For freeze-dried candy makers

Twenty-four hours a run. Price the machine in.

Freeze-dried candy is a machine business wearing a candy costume: the taffy and gummies are cheap, but every bag rides a 24-hour cycle on a machine that cost as much as a used car. Bags that ignore the freeze dryer's share are priced wrong from the start. MadeKeeper costs the run — candy, power, packaging, and the machine's cut.

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How MadeKeeper maps to your trays

Candy in by the poundTaffy, gummies, and the seasonal experiment log at what the store or the wholesaler charged. Each run's recipe pulls the pounds it loaded on the trays.

The cycle is the batchOne 24-hour run fills its bags and splits its cost — candy, electricity, and a machine-wear share per cycle — across everything that came off the trays.

Bags that puff and crunchStand-up pouches and labels log per bag. Presentation is half the product in this trade, and it's 42 cents that belongs in the math.

The lineup by the numbersRainbow taffy, sour worms, the saltwater mix — each product tracks its own sales, so the reorder run is loaded with what actually sells out.

One run, to the penny

Say a 24-hour cycle fills 20 bags:

6 lb of candy @ $3.30/lb$19.80
Electricity, one full cycle$2.90
20 stand-up pouches @ 32¢$6.40
20 labels @ 10¢$2.00

Run cost — $1.56 a bag$31.10

At $8 a bag you keep $6.44 — before the machine's share. Spread a $2,500 freeze dryer across 300 runs and each cycle carries about $8.33 more, or 42 cents a bag. Now the price is built on the whole truth.

Freeze-dried candy is new enough that cottage programs treat it differently state to state — some list it plainly, some are still deciding. MadeKeeper keeps the batch, date, and label records any version of that paperwork asks about; where your state landed stays yours to check.

Straight about what's live

Materials and true cost per piece, products (in bulk or one-of-a-kind), sales that drain stock, the was-this-fair-worth-it event math, mileage, expenses, and the year-end tax packet — all in the app today. Etsy and Square sync, your own storefront, a booth card reader, and shipping labels are building, shaped with founding makers. Nothing above describes a feature that doesn't exist without saying so. See the full live-vs-building list →

Questions freeze-dried candy makers ask

How do I account for the machine itself?

Give each cycle a machine-wear share — the purchase price divided across its expected runs — and let every bag carry its slice. It's the difference between a business that's saving for the second machine and one that's surprised it can't.

What about failed runs and re-runs?

The batch that came out chewy logs as the loss it was, or re-runs at the cost of another cycle. Either way the yield math stays honest — and a pattern of failures next to the notes usually points at the tray loading.

Candy prices swing — does the math keep up?

Each purchase logs at its price, so the run made from clearance-sale taffy shows its genuinely better margin, and the full-price run doesn't hide behind it.

Ready to see your real numbers?

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