Hello! I would love to get some feedback on profit margins & cost analysis specifically with raw, organic, cold-pressed juices. We know organic pricing is higher and conventional produce and that each recipe varies. For those that offer subscriptions and cleanse packages on raw, organic, cold-pressed juices. What is the average cost of your 16 oz bottled juice retail in this type of bundle vs served in a cup/lid and straw.
While I prefer glass and used it for a while, my customers forget to return/exchange glass and it’s expensive to keep in stock. I use greenware cups and my bottles are as green as I would like, but are BPA free. My customers prefer bottles. I charge 8.50/16 oz bottle retail and in my cleanse the price per juice is around 8.00/16 oz bottle. My 16 oz cup is: $7.50. I know other factors (demographics etc) need to be considered, but I’m always struggling with cost since produce prices fluctuate weekly.
Also, the lowest price I’ve found and I pay for a plastic bottle cap after shipping is .55
Would love anyone else’s experiences, advice and/or bottle supplier they love.
From what I’ve seen in the industry you should go for 60% - 70% gross profit margin if selling direct to consumer.
So if your cost of goods including packaging is $3 you should price the juice at around $7.50 or more.
If COGS is $4 you would need to charge $10 to keep the 60% minimum margin.
You can do the math as: COGS / 1 - Gross Margin. So COGS / 1 - 0.6 to get the price for a 60% margin. For the first example it would be $3 / .4 = $7.50
Not sure if that’s the sort of answer you’re looking for
For bottle supplier we have great luck with Captiva containers based in Miami. They have great customer service and you can order in small quantities. You can order from them online from the Goodnature site: https://www.goodnature.com/bottle-up/
Stanpac is popular for glass as mentioned above, also check out Berlin. They have the largest selection and have offices throughout the country in the US. https://www.berlinpackaging.com/glass-bottles/
Do you have any experiences with the numbers for distribution and wholesale? Would you say the same numbers apply? Or should the gross profit margin be higher, since they are some intermediates between the producer and the customer?
Thank you for starting this. I’ve already read a bunch of interesting things and I’m sure I will read a ton more in the future!
You should expect a lower profit margin when selling wholesale, since the distributor and retailer will want a margin for themselves. Depending on your costs I think you would be happy with 40%, and be OK with 30% gross margin, but would need to be doing decent volume to cover your costs. Wholesale is tough.
Hi! I currently order bottles from Captiva out of Miami. I am looking to negotiate my rates for 2019 and would like to bring other companies to them to help buy down our rates. These are plastic bottles. If anyone is interested in exploring this together, please let me know. Captiva is a fantastic company to work with - right now I pay $0.32/bottle including the lid. Please let me know if you’r’e interested in exploring this further!
I’m calculating shipping/freight into COGS not labor though. I can’t seem to get my bottle/cap cost below .50/piece.
I will stock up at ULINE and pick up on location to save on shipping and their bottle/caps are one unit, quality is OK.
CupBarn, offers free shipping and I love the quality of their bottles but, have to purchase caps separately which brings total cost per piece to close to .60
Check out good start packaging. I am just starting my business but got samples from them and very good quality. Although they sell caps separately, you can get around 41-43 cents total (that’s with shipping to Boston where I am) for a 16oz square bottle. I’m looking at getting larger quantities and ordering a pallets which gets me to 31 cents total (bottles and caps). Here’s the link to the bottles I am referring to: https://www.goodstartpackaging.com/juice-bottles/square/16-oz-bottle
COGS should include any costs directly attributed to the cost of the product. So you wouldn’t include the cost of shipping it somewhere, as that’s not the cost of the product.
Hi, gingerjuice!
We are in Oregon and purchase from Captiva… Don’t know if it is just our location, but we are paying them $.52 cents (12 oz, BPA free bottle and cap) each. We would love to be a part of negotiating that price down as we are planning to open another location soon and need more profit on each juice sold to stay in our profit margins. If you’d like to email : truejuice@charter.net Karen & Jake
Good Start is where I’m planning to order from so I’m happy you mentioned them and their quality. I’m starting small and getting a feel for demand so does anyone have any information on what size bottle works best? I’m between the 10oz and 12oz right now. I live in Ohio and I’m the first juice and smoothie business (much less organic) in my county so I’m anticipating a lot of questions or pushback if my juice prices exceed the $8 mark. I’d really like to keep my bottle prices as low as possible so any advice someone has regarding bottle size would be appreciated!
So we are only just starting our business, too. We are looking at 16 oz bottles with a $10-$12 price point. Granted we are going to be in the Caribbean catering to the North American tourist market who are familiar with cold-pressed juices (and typically don’t mind spending money while on vacation!). Looking at the Good Start website, the prices for their 10 oz and 12 oz bottle options run about the same per bottle depending on the quantity you buy (range is around 25 - 35 cents per bottle). If your biggest barrier/hurdle is consumer education and people wanting “bang for their buck”, you may want to go with the 12 oz bottle. I know you alluded to doing organic (which is more expensive from a cost standpoint), but if you can do $8-$9 that is still right on point with what we see here in Boston.
A couple of other thoughts that you may very well have considered in your business plan:
To help with he education, maybe during a “soft opening” you offer free small samples to get folks familiar with your product and educated on why organic cold-pressed juices are worth spending some of their discretionary income. I see good start offers these sizes in smaller quantities so you won’t take huge a hit financially by having to buy a huge minimum.
If there are any fitness studios (yoga, barre?) in your area - maybe partner with them in some way (offer instructors a discount to get them familiar so they talk with their clients and promote on their social media).
Ultimately, though, my thought is do the 12 oz. It’s a “standard” number (10oz seems a bit small unless it is part of a cleanse system), is the same price per bottle as the 10 oz via Good Start, not much more in food cost and will satisfy those in your community who are “doing the math”. That said, I’m sure there are many more folks in this forum who have more experience and advice to offer. Good luck!
Karen & Jake