What Are The 5 Most Important Things You Need To Start A Local Bakery

By Editor1SYS | October 13, 2021 0 Comments

A Plan

What are you going to sell. Who’s your ideal client locally and what are they looking for? You may want to sell fabulous sugary cupcakes but your local clientele may be a healthy bunch and you may find raisin and bran muffins go over better with this crowd! Research is absolutely essential – reach out to your local community – maybe even through bake sales or charity events and bring some of your creations to the market and see what is of most interest. And ultimately what sells!

Adequate Facilities

and the ability to maintain them. The idea of having a large walk-in fridge initially would really be a great help for keeping your buttercreams in – but the cost of walk in fridge repair services as well as the purchase and installation of such a setup would rule this out when getting started. You should of course, invest in a really good fridge with warranty as its performance will be linked to your success in the business – but don’t get pie in the sky ideas as you are first starting out. Work towards a walk in fridge when you are regularly profitable.

Where and how are you going to sell?

What’s in your local area? Are there business parks locally where you could take baskets of cake and muffins at coffee breaks to the workers so they don’t even have to think about leaving their desks? What about providing local cafes with supplies as a wholesaler? Or maybe you will go full shebang into the most amazing, sought after wedding cakes within 300 miles and you deliver those to the clients. How you sell is as important as what you sell. Making yourself accessible to your customer, knowing the times they want to purchase these items is the key to profitability – there’s no point being closed on a Sunday for a well deserved rest – when in fact it’s the one day that your client would treat themselves to an expensive bakery item. Take the Monday off instead and maximise your sales days!

Suss out your competition

Are you going to start a cake war in your town? Going up against the existing local cake maker might not be the best way to get started in your business and a lot of energy and effort could go in to competing with another outlet. Fair if there’s tons of wedding work and another supplier would come in handy – but in your initial stages of business try to differentiate yourself.

Clean and Hygienic Premises

The hunt for the place where you make your creations could be the hardest part of all. You want to be careful you are not in a high crime area with a risk of being broken into otherwise your business insurance could be prohibitive. An area where you are able to keep the premises clean and ventilated as well as perhaps a nice sunny aspect but not too “hot” so your cakes and bakes spoil in the sunshine. If it’s something you want to encourage you could look for an outlet where you could eventually pop some chairs and tables outside and encourage people to come along for a coffee and a cake.