Economy & LaborNOV 13, 2023

Woman Charges $7,000 For A Cheese Board, Gives The Cost Breakdown After People Freak Out

Running a business often entails headaches and expenses that tend to stay out of the client’s sight. That’s why they might not be aware of how much time and money goes into the final result.

'Sophisticated Spreads' founder Emmy went viral after breaking down the price of her $7k grazing table. She revealed the pricing of all sorts of food items used, and explained what other expenses go into running such a business, but some netizens deemed it too expensive still.

The founder of ‘Sophisticated Spreads’, Emmy, amazes her followers with elaborate cheese boards and grazing tables

Image credits: sophisticatedspreads

Image credits: sophisticatedspreads

Based in LA, ‘Sophisticated Spreads’ was founded by Emmy Rener, whose love of cheese boards started with creating them for family holiday parties. Now assembled to impress clients in addition to family members, her boards and grazing tables are eye candy for thousands of people from all over the world—the company’s fan base on Instagram has already surpassed 78k followers, while on TikTok there are more than 311k of them.

She went viral after showcasing an impressive $7k-worth grazing table

Image credits: sophisticatedspreads

The video reached over 5 million views on TikTok

Quite a few netizens believed the grazing table was way too costly

In another video, Emmy encouraged fellow business owners to know their worth

I charge $7,000 for a cheese board, and I'm going to tell you why. And let me just clarify, I'm not making this video to defend my prices, because I'm very confident in what I charge. I'm making this so that it's clear to the other business owners who don't know their worth: you can charge whatever you want. And if people are booking it and your clients are happy, then you're doing it right.

Now let's dive into the pricing on this table. First of all, it was 25 feet long. It was also for 150 people and this was the only food that they were serving at the engagement party. The client also upgraded and added a garland that is hand woven by a florist that has eucalyptus and other different greenery items, which is an additional charge. We used all artisan cheeses for this board. So in an additional charge, and the real kicker is that we are based in Los Angeles and this event was in Napa Valley. For those who don't know, that's a six-and-a-half-hour drive. We had to stay in a hotel and I had to bring a team to make this bread. So before you get your panties in a wad do your research. Thank you.

“You can charge whatever you want,” the business owner pointed out

The price of a cheese board or a grazing table typically includes expenses other than food, too

In an interview with Insider, Emmy shared that she started the business back in 2020 when she was still a senior in high school. Now she works on edible pieces of art, the price of which varies depending on the size and other factors, and can go up to 25,000 dollars per spread.

Whether high or low, the price for Emmy’s gastronomical wonders includes more than just the goods used to assemble them. For example, the grazing table in her viral videos, worth 7,000 dollars, included not only different kinds of food items—artisan cheeses, dried goods, and fresh fruits, just to name a few—but also decor elements and other pieces, such as utensils and napkins. In addition to that, the total price had to cover the gas money and an overnight stay, as the location of the event was more than six hours away from where the company is based. Emmy explained all that in another video that received millions of views.

The woman decided to break down the price

Oh, so you think you're funny. For all of you smart alecks in the comment section, I'm gonna break down the profit margin on a grazing table like this, which is $7000. Let's keep in mind that the profit margin in the food industry is not great, guys. This is why restaurants and companies go under. It's about 20 to 30%.

Now let's get into it. We charged $7000 for this grazing table. It came out to about $550 in artisan cheeses that we sourced. We spent $150 on the charcuterie. The garland, which you can see in the video, is hand-woven by a florist and that comes down to about $150 for about 20 feet of garland.

We also used fresh flowers which are the yellow flowers seen in the video, and then also edible flowers. That ran us about $75. Now you have the decor items which are not necessarily meant to be eaten but are just there for, like, you know, vibes. That's about $100.

Now let's factor in the fresh fruit. So that's grapes, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, the whole nine yards. That's roughly $300. Our little veggie crudité stations, we had two of them, that was about $75. Now you got to factor in the fact that we have hummus, spinach, artichoke dip, honey, pepper jams, chutney, and also honeycomb on the spread, which is $50.

Now let's factor in all of the other stuff to make your grazing table a grazing table. So that's literally anything besides the cheese and meat and the fruit. So you're talking crackers, baguettes, dried fruit, nuts, all the... all everything else. That I would value at about 300, but that's out of our inventory.

Now there's the other, like, special dessert items that we got and other things that we sourced directly for this event. That's $200. In the video, you can see single-use tongs and stuff to pick up the cheeses and whatnot. That's about $50, including the napkins. As I mentioned in my follow-up video, this was in Northern California, we're based in LA. So this is about $300 in gas costs for us to drive six hours to Napa Valley.

And there were two of us doing this. So we had a two-night stay in a hotel and everything like that. So the total direct cost for this event was about $2900, which is about 40% of the price.

Also keep in mind this is not factoring in any overhead, like the cost of the trays that we're using, the kitchen that we have, the licensing that we need to run this business. And this isn't factoring in our time and the labor for these two employees, myself and my dad, who drove up to Northern California and spent the week prepping for this event.

Additionally, because we're up in Northern California for the entire weekend, we're not going to be able to do events in LA. So before you go commenting on somebody's page saying 'I could do this for $500', do your research, try to run a business, and try to do it successfully for three years and actually make money, and then let's talk.