Year one running a stall: the real numbers

Twelve months ago I was selling to the eight households that walked into the bakery on Fridays and Saturdays plus three local cafes. Today I sell to roughly 180 households via Parish Larder plus the same shop traffic plus four cafes. The growth has been the most stressful and most rewarding year of my professional life. Here are the numbers, with nothing dressed up.

Revenue. Year-one Parish Larder revenue: £61,400. That’s after the platform commission (12% in our case) and Stripe fees (1.5%). Compared to the £19,000 I’d projected, an obvious win.

Costs. Flour costs went up 22% because I had to buy more of it more frequently to cover demand spikes. Packaging up by £4,200 because I had to switch from market-stall paper to compostable bread bags that handle a 24-hour shelf life. Delivery via Royal Mail Tracked 24 cost £8,900, which I hadn’t budgeted for at all.

The surprise. The single biggest cost wasn’t a financial one — it was sleep. For the first six months I was baking 70% more bread without any extra staff. By month seven I’d hired a junior baker on Wednesday-to-Saturday mornings; that doubled the wage bill but halved my hours and probably saved my marriage.

What I’d do differently. Hire from month one. Set the per-postcode delivery cap on the platform from day one (without it I had a £200 net-loss week trying to ship a single sourdough to Edinburgh). And spend less time obsessing about the photographs — customers care more about the bread arriving on a predictable day than the stall page being perfect.