Chef Archive
Thread: Chef as a source of income: worth it?
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Prufr0ck
Mon Jul 12, 2004 11:24 am
#1
I've decided to pick up a crafting profession for income since the resource market has collapsed. I'm thinking that armorsmith and weaponsmith are too difficult for a new crafter to break into (especially if they're not a 12 point smith) and architect is, well... architect.
So I'm curious: how good is chef as a money making profession? Do I need skill tapes to compete? How difficult are the good resources to obtain?
thanks in advance for any help.
So I'm curious: how good is chef as a money making profession? Do I need skill tapes to compete? How difficult are the good resources to obtain?
thanks in advance for any help.
MozzerKing
Mon Jul 12, 2004 1:16 pm
#2
Prufr0ck wrote:
I've decided to pick up a crafting profession for income since the resource market has collapsed. I'm thinking that armorsmith and weaponsmith are too difficult for a new crafter to break into (especially if they're not a 12 point smith) and architect is, well... architect.
So I'm curious: how good is chef as a money making profession? Do I need skill tapes to compete? How difficult are the good resources to obtain?
thanks in advance for any help.
It depends. If you're on Wanderhome then Chef is most certainly not a good money making profession and you should drop the whole idea and put it out of your mind at once. 
On the other hand, if you're not on Wanderhome then I'd highly recommend Chef as a money making profession. You can get involved in our profession on a number of different levels. If you just want to sell Brandy for a bit of extra cash, you can certainly do that. If you want to go all out and be a full service Chef, it doesn't take near as long to gather the resources because we have few named requirements. Working with BE's can be a bit frustrating but it's all part of the challenge.
For those that don't speak smiley, that first paragraph was drenched in sarcasm.
Message Edited by MozzerKing on 07-12-2004 01:17 PM
FreeRadical42
Mon Jul 12, 2004 1:55 pm
#3
Chef as a source of income largely depends on your luck. On Gorath I met someone who offered me 2.5 mil for an order the first day I had master- simply because I was the chef closest to the starport. If you manage to hit big like that, then it can be very lucrative. I'd recommend making sure to put "Master Chef" as your title if you're going to try to make money at it. People don't often search for TKMs when they want bivoli. Occaisonally you'll hit a nice, big customer, and it'll be good.
Numen
Mon Jul 12, 2004 3:45 pm
#4
Chef is worth it to me, because I enjoy making the food and having people ask me when I'm restocking canape because they don't want to go anywhere else. 
I do make a decent amount of credits, but like almost all other crafting professions that doesn't happen very fast. I would guess at least a month for you to get to a steady state where you have everything streamlined enough. Obviously no gaurentee either. If you don't advertise or put the effort to get people to come to your shop, you probably won't sell much unless your location is just amazing.
Chef is nice because you don't need 12 points to compete, you just have to lower your prices a bit, and the resources are always there. They might not be great resources, but you will be able to make almost everything the moment you start in chef.
kimirahi
Mon Jul 12, 2004 11:16 pm
#5
I would say chef is not the novice crafting profession. IMO weaponsmith is. To do well in a food business all you foods need to be BE enchanced, so you rely on one profession there, also we rely on tailors for trim. There is tons of sub components required. Main problem in chef I would say is the BE addictives. Pretty much have to have them to do well. They cost a lot of money, and the resources required are hell to get. 20k meat per run. that's a lot to harvest. I pay 30 cpu for stacks of 10+ meat (pe,oq, f average 2000+) It does make a lot of money though. I've made about 20m profit in the past 2 weeks. O, and resources are very important yes, and the extra points help a lot.
Message Edited by kimirahi on 07-12-2004 11:16 PM
OditeFosore
Tue Jul 13, 2004 12:04 am
#6
If there were a FOTM crafting profession, I'd say chef is it. Inventory turnover is faster for chef than any other profession and profit margins are about as good as any other artisan profesison. You can be a good competitor in the chef market without +12 experimentation, you will just need to price accordingly. I'm a moderate-volume, 12 pointchef and I do about1.5 million in sales per day and spend 5-600k per day on different resources/components.
