Wholesale
How to price bread rolls for wholesale: per dozen, daily orders, delivery and minimums
Price wholesale bread rolls per dozen at about 60% of retail, then set a minimum order per delivery. Worked costs and prices in five currencies from official prices.
the ibakepro team ·
Price wholesale bread rolls per dozen, at about 60% of your retail dozen price, and set a minimum order per delivery. A dozen 60 g soft white rolls costs about A$4.92 to make in Australia at wholesale volume, sells for about A$12.77 a dozen at retail, and goes to a cafe at A$7.66 a dozen, leaving A$2.74. That margin is smaller than one delivery: at an example A$30 a drop, a cafe has to take about 11 dozen before the run pays. Rolls are a daily product, so the delivery and the minimum decide the account far more than the price per dozen does.
Rolls are not small loaves
The same kilogram of flour makes one or two loaves or about 28 rolls. Every roll has to be divided, weighed, rounded, panned and counted, so labour per kilogram of dough is several times that of bread, and labour is most of the cost of a dozen. Rolls also stale within a day, which means daily orders, daily delivery and no stock to sell tomorrow.
Quote per dozen, because that is how cafes count sandwiches and burgers, and sell in dozens or half dozens. Round odd quantities up to the next half dozen; a tray of 12 is what you bake, bag and count.
What goes into a dozen
The worked roll is a soft white roll at 60 g of dough. Per kilogram of flour: 200 ml milk, 400 ml water, 40 g sugar, 50 g butter, 20 g salt and 12 g yeast, about 1.72 kg of dough. A dozen uses about 420 g of flour.
- Ingredients. Flour, milk and butter are most of it.
- Energy. An example 0.25 a dozen; work out yours from oven power, hours on and rolls per load.
- Bag. A bulk bag or crate share at an example 0.15 a dozen.
- Labour. About 0.15 hours a dozen at a retail-size bake, and an example 0.08 hours (about 24 seconds a roll, all-in) at wholesale volume, when you divide a large dough at once. A divider-rounder brings it down further.
- Overhead. 12% of materials and labour, as in the cake pricing calculator.
Wholesale price per dozen = retail price per dozen x 0.5 to 0.7, checked against (ingredients + energy + bag + hours per dozen x hourly rate) x 1.12
Per-dozen prices in five currencies
Retail is costed at the retail-size bake with a 40% margin; wholesale cost is at wholesale volume. Hourly rates are the same example rates used across our pricing guides.
| Market | Ingredients per dozen | Retail per dozen | Wholesale cost per dozen | Wholesale at 60% | Margin per dozen |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | US$0.92 | US$9.47 | US$3.72 | US$5.68 | US$1.96 (35%) |
| United Kingdom | £0.66 | £7.01 | £2.80 | £4.21 | £1.41 (34%) |
| Canada | C$1.44 | C$11.83 | C$4.75 | C$7.10 | C$2.35 (33%) |
| New Zealand | NZ$1.25 | NZ$12.03 | NZ$4.71 | NZ$7.22 | NZ$2.51 (35%) |
| Australia (example ingredients) | A$1.19 | A$12.77 | A$4.92 | A$7.66 | A$2.74 (36%) |
At 50% of retail the margin falls to 20 to 23%, and at 70% it rises to 43 to 45%. Use the low end only for large orders on a run you are making anyway.
Ingredient prices: US Bureau of Labor Statistics city averages for August 2026 (flour US$0.548 per lb, sugar US$1.024 per lb, butter US$4.021 per lb, whole milk US$4.229 a gallon); ONS shopping prices for August 2026 (self-raising flour £1.01 for 1.5 kg, butter £2.26 for 250 g, white sugar £1.15 a kg, whole milk £1.84 for 2.272 litres); Statistics Canada table 18-10-0245-01 for July 2026 (flour C$5.36 for 2.5 kg, butter C$5.92 for 454 g, sugar C$2.64 for 2 kg, milk C$6.99 for 4 litres); Stats NZ selected price indexes for August 2026 (flour NZ$2.06 for 1.5 kg, butter NZ$7.70 for 500 g, sugar NZ$3.30 for 1.5 kg, milk NZ$5.09 for 2 litres). Australia has no current official average retail price series for these, so the A$ figures use example prices (flour A$1.60 a kg, butter A$12 a kg, sugar A$1.80 a kg, milk A$1.70 a litre). Salt and yeast are an example 0.10 a dozen. These are supermarket prices; flour by the sack usually costs less per kg.
