Production planning: how much to make each week

To decide how much to make each week, start from what you sold over the last four weeks, add confirmed orders and subtract what you already have made. Round that to whole batches and compare it with the kitchen hours you have. If it does not fit, protect confirmed orders and cut where it costs you least: a product that keeps, which you can make next week, or the one that earns least per kitchen hour.

Step 1: demand for each product

Write down how much of each product you sold in each of the last four weeks and take the average. If one week was odd (a bank holiday, a rained-out market), leave it out and average the other three.

Add confirmed orders that are not part of your normal sales: a café that ordered extra this week, a birthday, an office order. Anything that already repeats every week is in the average; do not count it twice.

Step 2: subtract what you already have

Check your stock before planning. If you have eight jars of granola left from last week and it keeps for months, those eight count.

Shelf life decides how much this matters:

• Keeps for weeks (granola, jam, hot sauce): leftovers are stock and get subtracted.
• Keeps for a day or two (sourdough, meal prep boxes): there is almost never useful stock, and leftovers usually become waste.

Step 3: round to whole batches

Nobody makes 70 loaves exactly. You make batches the size your oven, mixer or pan allows. Divide what you need by the batch size and round.

For products that keep, round up: the leftovers carry over to next week. For short shelf-life products, look at your history. If you nearly always sell out, round up; if you often have leftovers, round down.

Step 4: compare with your kitchen hours

Multiply batches by the hours each one takes and add them up. Compare that total with the kitchen hours you really have that week, after shopping, deliveries and selling.

If it does not fit, do not cut at random. Look at two things for each product: how long it keeps, and its contribution per kitchen hour (contribution margin per unit × units per hour). A product that keeps can be made next week, so cutting it this week may cost you nothing. If nothing keeps, cut the product that earns least per hour. The guide on how to grow a small food business explains why per-hour earnings matter most when hours are what you are short of.

Worked example: a week of sourdough, granola and jam

You have 15 kitchen hours this week and three products.

Sourdough loaves. Market sales over the last four weeks: 56, 60, 57 and 59. Average: 232 ÷ 4 = 58. A café has just started a standing order of 12 loaves a week, which is not in the average yet. Bread does not keep, so no stock. You need 58 + 12 = 70 loaves. A batch is 12 loaves and takes 2 hours: 70 ÷ 12 = 5.8, so 6 batches, 72 loaves, 12 hours. Two spare loaves is acceptable waste; five batches would leave you 10 short.

Granola (500 g jar). Sales: 28, 31, 30 and 31. Average: 120 ÷ 4 = 30. You have 8 jars on the shelf. You need 30 − 8 = 22 jars. A batch is 10 jars and takes 1.5 hours: 22 ÷ 10 = 2.2, so 3 batches, 30 jars, 4.5 hours.

Jam. Sales: 16, 18, 19 and 19. Average: 72 ÷ 4 = 18. You have 20 jars on the shelf. You need nothing this week.

Total: 12 + 4.5 = 16.5 hours. You have 15. You are 1.5 hours over.

Here is what each product earns per hour:

The sums: sourdough 12 × 5.10 = $61.20 per batch, ÷ 2 hours = $30.60. Granola 10 × 5.40 = $54.00 per batch, ÷ 1.5 = $36.00.

Granola earns more per hour, so a per-hour rule alone would say cut bread. But bread cannot wait, and granola can. Make 2 batches of granola instead of 3: 20 jars plus the 8 on the shelf gives 28, against an average of 30. At worst you run 2 jars short this week, which is 2 × 5.40 = $10.80 of margin, and you make it up next week. Cutting a batch of bread instead would lose 12 loaves for good: 12 × 5.10 = $61.20, and possibly part of the café order.

Next week, plan granola with an empty shelf in mind and the jam stock lower, so expect a fuller week. That is the point of planning weekly: you see the crunch coming.

From plan to shopping list

Once the batches are set, you know what to buy: multiply each batch recipe by the number of batches and subtract what is already in the cupboard. The guide on turning your production plan into a shopping list goes through it step by step, including when the wholesaler or cash and carry beats the supermarket.

Planning before you shop has a direct effect on waste: you buy for what you will make, not for what you hope to sell.

When the plan is telling you something else

A weekly plan also tells you things about the business:

• You are short of hours several weeks in a row, and what you cut carries a good margin. That is the signal to look at when to hire your first helper.
• You always have hours left over. You have room to sell more or to try something new.
• One product always gets cut. Look at its price or recipe before you keep making it.

If you are launching a new product, give it a small, fixed batch in the plan for the first few weeks, because you have no sales history yet. Before that, cost it before you cook it so you know where it sits in your contribution-per-hour ranking.

Do it with the calculator

Enter each recipe in the food cost calculator with its yield per batch and its price; it gives you the contribution margin per unit. With that and the time each batch takes, you have the contribution per hour you need to decide what to cut when the week does not fit.