Mr Bakery Master Business Plan — Energy

Oven energy as a major cost line, exposure to tariff increases and load-shedding, and the resilience built into the production plan.

Energy

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Ovens and proofers run for most of the working day and electricity is budgeted at 6.2 per cent of revenue, rising across the plan rather than falling. That is deliberate: South African electricity tariffs have risen more than 1 100 per cent since 2007 against total inflation of about 174 per cent, making power roughly six times more expensive in real terms in under twenty years, and there is no reason to assume that stops.

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Year 5

Energy cost, R’000

213

364

559

797

1 063

As a share of revenue

5.8%

5.9%

6.0%

6.1%

6.2%

Units baked, thousands

269

422

597

783

964

Energy per unit, R

0.79

0.86

0.94

1.02

1.10

Energy per unit rises from R0.79 to R1.10 across the plan. Some of that is tariff escalation and some is mix — cakes and specialty breads occupy oven time for longer than a muffin. The metric is reported per unit rather than per month for that reason: a monthly energy bill rising with volume tells management nothing, while energy per unit rising against a stable mix tells them an oven needs service.

  • Solar and inverter capacity funded from Year 1 at R195 000, expanded in Year 5. This protects the bake, not just the bill: a proofing batch that loses heat is a batch lost, and load shedding does not schedule itself around a production plan.
  • Bake scheduling to load. Running the ovens in long consecutive cycles rather than heating from cold repeatedly is worth several per cent of the energy line and costs nothing but planning.
  • Gas as a partial alternative for specific equipment where the economics work, reducing exposure to a single tariff path.
  • Energy per unit tracked as a metric, not just energy per month. Rising energy per unit signals an oven needing service before it signals on the bill.