A popsicle business plan sets out the flavors you'll freeze and who buys them, what a pop costs and sells for, the freezing equipment and the cart, and the year month by month, which follows the temperature. Paletas, fresh fruit and cream pops, are cheap to make, under a dollar of ingredients, stick and wrapper; the cart's hours and the freezer are the costs that don't move. Selling three ways, at a cart, to cafés and grocers, and at events, keeps the freezer emptying on days the cart can't. In the example below, a paleta maker in San Antonio sells fruit and cream paletas at a cart, wholesale to cafés and grocers and at events, makes money eight months of the twelve, and ends the year about $21,400 ahead on $61,500 of sales, after paying $20 an hour for the making and $16 for the cart. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, the season, the license, the startup budget, and a free template.
The short version
- Describe the business in a paragraph: the flavors, the cart, the cafés, the goals.
- Cost a paleta with the making and the cart hours in it: fruit pops under $1.50, cream a little more.
- Sell at the cart, wholesale to cafés and grocers, and at events; wholesale keeps the freezer moving.
- Plan the year around summer, and keep cash from June for the winter months.
- A brine-tank machine freezes fast and makes a clean pop; molds in a freezer don't scale.
- Cream paletas may need a dairy or frozen dessert license on top of the food license.
- TaroStack keeps every batch with its fruit lots and its date. More below.
Part 1: the business description
Mission Reach Paletas, a made-up paleta maker in San Antonio, Texas, I use in these examples, writes:
Mission Reach Paletas makes fresh fruit and cream paletas in small batches, sold from a push cart on the river trail and at weekend markets, wholesale to cafés and grocers, and at parties and events. Every case carries a batch code and a date. In our first year we plan to supply 12 cafés and grocers.
Part 2: what a paleta costs
| Per unit | Fruit, at the cart | Cream, at the cart | To cafés and grocers | Event, 100 paletas |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fruit, or milk, cream and flavor | $0.45 | $0.75 | $0.60 | |
| Sugar | $0.05 | $0.05 | $0.05 | |
| Stick and wrapper | $0.11 | $0.11 | $0.11 | |
| Making, 1 minute at $20 an hour | $0.33 | $0.33 | $0.33 | |
| Cart staff, $16 an hour | $0.40 | $0.40 | ||
| Event: 100 paletas, two staff for 3 hours, travel | $211.00 | |||
| Card fees, 3%, or case share | $0.14 | $0.15 | $0.01 | $10.50 |
| Variable cost | $1.48 | $1.79 | $1.10 | $221.50 |
A brine-tank machine freezes a tray of paletas in minutes, so the making is about a minute a pop across a batch: blending, filling, freezing, unmolding and wrapping. The cart staff line spreads the person at the cart over about 40 paletas an hour. How to read a food cost against the price is in what is a good food cost percentage.
Part 3: customers and prices
| Product | Price | Variable cost | Contribution | Margin | In June |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fruit paleta, at the cart | $4.50 | $1.48 | $3.02 | 67.1% | 900 |
| Cream paleta, at the cart | $5.00 | $1.79 | $3.21 | 64.2% | 600 |
| Paletas to cafés and grocers, each | $2.50 | $1.10 | $1.40 | 56.0% | 1,000 |
| Event booking, 100 paletas | $350.00 | $221.50 | $128.50 | 36.7% | 3 |
A café paleta leaves $1.40, less than half a cart sale, but a café's freezer sells on days the cart is rained out, and the case goes out on a delivery run, not an afternoon at the cart. An event is booked and paid ahead. How to set a wholesale price that holds up is in how to price baked goods for wholesale, where the same arithmetic applies.