I will let you know that chef is probably the most time-consuming of artisan professions because inventory turnover is so high and because we have such a broad range of required ingredients to make all the different foods that customers demand. I deal with 3 different BE's on a weekly basis that deliver over 4 million in additive tissues per week. I deal with at least 20 hunters/gatherers for hides/meat/bones/milk for gathering good spawns. I harvest my own resources using over 20 rented lots from guildmates. The total time commitment for me is probably 25 hours per week running the chef. If you were more efficient in your time use and paid other folks to harvest you resources and survey for you, you could probably be a succesful chef with a 10-15 hour time commitment per week. My $.02, good luck to you. I say go for it, it's a great maket to be in at the moment.
Okin_Sin
Tue Jul 13, 2004 12:07 am
#7
Chef can make good money yes, but its not all that easy. You have to rely on 2 other proffesions (BE, Tailor), and make many factory runs to make one completed item. Also most chef sales are done by the crate, and this takes a It can be a rewarding profeslot of resouces to keep up with. ion if you are willing to put the work in to it though.
Ilere
Tue Jul 13, 2004 1:44 am
#8
Chef can be very lucrative as long as you are willing to put the time into it.
I did chef after the Chef Revamp not as a money maker but to help out my PA as we had no chef. I thought I would just specialize in what my PA seemed to need (brandy and canape). I was estatic over a new crafting profession as I was growing a tad bored with tailoring. Here's my starter story for some perspective.
There I was a master chef armed with my spatula and without a clue, but I had two million in my purse from a) selling various tailoring items and resources, b) selling BE items, and c)being a credit-pincher. I read the boards and deferred to the chef sites. Then I went in search of a BE and an architect for factories and harvesters.
Still being a penny pincher, I walked into the architect shop and found the factories with the best storage and the harvesters with the best BER. I wasgiddy with excitement for I was going to be achef! My purse was much lighter, but Iknew it was worth it. Then I trotted off to the BE shop, and my heart sank. I realized that BEs were few and far between and goodadditives were dependent on good resources. Thus, I knew that the prices listed were fair and the norm for what I wanted. Yet, I was disappointed. I walked out of the shop with a variety of additives, but my purse was now holding 400K.
It then came time to throw down my factories and my harvesters. After that was all said and done, my purse sat at a mere 200K. Yes, I knew that would seem like a fortune to some, but considering in a span of two days, I had blown over 1.5 million, I was devastated. This absolutely chilled me to my credit-pinching bones. I even sat with my PA leader and expressed my fears over my new career path. He was an aspiring weaponsmith and gave me some pearls of wisdom.
I crafted and visited other chefs to see how I stacked up and what they charged. I made many errors and learned from my mistakes. Eventually the money started to trickle in.
If you had asked me the day that I sat down with my PA leader if chef was worth it, I would have laughed in your face. Now, however many months later, and many credits later, I can say that it was. I won't say how much I have as I findthat crass. Iwill say I spent 8 million in the course of a week (an AV-21 for the RL husband, somechef skill tapes, money for PA mates who were grinding jedi, trinkets for my home, and resources that were out of shift)and didn't even miss it. Plus, there is nothing more satisfying than making a kick-butt product.
Awat
Tue Jul 13, 2004 3:53 pm
#9
Agreed, with one caveat - make sure you've got a wholesale line to BE tissue components. It does take quite a bit of work, but the rewards are a good, constant stream of income. I keep three accounts - one ranger/TKA for hunting & gathering, one BE/tailor, and one chef/architect/merchant. Without all three of them, I wouldn't be anywhere near as successful.
Ilere wrote:
Chef can be very lucrative as long as you are willing to put the time into it.
I did chef after the Chef Revamp not as a money maker but to help out my PA as we had no chef. I thought I would just specialize in what my PA seemed to need (brandy and canape). I was estatic over a new crafting profession as I was growing a tad bored with tailoring. Here's my starter story for some perspective.
