Cinnamon-glazed nuts sell on smell: a copper kettle of pecans and almonds glazing in sugar and cinnamon at a fair draws a line. A cone costs about $3.52 with the nuts, glaze, cone, the fair's share and the card fee, and sells for $8. Market bags, gift shop wholesale and holiday tins carry the months between fairs. The plan turns on the fair calendar, a concession trailer and its generator, the fair's percentage of sales, and nut prices, which are most of what a cone costs. The plan below works per cone, bag and tin. In the example, a Fort Worth roasted nut maker starts with $41,500, ends its first year about $30,700 ahead before the owner's pay, and makes about $6,000 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 business in a paragraph: the nuts, the fairs, who buys, the goals.
- Cost each cone and bag: nuts by the pound, sugar and cinnamon, the cone or bag, the fair's share, the card fee.
- Plan sales by product: fair cones, market bags, gift shop wholesale, holiday tins.
- Fairs take a share of sales: put it in the cost.
- Nuts are most of the cost; watch pecan prices.
- Tree nuts on every bag and tin.
- TaroStack costs each bag from its recipe and what each batch used. More below.
Part 1: the business description
Cinnamon Trail Roasted Nuts, a made-up roasted nut maker in Fort Worth, Texas, writes:
Cinnamon Trail Roasted Nuts glazes pecans, almonds and cashews in a copper kettle at fairs, rodeos and festivals across North Texas, sells 8-ounce bags at a weekend market, wholesales bags to gift shops, and ships holiday tins. In its first year it aims to reach $20,580 of sales a month.
Part 2: what a cone costs
| Item | Nuts | Sugar and cinnamon | Cone, bag or tin | Fair share or card fee | Cost | Price | Cost share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cone of glazed pecans, 4 oz, at a fair | $1.50 | $0.10 | $0.08 | $1.84 | $3.52 | $8.00 | 44.0% |
| Bag, 8 oz, at a market | $3.00 | $0.20 | $0.25 | $0.36 | $3.81 | $12.00 | 31.8% |
| Bag, 8 oz, to a gift shop | $3.00 | $0.20 | $0.25 | $3.45 | $7.00 | 49.3% | |
| Holiday tin, 1 lb | $6.00 | $0.40 | $1.60 | $0.84 | $8.84 | $28.00 | 31.6% |
The fair's share is 20% of each $8 cone, $1.60, plus the card fee. Pecans run about $6 a pound wholesale. How a fair booth's permit works is in temporary food permit.
Part 3: the fair calendar, markets and tins
Fairs and rodeos run spring and fall, with a few big weekends bringing much of the year's cone sales; the weekend market runs year-round. Gift shops reorder bags monthly, and tins ship from November. The kettle runs from a commissary for bags and tins, and at the fair under its temporary permit. Another fair business is in cotton candy business plan.
Part 4: what each product earns
| Product | Price | Variable cost | Contribution | Margin | Units a month at full speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cone of glazed nuts at fairs | $8.00 | $3.52 | $4.48 | 56% | 1,500 |
| 8 oz bag at markets | $12.00 | $3.81 | $8.19 | 68.2% | 400 |
| 8 oz bag to gift shops | $7.00 | $3.45 | $3.55 | 50.7% | 300 |
| Holiday tin, 1 lb | $28.00 | $8.84 | $19.16 | 68.4% | 60 |
At full speed the business sells $20,580 a month and keeps $12,210.60, 59.3%; fair cones bring $6,720 of it.
Part 5: the first year, month by month
Fixed costs are $6,200 every month: wages for an event helper ($4,000), commissary ($800), trailer and truck fuel ($600), insurance ($300), propane ($150), software ($50), and other costs ($300). Sales start at 35% of full speed:
| Month | Sales | Profit | Cash, year to date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $7,203 | −$1,926 | −$1,926 |
| 2 | $8,638 | −$1,075 | −$3,002 |
| 3 | $10,073 | −$224 | −$3,226 |
| 4 | $11,536 | $646 | −$2,581 |
| 5 | $12,971 | $1,497 | −$1,084 |
| 6 | $14,406 | $2,347 | $1,263 |
| 7 | $15,841 | $3,198 | $4,462 |
| 8 | $17,276 | $4,049 | $8,511 |
| 9 | $18,522 | $4,790 | $13,300 |
| 10 | $19,551 | $5,400 | $18,701 |
| 11 | $20,580 | $6,011 | $24,711 |
| 12 | $20,580 | $6,011 | $30,722 |
The year's sales are $177,177, and the business ends it $30,722 ahead, before the owner's pay. It breaks even at about $10,450 of sales a month, in the fourth month. The lowest cash point, −$3,226 in month 3, is covered by the $12,000 of working cash with about $8,800 to spare. This is the plan's weak spot for a fair business: it spreads the fair weekends as monthly averages, but October and March can each bring a quarter of the year's cones, and January brings almost none.
Part 6: the startup budget
| Item | Example |
|---|---|
| Used concession trailer | $18,000 |
| Copper nut roasting kettle | $4,500 |
| Generator | $2,000 |
| Opening inventory | $2,000 |
| Permits | $1,200 |
| Signs | $1,000 |
| Tent and displays | $800 |
| Working cash | $12,000 |
| Total to start | $41,500 |
The $29,500 before working cash is earned back in about 5 months at full speed. Another kettle snack at fairs is in popcorn business plan, and gift tins as their own line in gift box business plan.
Get the template
Download the roasted nuts 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 nut price. Pecans move by the harvest, a fair weekend rains out, and the bags made for gift shops in October sit next to November's in the commissary.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack costs each bag of nuts from its recipe and from what each batch used.
Recipes by weight. Each bag of nuts is a recipe, with unit conversion from the case or sack to the gram.
True cost from the batch. Each batch takes ingredients at their real cost, from the deliveries they came from, so a price rise shows up in the next batch.
Price creep. A price-creep report per supplier shows which ingredient is quietly costing more.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| What a bag of nuts costs this week | Last season's sheet | True cost from the batch |
| Bags by batch date | Marker on the case | Lots with dates, oldest first |
| An ingredient creeping up | Noticed at tax time | A price-creep report |
| Whether wholesale still pays | A guess | Margins on real cost |
Recipes, batches and true cost 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.