Tamale Profit Margin: Dozens, Half Dozens and Grocers

A dozen pork tamales costs $16.49 in masa, pork, chile, husks, the bag, steaming, folding time and the card fee, and sells for $28.00, a 41.1% margin. Folding is the biggest single cost: a minute and a half a tamale. That's why the frozen dozen for a grocer at $16.00 keeps only 3.1% once the folding is counted, and why a half dozen keeps the most. Margin = (price − cost) ÷ price. In the example below, a month of five lines brings $28,050 of sales and about $9,540 of gross profit, before kitchen hours and the owner's pay.

The short version

• Margin = (price − cost) ÷ price; markup = (price − cost) ÷ cost.
• A pork dozen: $16.49, sold for $28.00, 41.1%.
• Folding time is the biggest single cost.
• A half dozen keeps the most.
• The grocer's frozen dozen keeps 3.1% once folding is counted.
• TaroStack costs each dozen from what each batch used. More below.

A dozen, costed

Paint Branch Tamale Co., the made-up tamale maker in Hyattsville, Maryland, I use in these examples, counts folding time in each dozen:

The dozen's price is in how to price tamales, and the business's year in tamale business plan.

Margins by channel

The half dozen keeps 44.6%, at more than half a dozen's price; the grocer's frozen dozen keeps 3.1%.

A month's numbers

A month for Paint Branch Tamale Co.:

The pork dozens bring most of the gross profit. The grocers' 300 frozen dozens leave almost nothing once folding is paid for at $20 an hour: they keep the kitchen busy, but at $16.00 they only pay if the folding gets faster or the price goes up. At a bulk run's cost, the grocer dozen starts to work, in how to make tamales in bulk.

Get the calculator

Download the tamale margin calculator. One sheet: one line for each product and channel, with its price, materials, packaging, labor and fee rate; the cost, gross profit, margin, markup and the price your target margin needs fill in. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.

Where this stops working

The calculator holds one cost per dozen. Pork shoulder moves by the week, a new folder takes longer, and the Christmas rush changes how fast every dozen is made.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack costs each dozen from what each batch used, so margins sit on real cost.

True cost from the batch. Each batch takes masa, pork and husks at the price of the deliveries they came from, so a price rise shows in the next batch's cost.

Labor on the batch. The minutes a batch took are recorded on it, so the hours behind each product are on record.

Margins by product. Margins are reported per product on that actual cost, and a price-creep report per supplier shows whose prices moved.

Recipes, batches, costing and margin reports 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.

Questions people also ask

What is the profit margin on tamales?

In the example, 41.1% on a pork dozen with folding time counted, and about 34% across the month.

Is selling tamales profitable?

It can be: the example's month of $28,050 in sales leaves about $9,540 of gross profit, before kitchen hours and the owner's pay.

How much does a dozen tamales cost to make?

In the example, $16.49 for a pork dozen with 18 minutes of folding at $20 an hour and the card fee.

Is selling tamales to grocery stores worth it?

In the example, a frozen dozen at $16.00 keeps 3.1% once folding is counted; it pays only with faster folding or a better price.