Wholesale
Wholesale bread pricing for cafes: what to charge per loaf, minimums and delivery
Charge cafes 50 to 70 percent of your retail loaf price, lower for shelf resale and higher for toast and sandwiches. Margin per loaf, delivery and minimum orders.
the ibakepro team ·
Charge cafes 50 to 70% of your retail loaf price. Use the low end, around 50 to 60%, for loaves a cafe resells whole on its shelf, because it needs room to roughly double your price. Use the high end, 65 to 70%, for bread it serves as toast and sandwiches, where it gets a dozen or more portions from each loaf. Then check two things before you agree: that your cost per loaf at wholesale volume leaves a margin at that price, and that each delivery is big enough to pay for the trip. On bread, the delivery is usually what makes or breaks the account.
Why 50 to 70% of retail
A cafe reselling your loaf works on the keystone rule: Oregon State University's food business guidance puts retail at roughly 2 to 2.5 times wholesale. If your loaf sells for A$12 at your stall, the cafe needs to buy it at about A$4.80 to A$6 to sell it at your price. The full reasoning, and how it applies to every product, is in wholesale pricing, price lists and terms.
Bread used in the kitchen is different. A cafe slicing a loaf for toast does not compare your price with its shelf price; it compares it with other bakeries' loaves and with the plate price. That is why bread for the kitchen can sit at 65 to 70% of your retail.
A worked margin per loaf
An 800 g sourdough loaf that sells for A$12 at retail. For wholesale, it is baked in a 72-loaf bake taking 7 hands-on hours, and goes to the cafe in a crate rather than a bag.
| Line | Per loaf |
|---|---|
| Flour, 550 g at A$1.60 a kg | A$0.88 |
| Salt, energy and crate share | A$0.45 |
| Labour, 7 hours / 72 loaves at A$35 an hour | A$3.40 |
| Overhead at 12% | A$0.57 |
| Cost per loaf | A$5.30 |
The inputs are examples; how to price sourdough bread shows how to get your own, with official flour prices in five countries.
| Wholesale price | Share of retail | Margin per loaf | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| A$6.00 | 50% | A$0.70 | 12% |
| A$7.20 | 60% | A$1.90 | 26% |
| A$8.40 | 70% | A$3.10 | 37% |
At 50% of retail there is almost nothing left, even at 72 loaves a bake. At the batch size of a small retail bake, the same loaf costs more than A$6 and wholesale at 50% loses money outright. Bread wholesale works at volume, or at the high end of the range, and not otherwise.
Delivery decides whether the account pays
The drop costs the same for 6 loaves as for 30. Say one delivery costs A$30 in vehicle and time (what to charge for delivery shows how to cost it).
- One cafe, 12 loaves at A$7.20. Delivery is A$2.50 a loaf against A$1.90 of margin. You lose 60c on every loaf.
- Three cafes on one run, 40 loaves at A$7.20, run cost A$45. Delivery is A$1.13 a loaf, leaving 77c each.
- The same run at A$8.40. A$1.97 a loaf after delivery, about A$79 for the run.
Minimum order value = cost of one delivery / your wholesale margin
At A$7.20 and a 26% margin, A$30 / 0.264 is A$114, which is 16 loaves. Below that, charge a delivery fee or ask the cafe to collect. Fixed delivery days, with every account in an area on the same run, do more for the margin than any price change.
How standing orders usually run
Most cafes order bread weekly on the same pattern. What works:
- A weekly order by a cutoff, for example Thursday 2pm for the following week, so you can build levain and order flour against a known number.
- Two or three fixed delivery days, such as Tuesday and Friday, the same for every account in an area.
- Changes with 48 hours' notice, and a written rule for public holidays and your own closures.
- No returns of unsold bread. A cafe that can return loaves has no reason to order carefully. If you want to help with waste, offer a smaller loaf or a half-batch day, not credit for day-old bread.
- Invoices weekly on net 7 or net 14, with deliveries held if an account goes overdue. The terms and the wording to use are in the wholesale pricing guide.
Running cafe accounts in ibakepro
ibakepro runs wholesale bread accounts on the Business plan: each cafe signs in to a private trade area with an emailed code, sees its own price list (a percentage off retail, per-loaf overrides and quantity breaks) and its minimum quantities, and orders for its delivery day on invoice terms such as net 14. Unpaid invoices are chased on a schedule, and wholesale orders land on the same bake sheet as retail, so mix day comes from one list. Cafes place each week's order themselves, or you enter it for them. See wholesale ordering and is ibakepro right for a bakery selling wholesale.