PlantBench / Peeler ROI calculator
Peeler ROI calculator
A worksheet for potato, carrot, beet, onion, and other vegetable peelers. The defaults lean toward a mid-size steam peeler. They are not a vendor quote.
What usually pays for a peeler
On a line that already has volume, peel loss and crew time are the two numbers that matter, and peel loss is often the larger one. Three points of recovered yield on 4.8 million pounds at $0.55 a pound is about $79,000 a year. A peel crew is real money too, but on a cheap raw product the yield term wins.
If your product value is a few cents and the crew is small, a peeler is a labor story and you should cut the yield points before you like the payback.
How to enter peel loss
Current loss is the share of input weight that leaves as peel, trim, or defect at this step. Yield improvement is how many of those points you expect to keep as saleable product. If you lose 14% today and a better peeler gets you to 11%, enter 14 and 3. Do not enter the finished yield.
The sheet caps the gain at today’s loss. You cannot recover product you were not losing.
Steam, abrasive, or knife
Steam usually wins on yield and loses on gas. Abrasive drums are cheaper to run and harder on irregular roots. Knife tables are the labor case. The default energy figures assume a steamer that uses more gas and a bit more electricity than the batch setup it replaces.
Pricing an abrasive drum? Cut projected therms toward zero and be honest about yield. Pricing a knife line you already run? The current energy may already be close to the new number.
Capital and the season
Put installed cost in the capital field if you have it, including a steam-header upgrade if this purchase is what triggers the upgrade. A budget quote alone makes the payback a ceiling, not a promise.
A fall root crop that runs 16 weeks should not sit on a 48-week year. Drop weeks per year to the weeks the peeler is staffed. Leaving the default in place overstates both savings and fuel.