Vegan Bakery Business Plan: Cafés, a Counter and Cakes

A vegan bakery bakes without eggs, milk or butter, and its ingredients cost a little more: vegan butter, plant milks and egg replacers. A chocolate chip cookie still costs only about 42 cents to make, and sells to a café for $1.75 and at the counter for $3.50. The plan turns on cafés, which take cookies and cinnamon rolls by the dozen every morning, a small counter, and cakes to order for people who can't find them anywhere else. It also has to get the label right: FDA hasn't defined "vegan", so the word is the baker's promise, and every allergen still goes on the label, nuts and soy above all. The plan below works per item. In the example, an Asheville vegan bakery starts with $78,300, ends its first year about $7,500 ahead before the owner's pay, and makes about $3,700 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 bakery in a paragraph: what you bake, who buys, the goals.
• Cost each item: flour, vegan butter, sugar and chocolate by weight, the bag, the card fee.
• Plan sales by product: café cookies and rolls, counter cookies and cupcakes, cakes to order.
• Cafés buy every morning; cakes to order keep the most.
• "Vegan" has no FDA definition: it's your promise, so keep it true.
• Declare every allergen: nuts, soy, wheat.
• TaroStack costs each item from its recipe and what each batch used. More below.

Part 1: the business description

Fern and Oat Bakery, a made-up vegan bakery in Asheville, North Carolina, writes:

Fern and Oat Bakery bakes vegan cookies, cinnamon rolls, cupcakes and cakes in a small production space with a counter in Asheville, delivers to twelve cafés every morning, and takes cake orders. In its first year it aims to reach $19,320 of sales a month.

Part 2: what an item costs

Vegan butter costs about twice what dairy butter does by the pound, and it's the biggest line in the cookie. The cafés sell the cookie for about $3.50. Selling to cafés is in how to sell baked goods to coffee shops.

Part 3: cafés, the counter and the label

Bakers start at 4; the van leaves at 6:30 for twelve cafés. The counter opens 8 to 2, Wednesday to Sunday, and cakes are ordered a week ahead. Every label lists the ingredients and allergens: wheat in nearly everything, soy in the vegan butter and chocolate, and tree nuts in the almond cake. The "vegan" claim itself is the bakery's to keep true, down to the sugar and the chocolate, as vegan label requirements explains.

Part 4: what each product earns

At full speed the business sells $19,320 a month and keeps $14,769.40, 76.4%; café cookies bring $3,840 of it.

Part 5: the first year, month by month

Fixed costs are $11,100 every month: rent ($2,800), wages for a baker and a counter helper ($6,500), utilities ($700), delivery van fuel ($300), insurance ($250), ads ($200), software ($50), and other costs ($300). Sales start at half of full speed:

The year's sales are $184,110, and the business ends it $7,545 ahead, before the owner's pay. It breaks even at about $14,520 of sales a month, in the sixth month. The lowest cash point, −$9,715 in month 5, is covered by the $20,000 of working cash with about $10,300 to spare. Cafés add a bakery one at a time and can drop it as fast if a delivery is late; the plan's ramp is mostly new cafés.

Part 6: the startup budget

The $58,300 before working cash is earned back in about 16 months at full speed. A cupcake shop is in cupcake business plan, and a cookie business in cookie business plan.

Get the template

Download the vegan bakery 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 cost per cookie. Vegan butter prices move, a café orders three dozen one day and one the next, and the cookies that come back unsold change what each one really cost.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack costs each cookie from its recipe and from what each batch used.

Recipes by weight. Each cookie 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.

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.

Questions people also ask

How much does it cost to start a vegan bakery?

The example budgets $78,300, including $20,000 of working cash; the build-out is the biggest item.

Is a vegan bakery profitable?

It can be: the example makes about $3,700 a month at full speed before the owner's pay, and ends its first year ahead.

How much does a vegan cookie cost to make?

In the example, about 42 cents of ingredients, most of it vegan butter and chocolate, and 47 cents with the bag.

Is there a legal definition of vegan for food labels?

Not from FDA; "vegan" is the maker's claim to keep true, and allergens still go on the label.