A spice blend business plan sets out what you'll blend, who will buy it and how often, what a jar costs and sells for, where you'll blend and pack, and the first year month by month. Spice blends carry wide margins, because spices bought by the kilo cost little per jar, but one customer buys one jar every few months, so the plan needs a lot of customers, and fixed costs like kitchen rent have to be carried while they come. In the example below, a spice blender with a rented kitchen reaches 300 retail and 400 wholesale jars a month by month 11, makes its first monthly profit in month 6, and its cash bottoms out about $2,900 down in month 5, more than its $2,000 of working cash. The year ends about $6,000 ahead. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, the projection, and a free template.
The short version
- Describe the business in a paragraph: the blends, the customers, the kitchen, the goals.
- Cost a jar from the kilo of blend, plus jar, lid, label and filling time.
- Count the customers you need: a jar lasts a household months.
- Weigh a rented kitchen against shared kitchen hours; rent is the biggest fixed cost.
- Lot every blend; spices are recalled for contamination from time to time.
- Project 12 months, and make sure the working cash covers the low point.
- TaroStack costs every blend from what you paid and traces every spice lot. More below.
Part 1: the business description
Windward Roots, the made-up taro business I use in these examples, adds seasoning blends. Its description reads:
Windward Roots Spice blends smoked and island-inspired seasonings in small batches in a rented kitchen on Oʻahu, packed in 3 oz glass shaker jars. We sell at two Saturday markets and online, and wholesale to grocers, butchers and gift shops. Every jar carries its blend lot and best-by date. In the first year we plan to be in 30 shops and to sell 700 jars a month by month 11.
Part 2: what a jar costs
The costs come from spice business profit margin, where a kilo of blend is worked out. For the plan, the overhead share moves to the monthly costs:
| Per 3 oz jar | Cost |
|---|---|
| Blend, 85 g at $8.67 a kg, after dust and sifting | $0.74 |
| Glass jar and shaker lid | $0.85 |
| Label | $0.12 |
| Blending and filling, 60 jars an hour at $20 | $0.33 |
| Variable cost | $2.04 |
A retail jar also pays a 3% card fee, so its variable cost is $2.33.
Part 3: customers and prices
| Channel | Price | Variable cost | Contribution | Jars a month at full speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Retail, markets and online | $9.50 | $2.33 | $7.17 | 300 |
| Wholesale to shops | $5.50 | $2.04 | $3.46 | 400 |
A household goes through a jar of seasoning in a few months, so 300 retail jars a month means several hundred customers who come back, not 300 people. Wholesale spreads the reach: 400 jars is about 30 shops taking a dozen or so each.
Part 4: operations
| Area | In the plan |
|---|---|
| Kitchen | A rented kitchen, or shared kitchen hours; the rent is a fixed cost every month |
| Sourcing | Spices by the kilo, importers and wholesalers, minimums, lead times |
| Blending | Batch size, dust lost, a lot code and best-by date on each blend |
| Packaging | Jars, lids and labels; the printer's and glass supplier's minimums |
| Label | Ingredients in order, net weight, your name and place, allergens if any |
| Records | Each blend's spice lots, so a supplier's recall reaches the right jars |
How lots work from ingredient to jar is in track ingredients by lot.
Part 5: the first year, month by month
Sales start at 15% of full speed and reach 100% by month 11, against $1,500 of fixed costs a month: kitchen rent, insurance, the website and online shop, marketing and samples, and a market booth.
| Month | Retail jars | Wholesale jars | Sales | Profit | Cash, year to date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 45 | 60 | $758 | −$970 | −$970 |
| 2 | 60 | 80 | $1,010 | −$793 | −$1,763 |
| 3 | 75 | 100 | $1,263 | −$616 | −$2,379 |
| 4 | 90 | 120 | $1,515 | −$440 | −$2,819 |
| 5 | 120 | 160 | $2,020 | −$86 | −$2,905 |
| 6 | 150 | 200 | $2,525 | $268 | −$2,637 |
| 7 | 180 | 240 | $3,030 | $621 | −$2,016 |
| 8 | 210 | 280 | $3,535 | $975 | −$1,042 |
| 9 | 240 | 320 | $4,040 | $1,328 | $287 |
| 10 | 270 | 360 | $4,545 | $1,682 | $1,968 |
| 11 | 300 | 400 | $5,050 | $2,035 | $4,003 |
| 12 | 300 | 400 | $5,050 | $2,035 | $6,038 |
The kitchen rent, $900 of the $1,500, is what pushes the first five months into a loss, and the cash is about $905 short at its low. Two fixes belong in the plan: about $3,000 of working cash instead of $2,000, or shared kitchen hours booked by the batch until the volume justifies the rent. How a shared kitchen's hourly cost compares is in commissary kitchen cost.
Part 6: the startup budget
| Item | Example |
|---|---|
| Grinder and scale | $400 |
| Sifter and mixing tubs | $150 |
| First spices | $800 |
| First 1,000 jars, lids and labels | $970 |
| Label design and nutrition analysis | $600 |
| License and permits | $300 |
| Market tent and table | $300 |
| Barcodes from GS1, for stores | $250 |
| Website | $300 |
| Working cash | $2,000 |
| Total to start | $6,070 |
Get the template
Download the spice business plan template. Type your jars with their price, variable cost and monthly volume at full speed, your fixed costs and startup budget, and how fast customers and shops will come; it works out each month's sales, profit and cash, the first month with a profit, the lowest cash point, and whether your working cash covers it. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Eight blends share a dozen spices bought from three suppliers, each lot with its own date and price. When a supplier recalls a lot of garlic powder, the question is which blends used it and which shops got those jars, and a notebook of batches without lot numbers can't say. Meanwhile the smoked paprika has gone up 15% and the price list hasn't.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack costs every blend from the spices you bought and traces every lot.
Every blend, costed. Each blend is a recipe, with units converted: buy spices by the kilo, use them by the gram. Recording a blending batch takes each spice off stock from the lot used, at what you paid, and divides by what came out good, so dust losses and price rises are in the cost the day they happen. A price-creep report per supplier shows who's raising prices.
Every lot, traced. Each blend goes into a lot with a best-by date, sold first-expired-first-out, and lot labels print with its code. If a supplier recalls a spice lot, one report walks it forward to every blend that used it, every shop that got those jars, with contact details, and what's still on your shelves.
And the plan, checked. Each shop is a customer with its orders. Margins are reported by product and by customer, and the reorder list shows spices, jars and labels in days of cover, so the glass order goes in before you run out.
| The question | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| What a jar costs now | Worked out once | Every batch, at what you paid |
| A garlic powder recall | Which batches? Unknown | One report, spice lot to shop |
| Who's raising prices | Noticed at the till | Price creep, per supplier |
| Jars running low | When the box is empty | Days of cover |
Lots, recalls, lot labels, recipes, batches and margins 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.