What the time actually costs

The making is the small part. Almost everybody discovers this in the same order and in the same disappointed way.

Where the hours actually go

Grinding and blending are fast. Filling, capping, labeling and packing are slow, and they scale linearly with units: a hundred jars takes ten times as long as ten and there is no trick that changes it at small scale.

Behind that sits sourcing, receiving, record keeping and the selling itself, which for most small producers is the largest block and the least anticipated.

The hidden one is changeover

Cleaning between materials is the tax that makes small batches expensive in time. The mill has to be properly cleaned between spices because residue carries, and that cost is the same whether you ground one kilogram or ten.

Which means a day spent making four products is mostly a day spent cleaning. Batching by material, running mild to strong, and doing one changeover rather than four is the single biggest time saving available.

A realistic week

For somebody selling at one market and a little online: a day of production every week or two, a day at market, and a steady background of ordering, emails, labeling and record keeping that fills whatever time is left.

Production is the part you can predict. Everything else expands, and the selling expands most.

What does not shrink

Sourcing conversations, because they are the quality control. Record keeping, because the records are what let you answer a question about a jar from last year. And tasting against retained samples, which is the only defense against a blend drifting.

Those three feel like overhead and are the actual work. The filling is what you can eventually hand to somebody else.

References