I Need to Produce 5,000 × 200 g Candles Every Month — How Much Wax-Melting Capacity and Raw-Material Storage Will That Volume Require?

The volume in kilograms and loads

Start by turning candles into material. 5,000 candles of 200 g is 1,000 kg of scented wax. At an 8% fragrance load calculated on the total candle weight, that is 920 kg of wax and 80 kg of oil. Every 200 g candle holds 184 g of wax and 16 g of oil.

Now turn material into melter loads. A 10 kg scented load is 9.2 kg of wax and 0.8 kg of oil, fills 50 candles exactly and gives 48 good candles after a 5% wastage allowance. 5,000 ÷ 48 is 104.2, so plan 105 loads, which is 966 kg of wax and 84 kg of oil. On a 20 kg melter each load gives 96 good candles, so 5,000 ÷ 96 is 52.1 and you plan 53 loads.

Spread across the month, the daily picture is what matters. At 22 production days, which is an example you should replace with your own, 105 loads is about 4.8 a day, so call it five. On a 20 kg unit, 53 loads is about 2.4 a day.

Melt time is not cycle time

The Electric Wax Melter (Imported) product page states that it melts 10 kg of soy wax in approximately 30 minutes at 100°C. That figure is useful, but it is only the first part of a load. A full cycle runs from loading solid wax to having an empty, clean-enough pot ready for the next load.

Cooling is the step most people underestimate. A large mass of wax loses heat slowly, so the gap between fully melted and ready for fragrance can be longer than the melt itself. You must not shortcut it by adding oil at the melter's maximum: some CSI oils publish flashpoints below 100°C, such as Roasted Coconut at 93°C and Gardenia at 98°C. Add oil at the wax maker's stated temperature. For Eco Soy CSI 400 that is 80–90°C with a stated two-minute stir; CSI 468 states a pour temperature of 58–60°C.

The melter display is stated to read 60°C–100°C with a ±10°C deviation, so every temperature on the cycle sheet should come from a separate thermometer.

Turning cycle time into melter count

Multiply your measured cycle by five loads a day. As an example only: a two-hour cycle gives ten hours of melter time a day, which one unit on a normal shift cannot deliver. You have three options: run two 10 kg melters staggered by half a cycle, move to a 20 kg unit and run about 2.4 loads a day, or lengthen the production month. A 90-minute cycle gives seven and a half hours, which one melter can just about manage with no slack. Slack matters: a single failed load or a late start puts you behind for the week.

Check the working fill of your melter

Plan with the maths above, but check one detail on your own unit before you trust it. The same product page states that the melter melts 9.5 litres of wax at a time and can "create 80 candles at a time". At roughly 0.9 g per ml, 9.5 litres of melted wax is about 8.5 kg. The 80-candle figure also depends on candle size: at 200 g, 10 kg of scented wax fills 50.

So measure the fill you can actually pour from comfortably, without the wax sitting close to the rim while you stir and draw off. If your comfortable working fill turns out to be nearer 8.5 kg than 10 kg, the month needs about 124 loads instead of 105 (1,050 kg ÷ 8.5 kg is 123.5), and your daily count rises from five to between five and six. Better to find that out in week one than in week four.

Storage for a month of materials and candles

A month's materials at this volume occupy real floor space. Wax arrives in packs, jars in bulky cartons, and finished candles need level shelves while they set and cure. List it before you commit.

The last row is the one that surprises people. If your candles stay on the shelf for a set number of days before packing, the shelf must hold daily output multiplied by those days. At about 230 candles a day, every extra day of cure is another 230 jars of shelf space. Measure how many 200 g jars fit per metre of your shelving and multiply.

One more storage point: plan the route between zones as well as the zones themselves. Wax moves from store to melter, scented wax from melter to pouring bench, candles from bench to shelf and shelf to packing. At five loads a day those journeys happen dozens of times, often with hot wax, so keep them short, clear and one-directional where you can.

Putting it together before you commit

At 5,000 candles a month the melting side is not large, but it is no longer forgiving. Five loads a day leaves little room for a lost load, and floor space for curing can run out before melter capacity does. Before you accept the volume, check both sides on paper: melter hours from your measured cycle, and shelf metres from your cure time.

A practical way to test the plan is a trial week at the target rate. Run five loads a day for five days, using real orders or stock for your bestsellers, and keep the cycle sheet and storage plan open beside you. At the end of the week you will know three things no calculation gives you: how many loads you actually finished, where the candles piled up, and how tired the team was by Friday. If the trial week falls short by one load a day, that is about 22 loads, or roughly a thousand candles, missing across the month.

If the numbers show a gap, close the cheapest one first. Additional shelving and a second pitcher are cheaper than a second melter. If melter hours are genuinely the gap, the 10 kg model at ₹21,240.00 run alongside your existing unit usually gives shorter pour windows than a single 20 kg load, though the 20 kg at ₹25,960.00 needs fewer weigh-ups. Choose the one that fits your measured cycle, not the one with the bigger number.

Where this page fits

CSI already has guides that cover parts of this question. This page takes the production-floor angle; these go deeper on the rest:

Three things to buy for this job

Frequently asked questions