A personal chef sells time and skill: a cook day in a client's kitchen, a week of dinners portioned and labeled, for a service fee, with the groceries billed at cost. Because the client pays for the food, the variable costs are small, containers, mileage and the card fee, and the plan is mostly about how many cook days a month one person can fill. Dinner parties and cooking lessons fill the evenings. The fixed costs are small too: insurance, a car, knives and pans, and advertising. What the plan shows as profit is the chef's own pay. In the example, a Raleigh personal chef starts with $11,800, ends its first year about $98,400 ahead before the owner's pay, and makes about $11,900 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 service in a paragraph: who the clients are, what a cook day includes, the goals.
- Price the cook day as a service; bill groceries at cost, with receipts.
- Plan sales by service: cook days, dinner parties and lessons.
- The limit is your days: a cook day is 6 to 8 hours with shopping.
- Budget working cash for the months it takes to fill the calendar.
- Insurance comes first; you cook in other people's homes.
- TaroStack keeps each client's menus as recipes and costs them, so the grocery bill is no surprise. More below.
Part 1: the business description
Table for Four Chef Services, a made-up personal chef in Raleigh, North Carolina, writes:
Table for Four Chef Services cooks weekly meals in clients' homes, four dinners for four, portioned and labeled, plus dinner parties for up to 12 and cooking lessons. Groceries are bought for each client and billed at cost. In its first year it aims to fill 40 cook days a month.
Part 2: what a cook day costs
| A cook day | Service fee | Groceries | Containers and labels | Mileage | Card fee | Cost to the chef | Cost share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Four dinners for four | $300.00 | Billed at cost | $18.00 | $7.00 | $9.00 | $34.00 | 11.3% |
The client pays for the groceries separately, with the receipts, so the chef's costs on a cook day are the containers, the drive and the card fee. Licensing for cooking in clients' homes varies by place; the meals-from-home rules are in meal prep business license.
Part 3: clients and schedule
Two cook days a weekday is the most one person can do with shopping in between; the plan fills 40 a month at full speed, with a dinner party on three Saturdays and four lessons.
Part 4: what each product earns
| Product | Price | Variable cost | Contribution | Margin | Units a month at full speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cook day, four dinners for four | $300.00 | $34.00 | $266.00 | 88.7% | 40 |
| Dinner party for 8 | $650.00 | $60.00 | $590.00 | 90.8% | 3 |
| Cooking lesson | $250.00 | $20.00 | $230.00 | 92% | 4 |
At full speed the business sells $14,950 a month and keeps $13,330, 89.2%; cook days bring $10,640 of it.
Part 5: the first year, month by month
Fixed costs are $1,400 every month: insurance ($150), car and mileage beyond cook days ($500), knives and pans upkeep ($100), software ($60), ads ($300), phone ($80), permits and training ($50), and other costs ($160). Sales start at 35% of full speed:
| Month | Sales | Profit | Cash, year to date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $5,100 | $3,144 | $3,144 |
| 2 | $6,250 | $4,172 | $7,316 |
| 3 | $7,150 | $4,970 | $12,286 |
| 4 | $8,400 | $6,092 | $18,378 |
| 5 | $9,550 | $7,120 | $25,498 |
| 6 | $10,450 | $7,918 | $33,416 |
| 7 | $11,350 | $8,716 | $42,132 |
| 8 | $12,900 | $10,104 | $52,236 |
| 9 | $13,750 | $10,866 | $63,102 |
| 10 | $14,350 | $11,398 | $74,500 |
| 11 | $14,950 | $11,930 | $86,430 |
| 12 | $14,950 | $11,930 | $98,360 |
The year's sales are $129,150, and the business ends it $98,360 ahead, before the owner's pay. It breaks even at about $1,570 of sales a month, in the first month. The lowest cash point, $3,144 in month 1, never goes below zero. Because the profit here is the chef's own pay, the plan is really a count of days: each cook day adds $266 to it.
Part 6: the startup budget
| Item | Example |
|---|---|
| Knives, pans and equipment | $3,000 |
| Website and branding | $1,500 |
| Insurance and permits, first year | $1,200 |
| Insulated carriers and coolers | $600 |
| Business setup | $500 |
| Working cash | $5,000 |
| Total to start | $11,800 |
The $6,800 before working cash is earned back in about 1 months at full speed. A kitchen-based meal business is in meal prep business plan, and events in catering business plan.
Get the template
Download the personal chef business plan workbook. Four sheets: your products, each with its price, variable cost and units 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 cook day. The calendar uses a different one each week: a client who travels, a dinner party that grows from 8 to 14, and grocery bills that need receipts sorted by client.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each client's menus as recipes, so a week's grocery cost is known before the shopping.
Menus as recipes. Each dish is a recipe by weight, costed from what its ingredients cost, so a client's week can be priced before you shop.
Clients as customers. Each client is a customer with their own orders.
Ingredients in their units. Bought by the pound, used by the ounce, with unit conversion.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| What a client's week costs in groceries | Added up at the store | From the recipes |
| Which client a dish was for | Receipts in a folder | Orders by customer |
| What a dish costs this month | A guess | True cost from the recipe |
Recipes, customers and costing 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.