I'm Growing From 1,000 to 2,000 Candles a Month — How Much Wax, Fragrance and Jar Inventory Should I Keep so Production Does Not Stop Between Supplier Deliveries?

Your monthly usage at 2,000 candles

At 1,000 candles a month you can often buy when a bag looks low and still keep working. At 2,000 that habit breaks, because every material runs down twice as fast and a single missing item, a box of jars or one fragrance, halts the whole day. The fix is not to buy mountains of everything. It is to know, for each material, how much you use per day and how long you wait for more.

Start with the monthly figures. 2,000 candles of 200 g is 400 kg of scented wax. At an 8% fragrance load calculated on the total candle weight, that is 368 kg of wax and 32 kg of oil. You do not produce in exact kilograms, though. You produce in melter loads. A 10 kg load is 9.2 kg of wax and 0.8 kg of oil and gives 48 good candles once you allow 5% wastage. 2,000 divided by 48 is 41.7, so you plan 42 loads: 386.4 kg of wax and 33.6 kg of oil.

The wastage allowance is not optional at this size. Residue in the pot, a spilled pitcher and a handful of rejects each look trivial on the day. Across 42 loads they add up to the difference between finishing the month and ordering in a panic in the last week.

Turn the month into a daily rate

Reorder points work on daily usage, so divide by your real production days. Using 20 as an example: 386.4 kg ÷ 20 is about 19.3 kg of wax a day, 33.6 kg ÷ 20 is about 1.7 kg of oil a day, and 2,000 ÷ 20 is 100 jars and 100 wicks a day, before breakage. If you produce on 24 days, redo the division; the method matters more than the example.

Oil is the one that behaves differently. The daily total hides the fact that it is split across fragrances. If one scent makes up half your volume, it uses about 0.85 kg a day on its own, while a slow scent might use 0.8 kg in a single load once every two weeks. Each fragrance needs its own reorder point, or the bestseller runs out while the shelf still looks full.

Setting the reorder point for each material

A reorder point has two parts. The first is cover for the gap: daily usage multiplied by the number of production days between placing an order and having that stock unpacked, checked and ready. The second is a buffer for the weeks when sales jump or the gap runs long.

Measure the gap from your own records. Look at your last several orders for each material and note the date you ordered and the date the stock was usable, including the time to check it. Use a typical figure, not your best one. We do not quote a gap here because it depends on your location, your order size and the material.

In the example, wax is reordered at around 174 kg. At 10 kg per pack that is 17 or 18 packs on the shelf when the order goes in, which sounds a lot until you remember it is only about nine production days.

Count on a fixed day

A reorder point only works if someone compares it with the shelf. Pick one day a week, the same day every week, and count wax in packs, oil in weighed kilograms per scent, jars in full cartons and wicks in full packs. Weigh opened oil bottles rather than guessing from the fill level; a bottle that looks half full can be well below that once the neck and shoulders are taken into account. Write the count beside the reorder figure on a single sheet. Anything at or below its point gets ordered that day, not when it is convenient. After a month of weekly counts you will also have your first real usage data, which is better than any estimate in this guide.

Keep the calculation honest by using usable stock only. A carton of jars that has not been inspected, a wax pack that is open and exposed, or an oil bottle with no label are not stock you can plan on. Count them separately until they have been checked, then add them to the figure beside the reorder point.

Why jars and wicks need their own buffer logic

Wax and oil are consumed in proportion to candles. Jars and wicks are consumed in proportion to candles plus failures. A chipped rim, a mis-centred wick or a jar that cracks during pouring each costs you a jar and a wick, and sometimes the wax too.

What not to overstock

A buffer is insurance, and insurance has a price. Every extra carton ties up cash and floor space you might need for curing shelves at 2,000 candles a month. Keep the buffer where a stock-out stops production, and run lean where it does not.

Wax is a reasonable place to hold extra because it keeps: CSI 464 and CSI 468 both carry a stated 60-month shelf life in cool, dry storage. Fragrance oil is a less comfortable place to hold months of slow-selling scents, because demand can change before you use it. Hold the bestseller deep and the slow scents shallow.

Finally, keep your storage cool, dry and away from the melting area. Stacking wax cartons beside a working melter warms them, and stacking oils there adds a fire risk you do not need, particularly for oils with lower published flashpoints such as Roasted Coconut at 93°C.

If you are reordering the same materials every month at this volume, the next step is a scheduled monthly order rather than reorder points alone. That shift is covered in the 2,000 to 5,000 guide in this series.

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