Guides
Growing your business
How to grow a small food business by earning more, not just selling more: what to measure, then how to work on price, products, channels and capacity.
Read the guide: How to grow a small food business (and keep the profit)
- How to grow a small food business (and keep the profit)How to grow a small food business by earning more, not just selling more: what to measure, then how to work on price, products, channels and capacity.→
- Production planning: how much to make each weekHow to decide how much to make each week in a small food business: recent demand, stock, whole batches and kitchen hours. With a worked example.→
- When to hire your first helper in a food businessHow to tell whether hiring your first helper will pay in a small food business: your hours, the real cost, units needed to cover it and profit per hour.→
- Launching a new food product: cost it before you cook itHow to cost and price a new food product before you launch it: loaded cost, launch waste, contribution per kitchen hour and the sales that pay it back.→
- Moving from a home kitchen to a production kitchenWhen it pays to move from your home kitchen to a shared commercial kitchen or your own unit: fixed costs, set-up costs and the sales you need to cover them.→
- Running two food brands from one kitchenHow to run more than one food brand from the same kitchen: which costs to share, how to split overhead by kitchen hours, and how to see which brand pays.→
- How to keep customers coming back to your food brandWhat a repeat customer is worth, what a new one costs you, and how to measure how many come back. Worked example with meal prep boxes and real arithmetic.→
- Word of mouth and referrals for small food brandsWhat makes people recommend a food product, how to make it easy, and how to work out whether a referral programme pays. Worked example with jars of jam.→
- The numbers to check every week in a food businessThe seven numbers a small food business should check every week, how to pull them together in half an hour, and what they tell you. Two-week worked example.→
- Growth traps: selling more and earning lessWhy a small food business can sell more and earn less per hour: cheap channels, discounts, big orders and cash. How to spot it early, with a worked example.→
What does it really cost you?
Put your recipe into the free calculator: ingredients, packaging, your time and the gas. You get the cost per unit and your margin in two minutes, no account needed.