Juice Batch Price Calculator
Pricing Breakdown
How to Price Your Fresh Cold-Pressed Juice
Starting a juice business requires precise cost accounting. Unlike other beverages, cold-pressed juice involves significant raw material waste (pulp) and fluctuating seasonal produce costs. To stay profitable, you must understand your Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) and your target margins.
Key Components of Juice Pricing
- Ingredient Costs: This includes every gram of fruit, vegetable, herb, and liquid base. Remember to calculate based on the weight used for the final yield, not just the raw purchase weight.
- Packaging: This covers the bottle (PET or Glass), the tamper-evident cap, and the label. Don't forget the cost of shipping these items to your facility.
- Labor & Overhead: Calculate how much time it takes to wash, prep, juice, bottle, and clean. Add a portion of your rent and utilities to the batch cost.
- Margin: Most successful juice bars aim for a 35% to 50% profit margin to cover marketing and administrative expenses.
Example Calculation
Imagine you make a batch of "Green Glow" juice:
– Ingredients: $50.00 (Kale, Apple, Lemon, Ginger)
– Packaging: $20.00 (20 bottles and caps at $1.00 each)
– Labor: $10.00 (1 hour of prep/cleaning)
– Total Batch Cost: $80.00
– Cost Per Bottle: $4.00
To achieve a 50% profit margin, you wouldn't just double the price to $8.00 (that would be a 100% markup, but margins are calculated on the retail price). You use the formula: Price = Cost / (1 - Margin %). In this case: $4.00 / 0.50 = $8.00. If you wanted a 60% margin: $4.00 / 0.40 = $10.00.
Strategies to Increase Profit
- Buy Seasonally: Strawberries are cheaper in June; citrus is cheaper in winter. Rotate your menu to reflect produce availability.
- Minimize Waste: Use a high-efficiency hydraulic press to extract every drop of liquid from your produce.
- Upsell Add-ins: Boosters like spirulina, turmeric shots, or protein powder have high margins and low overhead.