What to charge
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What goes into a jar
- Cucumbers, bought in a window, in volume, months before any revenue.
- Jar, lid and label.
- Brine: vinegar and salt, both bought by the case.
- Labor, dominated by washing and trimming rather than by processing.
- Energy, which is small per batch and not small per season.
- The scheduled process, amortized across every jar of that formulation.
The labor is the one people leave out
Per-cucumber work does not shrink with scale the way equipment cost does, so a price built on ingredients plus a margin understates the cost of every jar and understates it more as you grow. Time a real production day before setting a price, and use that number rather than an estimate made while optimistic.
The cash shape of this business
The largest outflow of the year happens in a few weeks, months before the jars sell. That is a working capital problem rather than a margin problem, and the two get confused: a maker with a healthy margin can still run out of money in September. Price with it in mind and plan the season around it.
Wholesale is a different number
It is not retail with a discount. A wholesale price has to leave room for the buyer and still cover a cost per jar that includes the consistency work wholesale demands, which is real work that retail at a market does not require. Work it out separately rather than deriving one from the other.
Freight is part of the price of a heavy product
Glass jars full of liquid are dense, and shipping them is a real line that a maker selling at a market never has to think about. The first mail order is where that gets discovered, usually at the point of quoting it to a customer who then does not buy. Decide early whether you ship at all, and if you do, work the freight into the model rather than treating it as something the customer sorts out.