Waste is a line, not a shrug.
Failed batches and the jar that cracked still cost you. Put them on a line.
Journal · Waste
Failed batches and the jar that cracked still cost you. A shrug is not a costing method.
If one in twelve pours tunnels, the eleven that sell have to carry the twelfth. Same for the zipper that fails, the glaze that crawls, the loaf that overproofs. Waste is a rate. Write the rate down. Then put it on a line so the sticker is not a wish from your best week.
This batch
1 in 12
Started 12. Sold 10 firsts. One second. One in the bin.
| # | Unit | What happened | End |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Tin A | Clean pour, label straight | First |
| 02 | Tin B | Clean pour | First |
| 03 | Tin C | Wet spot on label, restick | First |
| 04 | Tin D | Tunnel on cool | Bin |
| 05 | Tin E | Clean pour | First |
| 06 | Tin F | Lid ding, sold at stall discount | Second |
| 07 | Tin G | Clean pour | First |
| 08 | Tin H | Clean pour | First |
| 09 | Tin I | Wick off-center, still burns | First |
| 10 | Tin J | Clean pour | First |
| 11 | Tin K | Clean pour | First |
| 12 | Tin L | Clean pour | First |
Do not average this in your head after a bad week. Count units started, units finished, units that left as firsts, units that left as seconds, units that left in the bin. The gaps are the lines. Spread bin waste across what sold as firsts. Give seconds their own price and their own math. If you mash them together, a cheap second drags the firsts and you will not see it until the month is already gone.
How the 1-in-12 hits the unit
Say materials and labor on one started tin are $18.47. You started twelve, so the batch put $221.64 on the table. Ten firsts leave at full sticker. One second leaves at $8. One is wax in a pan. The $18.47 in the bin does not evaporate. The $18.47 in the second is only partly recovered. A clean way to write it:
Batch cost $221.64. Money from the second $8. Remainder $213.64 to be carried by ten firsts. That is $21.36 of materials-and-labor-and-waste on each first, before overhead, packing, and fees. If you had costed only the pretty tins, you would have written $18.47 and called yourself careful.
Use more than one batch. Twelve is a story. One hundred and twenty is a rate. If your last ten batches bin 6 percent and second 8 percent, those are the percentages that belong on the SKU until the process changes. A perfect week is not a rate. It is a lucky row in the log.
Firsts and seconds are different products
Firsts
Full sticker. They carry bin waste and the unrecovered part of seconds. They also carry overhead and packing. This is the SKU you meant to make.
Seconds
Discount sticker. They used the same time and most of the materials. Cost them as their own path. If $8 does not cover their share, you are using firsts to fund a stall of almosts.
Some makers should stop selling seconds. The discount trains buyers to wait, and the math rarely holds once labor is honest. Some makers should keep seconds at a number that still clears the unit on that path, with no extra photos and no extra listing time. Write the rule. Do not decide it when a dinged lid is in your hand and a customer is in the booth.
Waste is not only the bin
Returns, remakes, the zipper fail that becomes a replacement, the loaf you eat because it will not keep. If it started as a unit you meant to sell, it belongs in the count. Studio snacks are not a costing category. They are waste with salt.
Wholesale seconds are a special mess. A shop does not want your almosts unless you named that SKU and priced it. Do not slip a warped mug into a carton of firsts and call it filling the order. That is how accounts end, and it still does not fix the rate.
Write the rate
- For the last 8 to 12 batches, count started, firsts, seconds, bin.
- Bin rate = bin ÷ started. Second rate = seconds ÷ started.
- Put bin rate on firsts as extra materials and labor.
- Cost seconds on their own sticker, including their own packing.
- Recost when the process or the clay body changes, not after one good Saturday.
New makers want to wait until they are good enough that waste disappears. It does not disappear. It changes shape. You bin fewer tunnels and then you bin more labels, or you sell more seconds because you got braver about dings. Recost the rate when the shape changes. Do not wait for a mythical zero. Zero waste is a factory conversation, and even factories have a line for it.
If you share a studio, waste can hide in the communal bin. Count your own starts. If you cannot, you cannot cost your SKU, and you are pricing with someone else's luck. A notebook on the shelf is enough. Date, started, firsts, seconds, bin. That log is the essay. The sticker is just the last row.
The workbook has a waste line so you stop treating loss as weather. It is part of the batch. The units that leave the studio have to know that. Pair this with materials if you are still costing only what you can hold, and with the booth note if market leftovers are where your waste actually lives.
All journal Shipping supplies are not overhead Materials is not the unit
Put waste on a line.
