I'm Producing 5,000 Candles a Month — How Do I Calculate Monthly Raw-Material Consumption and Set Automatic Reorder Levels for Every Major Component?

Monthly consumption at 5,000 candles

The example business makes two products at an 8% load. 3,500 container candles of 160 g in the 200 ml Salsa Glass Jar — 160 g is the maker's own tested fill (a 200 ml jar does not hold 200 g of wax, and the jar's fill weight is not published). And 1,500 travel candles of 85 g in the Golden Aluminium Tin, which is listed with an 85 g fill. Both use Luxury Soy Wax Chunks, rated up to 13% fragrance load. Eight scents share the sales. All figures are examples; the method is what transfers.

The month consumes ₹8,51,216.57 of materials, before labels, boxes, freight, labour and GST. Wax is the largest line by weight and by value; the jars are next. Oils are valued at their 1 kg per-gram prices. Each scent's oil is its share of the 56.65 kg total; in a real range, work oil per scent per product as shown in I Want to Keep 30 Days of Candle Raw-Material Inventory — How Do I Convert Monthly Unit Sales into Kilograms of Wax and Fragrance Stock?, because a scent that sells mostly in tins uses much less oil per unit.

The reorder rule

Every component uses the same three numbers, and only the inputs change:

Reorder and top-up levels, in packs

Read the wax row as an instruction: when bags on the shelf plus bags on order reach 31, order enough to bring the total to 61. A typical order is about 31 bags. For each oil, the rule is the same in 1 kg bottles; slow scents such as Blue Ocean trigger at 2 kg, the bestseller Lavender at 8 kg. Fast- and slow-scent reorder points are covered in more depth in My Fragrance Supplier Takes Two Weeks to Deliver — How Do I Calculate Reorder Points Separately for Fast- and Slow-Selling Candle Fragrances?.

Here is one week's trigger for wax. On Monday the count shows 28 bags on the shelf and nothing on order: 28 is at or below the reorder level of 31, so an order is due. Order quantity = 61 − 28 = 33 bags of 10 kg, ₹1,97,967.00 at the listed ₹5,999.00 — or ₹1,97,670.00 as 66 bags of 5 kg, ₹9.00 cheaper per 10 kg. Next Monday, those 33 bags count as on order until they arrive.

Making it automatic

"Automatic" does not need software. A spreadsheet with one row per component and a weekly count is enough at 5,000 candles a month. The columns are:

Column K is the only one anyone needs to read on a Monday. If it shows a number, that many packs go on this week's order. If it shows zero, nothing is ordered. Monthly, update column B from the next month's plan and columns G and H recalculate themselves; that is how the levels follow the season.

Supplying 5,000 a month from listed packs

Everything on this page is priced from CSI's listed packs, and listed packs have limits. Container wax is sold in bags up to 10 kg — about 65 a month here; Natural Soy Pearl Wax goes to 50 kg if a wax change passes your tests. Oils stop at 1 kg per listing. Wicks go to 1,000 a pack. Salsa jars go to 100 a pack at ₹29.50 each — a real saving on the ₹40.12 each in the pack of 5. Golden tins are listed only as packs of 12, so 1,500 tins a month is 125 packs. The White Matte jar, listed only in fives, is not a practical choice at this volume without a quote.

For volumes like these, ask for a scheduled supply quote on WhatsApp: your monthly quantities per component, how often you want deliveries, and which items you need GST invoices, MSDS or IFRA documentation for. No volume discount figure is published, so do not plan on one; plan on reliability, and treat any price improvement as a bonus. I'm Growing from 1,000 to 10,000 Candles a Month — How Do I Calculate When to Move from Retail Packs to Wholesale Cartons and Bulk Raw-Material Purchases? covers when growing volumes move you from listed packs to quoted quantities, and I Want to Know Exactly How Much Candle Raw Material to Purchase Every Month Without Constantly Running Out or Overbuying — How Do I Build a Procurement Model Using Sales, Formula Consumption, Lead Time, Wastage and Safety Stock? builds these levels into a full procurement model.

Per-candle material cost in this example is about ₹192.17 for the 160 g jar candle (wax, average oil, wick and jar, allowances included). At 5,000 candles a month, a stock-out that stops production for three days costs around 500 candles of sales — which is why a reorder level is worth the half hour it takes to set. I Want to Maintain Two Weeks of Safety Stock for My Candle Business — How Do I Calculate the Minimum Quantity of Wax, Fragrance, Wicks and Jars I Should Never Fall Below? sets simpler two-week floors for smaller operations, and My Wax Supplier Takes 10 Days to Deliver — At What Stock Level Should I Reorder if I Produce 50 Candles Every Day? works a single-component example with a ten-day delivery.

Frequently asked questions