An enthusiastic home baker turned into an entreprenuer. Gail Wells believed that there is no need to study market demands before offering your delectable baked goodies to consumers as long they are fresh and good. Here’s an inspiring article / tips for those who are interested in making their home baking profitable.
At Home in the Baking Business
(source:Mother Earth News.com )
Do you make your own bread? If so, the delectable flavor and aroma of hot-from-the-oven loaves are familiar to you. There are many folks, however, who have never even tasted — let alone baked — homemade bread.
Well, you can introduce such people to the joys of “the staff of life” . . . watch their nostrils quiver at the irresistible fragrance . . . know they’re savoring all that whole-grain goodness . . . and make yourself a tidy part-time income to boot! How do I know? Because I do it . . . you see, baking and selling bread is something an “ordinary” housewife like me can do to fight the recession blues.
GETTING STARTED
Some people do market studies, and investigate all manner of possibilities, before setting up in business. Well, I wish I could say that’s how I got started, but it wasn’t. The fact is that baking for profit more or less crept up on me. My enterprise actually began when a friend stopped by to visit one day as I was preparing our family’s bread. Well, she was so tantalized by the aroma that I insisted she take a loaf home with her.
“My family devoured your bread!” she exclaimed the next time I saw her. “If you’ll bake me two loaves a week, I’ll pay you anything you want to charge!”
Needless to say, her offer was tempting. After all, baking two more loaves a week wouldn’t make a lick of difference in my schedule, and a little extra money would certainly come in handy . . . so I agreed.
But the next thing I knew, her boss wanted a weekly loaf. Then her sister asked for one . . . her babysitter wanted two . . . and other folks began to get a “whiff” of my activities. In short, I soon figured out that there was a large — and largely untapped — market for homebaked bread, so I gathered my recipes and embarked on a new career.
My preliminary strategy session consisted simply of calculating what each loaf cost me. Then I listed a few of my favorite kinds of bread, together with prices that I thought were fair, and had that sheet copied. Finally, I took a deep breath and got a business license under the name “Gail’s Bread Alone”.
Since I was officially “in trade”, it was time to try to round up the customers. To begin, I gave a bread list to each of my friends and asked them to spread the word (and to buy a loaf or two). Next, I posted the sheets on every bulletin board I could find, and took copies into all the restaurants (a grand total of five) in our little town. Soon the orders began to come in.
When summer arrived, I rented a space at the Saturday farmers’ market in a larger town nearby. The modest $2.00 weekly investment paid off handsomely . . . I was able to pocket between $50 and $60 nearly every weekend.
Furthermore, the farmers’ market introduced me to the delights of barter. One Saturday I parted with a dozen cinnamon rolls and two loaves of bread in return for a ferocious banty hen and her nine chicks! Other friendly swaps kept me well supplied with such luscious local fare as blackberry honey, eggs, and sweet corn. I was sorry when the farmers’ market closed in the fall . . . but my home-based enterprise continued — and continues — to grow.
Tags: articles inspirational
I enjoyed reading about your bread-baking business. thanks for info. I am an avid bread-baker too. One question (for right now) how do you calculate the cost of flour for a 6 cup loaf of bread? How do you calculate the cost of gas from oven ? (two questions). Will I be able to still have my cats when I go for my state license? 3 questions. Thanks for any help, Jane
Where can I find what the going rate is for my baked items where I live in Wilmington, DE? I did go to local bakeries, grocery stores and caterers to compare my prices and made my initial price list a bit higher than grocery stores and comparable to local bakeries, but lower than fancy over-prices bakeries and coffee shops. I have been in business 13 months. I was thinking, since everyone is telling me, of raising my prices a bit. But most people have my original price list. Will that deter return customers? How do you find out what the market can bear without making a mistake? I ended the year with a slight loss, not a profit. Mostly due to having to initially buy many one-time only supplies. I have baked for 30 years, but only sold items during this past year. Thank you for any advice or information you can pass along. Ann
Thank you for sharing your valuable experience, this is an enormous encouragement for homebakers like me who spends most of the free time baking, paying for high gas bills and knocking around neighbors’ doors to ’sample’ the bake goods. The biggest obstacle for me, is that i only have a standard home oven, and i always think i wouldn’t be efficient enough to produce baked goods for sale. Please advice me on that issue. For your local bake sales, do you bake the goods the same day; or the day before? I’m just weary of what my oven can handle.
Again, thanks a lot for the information!!
I was reading over your site and I really love what you have done.I admire you and the farm wives! I wish there was something more I could do to advertise without having to leave the home but I think if I want to get the word out there that’s what I’m going to have to do. Is there anything you could advise me that you didn’t mention in here? and is it going to be costly for me to begin my own webstore?
thanx im alittle not sure of how to measure the costs of each loaf of bread what if you added potatoe salad meatballs sloopy joes carrot cake peanut butter eggs would the liscence be dirffferent?? debi from pa