How to price granola: cost per bag after baking
Granola loses weight in the oven, and nuts set most of the price. Here is how to cost a finished bag and keep your margin when nuts get dearer.
Granola looks easy to price: add up the ingredients and divide by the bags. Two things trip up most makers: the weight granola loses in the oven, and nut prices that change from one order to the next.
Count bags after baking
Granola loses water and some crumbs as it bakes. In our example, 5.2 kg of raw mix gives 4.4 kg of finished granola, about 15% less. That makes 11 bags of 400 g, not 13.
Example: one batch, 11 bags of 400 g
| Item | Cost | |---|---| | 2.5 kg oats | £3.75 | | 1 kg mixed nuts | £12.00 | | 0.5 kg seeds | £2.50 | | 0.6 kg honey | £4.80 | | 0.3 kg oil | £0.90 | | 0.3 kg dried fruit | £2.70 | | 11 bags with labels | £4.95 | | Energy | £2.50 | | 2 hours of labour at £12 | £24.00 | | Total | £58.10 |
One bag costs £58.10 ÷ 11 = £5.28. At a 35% margin: £5.28 ÷ (1 − 0.35) = £8.12, so £8.20.
What raw weight does to your price
Divide by 13 bags, as the raw weight suggests, and a bag seems to cost £4.54. The price comes out at £7.00, and your real margin is 25% instead of 35%. Weigh one batch after baking and use that yield from then on.
Nuts set the price
In this batch nuts are about a fifth of the cost and almost half of the ingredients. If they go up 30%, a bag costs £5.61 and your margin at £8.20 falls to 32%. To get back to 35%, the price moves to £8.70. Check after every large nut order, not once a year. If margin and markup still get mixed up, read the difference explained.
Shops and cafés
A shop adds its own margin on top of your price, so your granola costs more on its shelf than at your stall. Our guide to pricing jam shows how to set your price for shops.
How Lagom does it
In Lagom a recipe can yield bags or kilograms. Enter ingredients at your last purchase price, the bag and label as packaging, and your time. Lagom shows the cost per bag and the price for your target margin, and Profit points to the product that needs a new price after nuts get dearer.