I Need 75 Kg of Soy Wax for an Order but the Supplier Sells 25 Kg Cartons — Should I Buy Exactly Three Cartons or Keep an Additional Production Buffer?

The short answer: three cartons is zero buffer — buy the buffer, in the smallest steps you can

If your order needs 75 kg of wax — about 407 candles of 200 g at an 8% load, if that is your format — three 25 kg cartons give you exactly the wax that ends up in jars and not one gram for anything else. Every real production run spends wax on other things: the film left in the melter and jug, the test candles you burn before and during the run, the candles that come out with a sinkhole or a crooked wick and get re-poured, and the replacements you send when a parcel arrives broken. Those are not mistakes; they are the normal cost of making candles, and each one comes out of the same 75 kg.

With labelled example allowances — pour loss of 3–5%, six test candles, cosmetic rejects of 1–2% and replacements of 0.5–1% — the order needs between 79.48 kg and 82.10 kg, a buffer of 4.48 to 7.10 kg. Three cartons leave you short by that amount; in the high case that is about 39 candles that cannot be poured without an emergency top-up. Four cartons cover it, with 17.90 kg left over.

So the honest answer is: keep a buffer, but do not let the carton size choose it. If the supplier only sells 25 kg cartons, the fourth carton is right when you will keep using the same wax after this order, and wrong when this is a one-off. If smaller packs are available — CSI's listed bags go down in 5 kg steps for Natural Soy Pearl and in 1 kg steps for CSI 464 at the same per-kilo price — buy the buffer to the nearest step instead. CSI lists no 25 kg carton; the cartons on this page are your supplier's, used as your scenario.

The allowance stack for a 75 kg order

Build the buffer from named lines, not from a feeling. Each line below is a labelled example — replace it with your own records once you have them. The order of operations matters: percentage allowances are applied to the net wax, and test candles are added as whole candles, so nothing is counted twice.

If you have run similar orders before, your own loss and reject figures beat these examples. If you have not, use the high case: running out with a customer waiting costs far more than a few spare kilos. The 92 kg post builds the same stack for a confirmed production run and asks whether rounding to 100 kg is enough, and including rework and rejects in the true wax cost prices the reject line properly.

Three cartons, four cartons, or something in between

With a supplier who sells only 25 kg cartons, you have two real choices: three cartons and a planned top-up from somewhere else, or four cartons and a surplus. The surplus is 20.52 to 17.90 kg. If you make candles in this wax every month — say an example 30 kg a month of regular production — that surplus is simply next month's stock, used within about 18 days, and its holding cost at an example 1.5% a month is about ₹114.03. If this wax is only for this order, the surplus is 17.90 kg of cash on a shelf with no plan.

The CSI rows show why pack steps matter more than pack size for this question. Natural Soy Pearl is ₹424.80 a kilo in every bag from 5 kg to 50 kg, so a 85 kg purchase costs the same per kilo as 75 kg and the buffer is bought in 5 kg steps. CSI 464 is ₹507.40 a kilo from 1 kg to 10 kg, so the buffer can be bought to the nearest kilogram — 8 × 10 kg + 3 × 1 kg — with nothing wasted on rounding. When 10 kg packs cost more than 25 kg cartons covers suppliers whose ladder does slope.

What running short costs compared with the buffer

The buffer in Natural Soy Pearl costs ₹4,248.00 over buying the net 75 kg (₹36,108.00 against ₹31,860.00); in CSI 464 bought to the kilo, ₹4,059.20. Running short has costs that are harder to see: an emergency top-up order with its own freight (an example ₹600 — replace with your courier's charge; CSI publishes no shipping charges), a delay of an example 3 days or more while it arrives, a second lot mixed into the order, and a customer waiting. Each candle you cannot pour also carries its materials — ₹222.83 at the Pearl 10 kg rate with Fallen Leaves, a wick and a jar — plus the margin you were going to earn on it.

Before the run: check the first bag against a control

A 75 kg order is too large to discover a wax problem halfway through. Whichever packs you buy, open one bag first and pour three candles beside three controls from your retained, approved stock — same oil lot, wick, jar and day — then pull the first, middle and last candles of the run for burning. Those six candles are the test line in the allowance stack.

The two waxes priced for this order

Both are priced because their ladders let you buy a buffer without paying more per kilo — not because one performs better. CSI publishes no data ranking them; use whichever wax your candle is approved in.

The decision rule

For the reader who asked: do not buy exactly three cartons. Work out the gross need — about 82.1 kg on the high-case example stack — and round it up in the smallest step available. With your carton supplier, that means a fourth carton if the wax is your regular wax, or three cartons plus a checked top-up if it is not. On CSI's list, it is 1 × 50 kg + 3 × 10 kg + 1 × 5 kg of Natural Soy Pearl (₹36,108.00) or 8 × 10 kg + 3 × 1 kg of CSI 464 (₹42,114.20). Procuring 300 kg for Diwali applies the same stack to a whole season.

Frequently asked questions