Profitable Piña Colada: Frozen Drinks That Make Change (Literally)

Posted on Sep 01, 2017

"Profitable Piña Colada" written over colorful abstract tropical-themed artwork.

Perhaps the biggest question on a business owner’s mind when investing in equipment is: “Will I be able to recover the cost of this investment quickly and efficiently?” For a piña colada machine, the answer is a definitive yes. The “investment recovery” time is between 1-3 months, depending on the type of drink machine you purchase. The most influential factor for this recovery is profit, and this article will discuss the profitability of piña colada and other popular frozen beverages.


A graphic showing a piña colada glass with profit, cost, and revenue breakdown for a 2-gallon batch of frozen piña colada.

As you can see, frozen piña colada can turn a nice profit. For frozen piña colada, you will usually serve about an 8 oz. glass to your customers, and each batch will contain about 2 gallons of piña colada. In total, that works out to about 32 glasses of piña colada. Keep in mind that these estimations are conservative, and the prices could probably be cheaper.


A graphic showing a margarita glass with profit, cost, and revenue breakdown for a 2-gallon batch of frozen margaritas.

Frozen margarita profits can be calculated identically to piña colada profits, and are also estimated conservatively. Costs can be substantially lowered through your supplier.


A graphic showing a frozen lemonade drink with profit, cost, and revenue breakdown for 32 servings.

 Finally, we arrive at frozen lemonade! Frozen lemonade is the cheapest frozen drink you can make, and it’s a strong seller too. We increase the serving size to 12 oz because lemonade is lighter and not alcohol-based. But don’t worry: frozen lemonade is so inexpensive that it costs significantly less per serving than both margaritas and piña coladas at this larger serving size.


 – Takeaways –

The majority of the revenue from frozen beverages turns into profit. Frozen drink machines like the Taylor 430340, and 342 can produce any of the drinks above and more. Literally, you can add any sugar-based liquid product to a frozen beverage machine and create a beverage to remember! As always, Slices Concession is here to help match you with the right machine for your business needs.

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If frozen beverages sound like the perfect summer investment, give us a call and we’ll have you keeping things cool in no time! Call us at: (352) 888-1107

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