what a muffin costs

Cafés pay by invoice, so there's no card fee on the café dozen. How a baked good is priced with your time in it is in how to price baked goods.

Part 3: customers and prices

A café pays $2 a muffin and sells it for $3.50 to $4. Six cafés at 20 dozen a month each are 1,440 muffins without a market day. How a wholesale price is set is in how to price baked goods for wholesale.

Part 4: the kitchen and the rules

Bluff City bakes in a shared commercial kitchen, which lets it sell to cafés. A home baker can often start under a state cottage food law, which generally allows baked goods like muffins sold directly to customers; selling to cafés for resale needs a licensed kitchen in most states. Tennessee's rules are in Tennessee cottage food laws, and how a home food business starts in how to start a cottage food business. This is general information, not legal advice.

Part 5: the year, month by month

Fixed costs are $1,360 a month: shared kitchen time ($900), insurance ($55), market fees ($140), the website and preorders ($40), software and card fees ($35), marketing ($90), and a share of the car for deliveries ($100). Sales start at 35% of full speed and reach it in month 11:

The year's sales are $69,918 and the profit $20,762, on top of $20 an hour for the baking. The first month barely clears its fixed costs; the cafés are what lift it.

Part 6: the startup budget

What a full bakery plan looks like is in bakery business plan.

Get the template

Download the muffin business plan template. Four sheets: products with price, variable cost and units at full speed; the year month by month with a ramp you can change; 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

Six cafés with standing orders, preorders for Saturday and an office box on Tuesday add up to a different bake every morning. The plan's monthly averages don't say how many blueberry muffins to bake at 4 a.m.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack turns orders into what to bake and keeps each batch's true cost.

Orders by café. Each café is a customer with its own orders, and preorders are sales orders by day, so the week's muffins owed are one list.

Recipes and true cost. Each muffin is a recipe, so every batch carries its true cost at what the blueberries cost that week, and margins show by product and by customer.

Planning. TaroStack's planning turns the orders into what to bake and what to buy, and when, as drafts you approve.

Recipes, batches and sales orders are on every plan, from $49 a month, and planning is 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

Is a muffin business profitable?

It can be: in the example, $20,762 on $69,918 of sales in the first year, after paying $20 an hour for the baking.

How much should I charge cafés for muffins?

In the example, $24 a dozen, $2 a muffin, from a variable cost of $14.40, which leaves the café room to sell at $3.50 to $4.

Can I sell muffins from home?

Often, under your state's cottage food law, directly to customers; selling to cafés needs a licensed kitchen in most states.

How much does it cost to start a muffin business?

In the example, $5,900, including a commercial mixer, pans, packaging, permits, a market setup, a website and $2,500 of working cash.