If you want to open a juice bar you absolutely need to cost out your menu. I have seen people neglect this technical aspect and pay the price for it in the long run. Doing this may take a little bit of time, but will be one of the most important things you will do.
You want to cost out your menu so you can determine–with consistency–how much each of your drinks is going to cost you to make.
The easiest way to do this is to figure out the cost per ounce of each type of individual product that you are making.
For example…
Let’s say you have a juice that uses apples.
You will buy your apples in bulk. So say you buy 40 pounds of apples for $40. Now you know each pound of apples costs you $1. Now you would need to determine how many ounces of apple juice you will yield on average from a pound of apples.
So if you were to get 10 ounces of juice from that pound of apples, then you would know that it costs you 10 cents per ounce of apple juice.
Now you know that if you have a juice that uses 5 ounces of apple juice, your cost for this ingredient is 50 cents. Once you do this with all of your ingredients you will have a really accurate reading for the cost for all of your juices and obviously this is helpful in determining your prices.
Some people get overwhelmed by this process, but it is honestly really simple once you grasp the general concept. All you need is a scale to weigh things out and basic math skills.
You want to understand the unit of measurement you purchase your product in and what the output–meaning what goes in the drink–costs you.
It’s that simple. If you can measure it, you can convert it into dollars.
Prices fluctuate over time…
Another thing to consider is that the price of ingredients do fluctuate over time. To save yourself time you can create an excel sheet–or get someone to do it for you–so that all you have to do is plug in the new price per pounds and you will instantly know the cost per ounce of juice and therefore the cost of your actual product.
Be aware that this process is necessary before your recipes are finalized. You will need to adjust any recipe that isn’t in the proper product margin.
What is an ideal product margin? In our experience 25% if a good number to shoot for on average. This doesn’t mean every product will cost exactly that. It means this should be the target average. You might end up being 20% on some products, and 29% on others.
Anything over 30% is not acceptable in our judgement and should be changed.
By doing this simple, yet highly important step, you will be well on your way to running an awesome juice bar. I cover this concept in greater depth–as well as giving you absolutely everything you could ever need to open a juice bar–in my online course.