Toffee Business Plan, With a 12-Month Projection

A toffee business plan sets out what you'll make and who buys it, what a box costs and sells for, the kitchen and equipment it needs, and the first year month by month. Toffee is butter and sugar cooked to the hard crack stage, spread, topped with chocolate and nuts, and broken into pieces, and butter is half of what the ingredients cost. The bigger thing to plan around is the calendar: toffee is a gift, so November and December can be half the year's sales, with corporate orders landing all at once. In the example below, a candy maker in Dallas sells boxes direct and wholesale, small bags and corporate gift tins, makes a profit every month, and ends the first year about $27,900 ahead on $75,700 of sales, after paying $20 an hour for the work, with more than two-thirds of the profit made in the last two months. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, the holiday season, the projection, the startup budget, and a free template.

The short version

• Describe the business in a paragraph: what you make, where you sell, the kitchen, the goals.
• Cost a box with your time in it: butter is half the ingredients, and the hours are the biggest line.
• Price direct, wholesale and corporate gifts separately; corporate tins carry the year.
• Plan for November and December: half the sales and more hours than one person has.
• Toffee keeps for weeks in airtight packaging, so the holiday stock can be made ahead.
• Budget for heavy pots, a chocolate melter and boxes before the first holiday fair.
• TaroStack keeps every batch with its lot and date, and the butter on the reorder list. More below.

Part 1: the business description

Bluebonnet Toffee Co., a made-up candy maker in Dallas, Texas, I use in these examples, writes:

Bluebonnet Toffee Co. makes English toffee with dark chocolate and toasted almonds in a commercial kitchen, sold in boxes and bags at markets and holiday fairs, online, wholesale to gift shops, and in tins for corporate gifts. Every box carries its batch date. In our first year we plan to sell 250 corporate tins in December.

Part 2: what a box costs

A batch of four pounds takes about an hour and a quarter of hands-on work: cooking to temperature, spreading, the chocolate and nuts, breaking and packing. Then each product adds its own:

How to put labor into the cost of any confection is in how to compute labor cost in baking: the arithmetic is the same at the stove.

Part 3: customers and prices

A wholesale box leaves $2.57; a corporate tin, $17.49. Corporate gifts are ordered by the dozen or the hundred, paid by invoice, and delivered in one trip, which is why one business customer in December can be worth a month of markets. How to set a wholesale price a gift shop will accept is in how to price handmade items for wholesale.

Part 4: the holiday season

Fixed costs are $935 a month: kitchen time ($500), insurance ($50), market and holiday fair fees averaged over the year ($150), the website and online shop ($50), software and card fees ($35), and marketing ($150). The year starts small, lifts for Valentine's Day and Mother's Day, and reaches full speed in December:

The year's sales are $75,664 and the profit $27,944, on top of $20 an hour for the work. November and December are $40,500 of the sales and $19,091 of the profit. December alone is about 250 hours of making and packing, more than one person can do, so the plan makes stock from October, since toffee keeps for weeks sealed, and brings in paid help for the packing. Butter can be bought ahead and frozen, which also protects against a price rise. How seasonal makers build stock ahead of a peak is in seasonal inventory.

Part 5: the startup budget

Toffee is a candy that keeps at room temperature, so many states' cottage food rules include it; this plan uses a commercial kitchen to sell wholesale and to corporate customers. Milk, almonds and the soy often found in chocolate are the allergens to check and declare.

Get the template

Download the toffee business plan workbook. Four sheets: your products with price, variable cost and monthly volume at full speed; the year, month by month from January, with sales, profit and cash; your fixed costs; and your startup budget with working cash. Change the monthly percentages to match your own calendar. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.

Where this stops working

In November, toffee made in October sits in sealed bins by batch, corporate orders for 50 or 100 tins come in with delivery dates, gift shops reorder weekly, and butter is going up. A notebook can't say how much of the October stock is left, which batch is oldest, or whether there's butter for the last week of December.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack keeps every batch with its date, and the orders against it.

Batches with lots and dates. Each toffee is a recipe, and units convert: butter bought by the 36-pound case, weighed by the gram. Recording a batch takes the ingredients off stock at what you paid and puts the toffee into a lot with its date, so the oldest is packed first and lots close to their date show in your alerts.

Corporate orders against stock. Corporate and gift shop orders are sales orders for their delivery day that show whether the toffee and tins to fill them are on hand while you're still typing. Planning, on Standard, works out what to make and what to buy, and by when, from the orders and your capacity.

And butter before the rush. The reorder list works in days of cover at the rate butter, chocolate and almonds really move, and margins are reported by product and by customer, so the corporate accounts show what they're worth.

Recipes, batches, lots and margins by product and customer are on every plan, from $49 a month; planning from orders is 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.

Questions people also ask

Is a toffee business profitable?

It can be. In the example, a candy maker selling boxes, bags and corporate gift tins ends the first year about $27,900 ahead on $75,700 of sales, with $20 an hour paid for the work. Most of the profit comes in November and December.

How much does it cost to make toffee?

In the example, $4.30 of ingredients a pound, half of it butter, and $6.81 for an 8-ounce box sold direct, with the box, the making and packing time and the card fee.

How much should I sell toffee for?

Cost a box with your time, then price each channel. In the example, an 8-ounce box sells for $16 direct and $9 wholesale, and a 1-pound corporate tin for $32.

When is the busiest time for a toffee business?

The holidays. In the example, November and December bring in more than half the year's sales and two-thirds of its profit.