Selling it

What to charge

Updated October 2026

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What goes into a bottle of oil What goes into a bottle of vinegar The aged-out stock line Freight on glass Wholesale is its own calculation Do not price against the supermarket shelf References

These two have opposite cost structures, and pricing one with the other’s logic is the mistake. Oil is dominated by a bought input; vinegar by time.

What goes into a bottle of oil

The oil itself, which is most of it and which you do not control.
Bottle, closure and label, with glass freight attached.
Infusion material and acidification, if you infuse.
Labor, which for a bottling operation is mostly handling.
Loss: bottles broken, oil left in the bulk container, stock that aged past the date before it sold.

What goes into a bottle of vinegar

Very cheap materials and a great deal of time in a room you pay for every month. The right way to carry that is as a cost per month of occupied space divided across what that space produces, which is an unfamiliar calculation and the only honest one.

The aged-out stock line

Both products have a clock, and the oil’s is shorter than most makers plan for. Stock that passed its date before it sold is a real cost and it is almost never in a first-year costing. Build in an allowance rather than discovering it.

Freight on glass

If you ship, freight belongs in the model rather than being treated as the customer’s problem. It is what turns a mail order into a quote nobody accepts, and the small sizes carry it best.

Wholesale is its own calculation

Not retail with a discount. It has to leave the buyer a margin and still cover a cost per bottle that includes the consistency and documentation wholesale demands. Work it from the cost up rather than down from a shelf price you saw somewhere.

Do not price against the supermarket shelf

A large producer buys oil by the tanker and amortizes a label design across millions of bottles. Pricing a small-batch bottled oil against that is a race you lose by arithmetic rather than by effort. The comparison that works is against other small producers and against what the buyer is actually choosing between, which is rarely the cheapest bottle in the shop.

Work both products out at the volume you will genuinely reach this year rather than the one in the plan, because a price set on hoped-for volume is a price you cannot raise later without explaining yourself.

References

United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service. United States Standards for Grades of Olive Oil and Olive-Pomace Oil, 7 CFR 52.1531 to 52.1542, published at 75 FR 22363 and effective October 25, 2010. Voluntary standards issued under the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946. ams.usda.gov

United States Food and Drug Administration. Compliance Policy Guide Sec. 525.825, Vinegar, Definitions: “No standards of identity for vinegar have been established under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act,” and each listed variety “should contain 4 grams of acetic acid per 100 mL.” fda.gov

Written from federal regulation, voluntary USDA grade standards, FDA labeling policy and published extension guidance, not from a laboratory. The infused-oil pages describe a real botulism hazard and are a starting point for a conversation with your state department of agriculture and a process authority, not a determination that any method you use is safe.