There I was a master chef armed with my spatula and without a clue, but I had two million in my purse from a) selling various tailoring items and resources, b) selling BE items, and c)being a credit-pincher. I read the boards and deferred to the chef sites. Then I went in search of a BE and an architect for factories and harvesters.
Still being a penny pincher, I walked into the architect shop and found the factories with the best storage and the harvesters with the best BER. I wasgiddy with excitement for I was going to be achef! My purse was much lighter, but Iknew it was worth it. Then I trotted off to the BE shop, and my heart sank. I realized that BEs were few and far between and goodadditives were dependent on good resources. Thus, I knew that the prices listed were fair and the norm for what I wanted. Yet, I was disappointed. I walked out of the shop with a variety of additives, but my purse was now holding 400K.
It then came time to throw down my factories and my harvesters. After that was all said and done, my purse sat at a mere 200K. Yes, I knew that would seem like a fortune to some, but considering in a span of two days, I had blown over 1.5 million, I was devastated. This absolutely chilled me to my credit-pinching bones. I even sat with my PA leader and expressed my fears over my new career path. He was an aspiring weaponsmith and gave me some pearls of wisdom.
I crafted and visited other chefs to see how I stacked up and what they charged. I made many errors and learned from my mistakes. Eventually the money started to trickle in.
If you had asked me the day that I sat down with my PA leader if chef was worth it, I would have laughed in your face. Now, however many months later, and many credits later, I can say that it was. I won't say how much I have as I findthat crass. Iwill say I spent 8 million in the course of a week (an AV-21 for the RL husband, somechef skill tapes, money for PA mates who were grinding jedi, trinkets for my home, and resources that were out of shift)and didn't even miss it. Plus, there is nothing more satisfying than making a kick-butt product.
NYC_Dom
Tue Jul 13, 2004 11:06 pm
#10
I borrowed about 5 million to start as a chef.
And I will echo:
IF you have access to BE components you can do well. If not you will spend a lot of time selling +180 21 use single containers of brandy on the regular bazaar for 6K each until you can afford BE stuff. And you can only sell 25 at a time. But this is how I started. This helped me pay back the loan, and helped me upgrade my harvesters.
Somewhere along the way I received/and spent lots of money to acquire 12 exp pts.
Now I sell everything only BE enhanced and consider myself one of the top few chefs on our server quality wise and make 1-3 million in creds per day, and yes spend about 500K to 1 mill in resources. If you don't have the time/money to harvest the top resources on your server at least every 2- 3 days, it will also be difficult to make a lot of creds.
BTW for a run of 116 Heavy additives (40 crates) I pay aroundover a million creds, and it is still hard to find them all the time.
Ilere
Wed Jul 14, 2004 3:07 pm
#11
That is why my husband's alt is a BE.
Awat wrote:
Agreed, with one caveat - make sure you've got a wholesale line to BE tissue components.
It saves SO many credits!
Shinebox
Wed Jul 14, 2004 5:53 pm
#12
Whats wrong with being a wanderhome chef. Last time I checked I wont be worrying about money any time soon. As long as you sell quality for reasonable prices and dont mind having no life even wanderhome chefs can turn a buck
Shinebox(KEG) Master Chef Wanderhome
Faymar
Wed Jul 14, 2004 6:20 pm
#13
Ilere wrote:
Plus, there is nothing more satisfying than making a kick-butt product.
I so agree!
I've had about three acquaintances say "I'm going to chef, that's where the money is." All three have come back to me saying "Erm, what's this?" "I need that specific flora??" "This is a nightmare" and dropped it before ever hitting desserts III.
It depends on you, really. Getting to master chef isn't very hard. Making food and drink that can compete is difficult and needs a LOT of time. If you are interested, then go for it ... it's fun andit canbe very lucrative. It also has thebenefit of not having a cornered market on any server I play on (as opposed to WS/AC for example). There's always room for another chef.
Although, to beh honest, if you failed with resources, well, honestly, my gut instinct is that crafting isn't your path.
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