Guide for small dairies and farmstead cheesemakers
How to price your cheese: what one kilo really costs you
Most small cheesemakers set prices by looking at what others charge at the market. That works until the milk price rises, a batch loses more weight in the cave than expected, or a shop asks for its margin. This guide shows how to work out the true cost of one kilo, step by step, with a worked example you can copy.
1. Start from one batch, not from the year
Pick one typical batch and write down everything that went into it. A batch is easier to remember than a year of invoices, and it shows the cost of each cheese separately.
2. List every cost of the batch
- Milk. Bought milk at its price. Your own milk at what it costs you to produce, or at least what you could sell it for.
- Cultures, rennet, salt and other ingredients.
- Packaging and labels for the cheese you will actually sell.
- Energy, water and cleaning for the batch: heating, the cold room, detergents.
- Your hours. Making, turning, washing rinds, packing, cleaning. This is the cost most makers leave out, and it is usually the biggest one.
3. Count ripening loss
A cheese loses water while it ages. If you make 10 kg and sell 8.5 kg after two months, you sell 15% less than you made. Every cost above has to be paid by the 8.5 kg you sell, not by the 10 kg you made.
4. A worked example
100 litres of milk, one batch of a two-month tomme, 10 kg out of the moulds, 8.5 kg sold after ageing.
| Cost | Batch |
|---|---|
| Milk, 100 L at €0.60 | €60.00 |
| Cultures and rennet | €4.00 |
| Salt | €1.00 |
| Packaging, 8.5 kg at €0.50 per kg | €4.25 |
| Energy, water, cleaning | €5.00 |
| Your hours, 4 h at €15 | €60.00 |
| Total | €134.25 |
Cost per kilo sold: €134.25 ÷ 8.5 kg = €15.79.
Without your hours it would look like €8.74 per kilo. That is the trap: a price of €14 seems comfortable, yet it pays you only about €11 an hour for your work instead of €15.
5. From cost to price, channel by channel
- Farm shop or market. Add the costs of the channel itself. A €30 market fee spread over 20 kg sold that day adds €1.50 per kilo. Then add the margin you want: for 30% of the selling price, divide the cost by 0.7. (€15.79 + €1.50) ÷ 0.7 = €24.70 per kilo.
- Shops and wholesale. The shop adds its own margin on top of your price, so your wholesale price must already cover the full €15.79 and leave you something. At €19 you keep €3.21 per kilo. Below €15.79 you are paying to supply the shop.
- Online and delivery. Add the box, the cooling packs and the delivery per order, not per kilo, or small orders will lose money.
Check it twice a year. When the milk price, your yield or the ripening loss changes, the cost per kilo changes too. A 10% rise in the milk price in the example above adds €0.71 to every kilo.
Do it in two minutes
CurdLedger is a free calculator built for exactly this: you enter one batch and it shows the cost per kilo, including your hours and ripening loss, and the price that leaves a profit in each sales channel. No sign-up, and it works in euros, pounds, dollars, kronor and more.
Next: food safety records for a small dairy.
Written by Emanuil Yankov, who builds CurdLedger. The figures are an example; use your own.