CASHMERE THOUGHTS × COOKING VINYL · PLANT PARTNERSHIP
Our own vinyl plant.
When does it pay?
Both labels feed the plant with their own records. Outside clients fill the rest. The plant makes money once the average price per record clears what each record costs to make, plus its share of running the plant.
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The price that makes it work
Average price per record the plant needs to break even, at each yearly volume. Below the line loses money; above it makes money.
Yearly profit or loss at each average price
| Average price per record | A | B | C |
|---|
Before tax, financing and the build cost. Every record is counted at the same average price.
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Three plant sizes
Our own records first, outside clients for the rest. Own records are valued at the outside bill we stop paying; clients pay the client price.
Full breakdown
| Each pressing year | A | B | C |
|---|
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When the plant happens
YEARS 1 TO 3Set upStarts after the record deal. Site, presses, staff and trial runs.
YEAR 4 ONWARDSPressOur own records first, then outside clients.
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What we are missing
In order of how much each one changes the answer.
- Our own records alone will never pay for a plant. The plant is really a business selling to outside clients. The partnership gives it a base load, not its profit.
- A real cost per record at scale. £3.18 comes from a one-press plan. Big plants sell plain black records at about £2.80 and still make money, so their cost must be lower. A quote for compound, labels and sleeves at our volume could move break-even by more than £1 a record.
- Cooking Vinyl's real volume and what it pays per record today. The 28,200 is a placeholder from chart records. Rob's roster figures decide how much of the plant is filled before we sell a single client record.
- Signed client demand, and at what price. Clients pay about £6 only for short, colour and packaged runs. Big plain runs go to plants charging about £2.80.
- Set-up years cost money. Three years of rent, staff and trial runs before any income are not in these numbers. Our earlier research planned about six months from start to first pressing.
- Build cost at scale. Each extra line is priced at a £170k press allowance. Power, steam, cooling, space and staff areas for ten presses are not included.
- Real output. 500 records a day per press is a nominal rate. Downtime, changeovers and rejects cut it, so more presses may be needed.
- Year four will not start full. Clients take time to win, so the first pressing years will run below these volumes.
- Money we are leaving out. Clients also pay set-up fees for cutting, stampers and test pressings. That adds income and cost, and is not modelled.
- The deal between us. Who funds the build, who owns the plant, what the plant charges each label, and how profit is split.
- Buy in instead of build. Our research found no UK plant for sale, but a stake in an existing plant, such as Press On Vinyl or Sonic Wax, could get us pressing years sooner.
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