Part 4: the season, month by month
Fixed costs are $1,335 a month: kitchen and freezer space ($700), freezer power ($100), insurance ($70), permits ($40), market and event fees ($200), the vehicle ($150), the website ($40), and software and card fees ($35). Month 1 is March; June and July are full speed, and winter runs at 10% to 15% of it:
| Month | Fruit, cart | Cream, cart | Cafés and grocers | Events | Sales | Profit | Cash, year to date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar | 225 | 150 | 250 | 1 | $2,738 | $304 | $304 |
| Apr | 360 | 240 | 400 | 1 | $4,170 | $1,211 | $1,516 |
| May | 630 | 420 | 700 | 2 | $7,385 | $3,153 | $4,668 |
| Jun | 900 | 600 | 1,000 | 3 | $10,600 | $5,094 | $9,763 |
| Jul | 900 | 600 | 1,000 | 3 | $10,600 | $5,094 | $14,857 |
| Aug | 855 | 570 | 950 | 3 | $10,122 | $4,792 | $19,650 |
| Sep | 585 | 390 | 650 | 2 | $6,908 | $2,851 | $22,500 |
| Oct | 315 | 210 | 350 | 1 | $3,692 | $909 | $23,409 |
| Nov | 135 | 90 | 150 | 0 | $1,432 | −$428 | $22,981 |
| Dec | 135 | 90 | 150 | 0 | $1,432 | −$428 | $22,552 |
| Jan | 90 | 60 | 100 | 0 | $955 | −$731 | $21,822 |
| Feb | 135 | 90 | 150 | 0 | $1,432 | −$428 | $21,393 |
The year's sales are $61,468 and the profit $21,393, on top of the making and cart wages. November to February lose about $2,000 between them, which the summer covers. Frozen paletas keep for months, so a cool week's batches sell the next hot one; how to keep a freezer's stock dated and counted is in freezer inventory sheet.
Part 5: the license
A paleta business needs a licensed kitchen and a food manufacturer's or retail food license, and the cart its own mobile vending permit. Cream paletas, made with milk and cream, may also fall under a state's dairy or frozen dessert license, which is separate from the food license that covers fruit paletas, and may require the milk to be bought pasteurized or the mix to be pasteurized in a licensed plant. Ask the state dairy program and the county health department before choosing flavors. This is general information, not legal advice.
Part 6: the startup budget
| Item | Example |
|---|---|
| Used popsicle machine with brine tank | $8,500 |
| Three chest freezers | $1,500 |
| Push cart with cold plate | $3,500 |
| Sinks and stainless tables | $1,000 |
| Sticks and wrappers, first order | $400 |
| Brand and labels | $500 |
| Permits and inspection | $500 |
| Working cash | $3,000 |
| Total to start | $18,900 |
Get the template
Download the popsicle business plan workbook. Four sheets: your paletas and events with price, variable cost and volume at full speed; the year, month by month, with sales, profit and cash, and month 1 set to March; your fixed costs; and your startup budget with working cash. Change each month's share to match your climate. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Twenty flavors from fruit bought at its peak, batches frozen by date in three freezers, a cart loaded every morning, 12 cafés reordering, and events on weekends. A sheet can't say how many mango paletas are frozen, which batch a café got, or what a paleta costs now that strawberries have doubled.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps every batch with its fruit lots and its date.
Batches with their lots. Each flavor is a recipe, and units convert: fruit bought by the case, weighed by the pound. Recording a batch takes the fruit, sugar, sticks and wrappers off stock from the lots used, at what you paid, notes the lots automatically, and puts the paletas into a lot with their date, so the oldest go out first.
The freezer and the cart. The kitchen freezer and the cart are sites, with transfers for what goes out in the morning and comes back at night, counted on a phone. Café orders are sales orders that show whether the flavors are in the freezer while you're still typing, and one report walks a fruit lot to every café that got paletas from it.
And what each flavor earns. Margins are reported by product and by customer, and a price-creep report per supplier shows whose fruit prices are rising.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Mango paletas in the freezer | Count the trays | Stock by lot and date |
| What went out on the cart today | A list on the lid | Transfers between sites |
| Which batch did this café get? | Unknown | The lot, on the order |
| What a strawberry paleta costs now | Last month's number | Each batch, at what it used |
Recipes, batches, lots and margins by product and customer are on every plan, from $49 a month; up to three sites, the kitchen and the cart included, are 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.