The ONS also tracks a supermarket pack of six rolls at £1.26, about 21p a roll. A cafe comparing your price with that is buying a different product; sell on the bake day, the size it wants and the morning delivery.
Roll size changes the price less than you expect
A burger bun has nearly twice the dough of a dinner roll but takes about the same time to shape. Australian wholesale, example labour slightly higher for bigger rolls:
| Roll | Dough | Wholesale cost per dozen | Wholesale at 60% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dinner roll | 60 g | A$4.92 | A$7.66 |
| Sandwich roll | 90 g | A$5.92 | A$8.67 |
| Burger bun | 110 g | A$6.66 | A$9.40 |
Pricing a burger bun at 1.8 times a dinner roll because it weighs 1.8 times as much overcharges the cafe; pricing it the same as a dinner roll loses the extra flour and butter. Cost each size as its own product. Seeded tops, brioche dough and glazes add ingredients and a pass of handling; cost them from the recipe too.
Delivery per drop decides the account
A drop costs the same for 4 dozen as for 40. With an example A$30 a drop and the A$2.74 margin per dozen at 60% of retail:
| Dozens per drop | Delivery per dozen | Left per dozen | Result for the drop |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | A$7.50 | -A$4.76 | lose A$19.02 |
| 10 | A$3.00 | -A$0.26 | lose A$2.56 |
| 20 | A$1.50 | A$1.24 | make A$24.88 |
| 40 | A$0.75 | A$1.99 | make A$79.76 |
Minimum order per drop (dozens) = cost of one drop / your margin per dozen
A$30 / A$2.74 is about 11 dozen, or about A$84 of rolls. Because rolls go out daily, the drop cost repeats: six stand-alone drops a week at A$30 is A$180 a week for one cafe. Put five cafes in one area on a single A$60 run and each drop costs A$12, which brings the minimum down to 5 dozen. Fixed run times and one run per area do more for roll margins than any change to the price per dozen. What to charge for delivery shows how to cost the run, and how to plan an efficient delivery run covers the routing.
If a cafe wants small daily orders, give it three options in writing: meet the minimum, pay a delivery fee that covers the gap, or collect.
Quantity breaks
A larger order spreads the drop, so you can pass some of that back. At 40 dozen a drop, delivery is 75c a dozen, and a price of 55% of retail (A$7.02) still leaves A$1.35 a dozen after delivery. Offer the break on the quantity per drop, not per week, or a cafe will split a big weekly total into small daily orders and keep the discount.
How daily standing orders usually run
Most cafes order the same rolls every day with small changes. The buyer places the order; what makes it work is the rules around it:
- A cutoff the day before, such as noon, so you can mix and divide against a known number. Rolls for tomorrow are tonight's dough.
- Changes by the same cutoff, and a written rule for public holidays and your own closures, agreed before the first one.
- A minimum per drop, from the formula above, written on the price list.
- No returns of unsold rolls. Day-old rolls are the cafe's to use as breadcrumbs or croutons; credit for them removes any reason to order carefully.
- Weekly invoices on net 7 or net 14, with deliveries held if an account goes overdue.
For loaves alongside rolls, the margins and weekly order pattern are in wholesale bread pricing for cafes, and the terms and price list setup in wholesale pricing, price lists and terms.
Costing and selling rolls in ibakepro
ibakepro, bakery management software for bakeries of every size, including bread and roll bakeries supplying cafes, costs each roll size per dozen from what you paid for flour, butter and milk, and recosts every size when a sack price changes. On the Business plan, cafes sign in to a private trade area through wholesale ordering, see their own per-dozen prices and quantity breaks, are held to minimum quantities and order on invoice terms; unpaid invoices are chased on a schedule. Buyers place each day's order themselves, or you enter it for them. Retail rolls can sell through your storefront. See recipe costing.