I Use Around 20 Kg of Soy Wax per Month — Should I Buy 25 Kg at a Time or Maintain More than One Month of Stock?

The short answer: one month per order, plus one bag you never open

At 20 kg a month you are using about 0.667 kg of wax a day — roughly 109 candles of 200 g at an 8% load if none were lost, or about 104 once you allow 5% for pour loss and tests. The question sounds like a choice between two order sizes, 25 kg or "more than one month". It is really a question about two different things that people mix together: cycle stock, which is the wax you buy to use up, and safety stock, which is the wax you hold so that a late delivery or a busy week does not stop production.

Buying 25 kg every time you run out gives you a 37.5-day cycle and no safety stock at all. On the day the last bag empties you are at zero, and you stay at zero until the next delivery arrives. With an example lead time of 7 days, that is 7 days a cycle with no wax — about 4.67 kg of production, or 25 candles, waiting. Buying 25 kg once and then 20 kg at a trigger level gives you a one-month cycle plus a 5 kg cushion that only gets touched when something goes wrong. Same wax, same price per kilo, very different month.

So the honest answer to the title is: maintain slightly more than one month of stock, but only by the size of a safety bag, and reorder by level, not by emptiness. Two or three months of stock is not wrong — CSI's product pages for CSI 464 and CSI 468 both state a 60-month shelf life in cool, dry storage — but at 20 kg a month it ties up cash and space for no price advantage on CSI's flat ladder. The sections below show the cover, the cash and the check every new delivery should get before it goes into a jar.

What each order size actually covers at 20 kg a month

The table turns each order size into days of cover, real CSI packs, rupees for the two waxes this page uses as examples — Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 and Premium Coconut Soy Wax CSI 468 — and the average stock you would hold if you reorder at 10 kg with a 7-day lead time. The last column prices that average stock at an example holding rate of 1.5% a month (cost of money, space and risk together); replace it with your own.

Read across the CSI 464 and CSI 468 columns and you will see the same thing at every size: the price is the order size times a flat rate. CSI 464 is ₹507.40 a kilo from 1 kg to 10 kg; CSI 468 is ₹637.00 a kilo at 5 kg and 10 kg. There is no rate to unlock by buying 40 or 60 kg at once, so the extra months are pure stock. At the example rate, holding a two-month order costs about ₹192.81 a month against ₹116.70 for the one-month pattern — not large, but not buying you anything either unless your supplier's lead time is long or unreliable.

Setting the trigger: lead-time demand plus one safety bag

CSI does not publish delivery times, and nobody else's lead time is yours. Measure it: the days from paying for an order to having the bags in your workshop, over your last three orders, and use the longest. This page uses 7 days as an example. During those days you keep pouring, so you need lead-time demand on the shelf when you order: 0.667 kg a day × 7 days = 4.67 kg. On top of that sits the safety stock, which absorbs a slow courier or a week of extra orders. One sealed 5 kg bag is a tidy choice at your volume — it covers 7.5 days of normal use.

Rounding the trigger up from 9.67 kg to 10 kg is deliberate. You cannot weigh your stock every morning, but you can notice when you open the last 10 kg bag. That small upward rounding also means the order lands with about 5.33 kg still on the shelf — the sealed 5 kg bag plus a little — instead of exactly at the safety level. Setting a reorder point when you are growing fast shows how the trigger moves as monthly use climbs, and safety stock when monthly use swings from 30 to 80 kg handles uneven months.

Two months of stock versus one: the cash and the space

If you prefer fewer orders, there is nothing wrong with buying two months at a time — the decision is about cash, space and conditions, not about price. Under the one-month pattern your average stock is about 15.33 kg, worth ₹7,780.13 in CSI 464. Under a three-month pattern (60 kg per order) it is about 35.33 kg, worth ₹17,928.13. At the example 1.5% a month that is ₹116.70 against ₹268.92 — a difference of ₹152.22 a month for the comfort of ordering four times a year.

Space and conditions matter more than the rupees. Sixty kilograms is six 10 kg bags that need a cool, dry place off the floor, away from a tin roof and a sunny wall. CSI publishes no heat-survival data for its waxes, and the 60-month shelf life on the CSI 464 and CSI 468 pages is stated for cool, dry storage. In a workshop that runs hot from April to June, more bags simply means more wax exposed to conditions you have not tested. Storing 100 kg of soy wax through an Indian summer covers what to confirm before holding that much.

The delivery check: 3 + 3 candles before a new order goes into jars

Every new order of soy wax is, as far as you can prove, a new lot. CSI publishes no lot numbers or certificates of analysis and does not promise lot-to-lot consistency data, so the protection is yours to build: keep a retained sample from the bag you approved, and check the first bag of each new order against it before it goes into production. The first time you move to a new order pattern — your first 25 kg — run the full check below. For routine repeat orders of the same wax, many makers pull one candle from the first production batch and burn it beside a retained control; label that as your working practice.

The two waxes in this example, and what 20 kg costs in each

Both are candidates for a 20-kg-a-month maker because their listed ladders reach 10 kg and both product pages state a 60-month shelf life in cool, dry storage. CSI publishes no data ranking one above the other on throw, finish or heat behaviour. Your choice between them belongs to a side-by-side test in your jar with your oils — how to compare soy wax samples objectively sets that up.

The decision rule for a 20 kg month

Apply these in order. The first two set your stock pattern; the last three decide when to break it.

For the reader who asked, the purchase is: 2 × 10 kg + 1 × 5 kg of Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 (₹12,685.00) now — or the same pattern in CSI 468 at ₹15,925.00 if that is your approved wax — and 2 × 10 kg (₹10,148.00) each time you open your last 10 kg bag. Run the delivery check on the first order, log every bag by date, and rotate the safety bag. At 50 kg a month the same logic gets a proper safety-stock calculation; your first 25 kg carton covers what to inspect when a larger format arrives.

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