How to Start a Bakery

Business Overview:

Attention bakers: if you’re looking to take your delicious baked goods to the masses and want to be your own boss, learn how to start a bakery. When you first start thinking about opening a bakery, you should draft a solid business plan to focus your efforts and answer questions like whether or not you’ll purchase a franchise. A bakery franchise will come with name recognition, furnishings, kitchen equipment and training but it may also come with a larger price tag than starting your own bakery from scratch. Find a good location that gets plenty of foot traffic and auto traffic. A bakery in an outdoor shopping center will get lots of passersby who will be lured in by the sights and smells of your treats. You need to decide what types of baked goods your store will serve. Cookies, cakes, bread and cupcakes are some of the items your store could specialize in. Offering numerous types of baked goods will attract a wider clientele. Starting a bakery is a business idea that will be more successful if you have a small staff to help you. If you are the primary baker, you will be at work in the kitchen well before the store opens. This means you will likely go home before the store closes if you have a small staff to handle customers after you leave. Doing all the baking and helping the customers all day is possible for one person but it would be hard to do day after day. If you’re still unsure of how to open a bakery, consider visiting bakeries in other nearby cities (not in direct competition with yours) and visit with the storeowners to get insider tips and advice. As your business grows, you can add more items, hire a larger staff and even hire pastry chefs to do all the baking for you.

A Day in the Life of a Bakery Business Owner:

If you are the baker for your business, you will get to your shop’s kitchen very early in order to have bread and other baked goods ready for sale when your store opens. You will spend your day helping customers and restocking items in your cases. If you have a baker working for you and a staff to handle the front-of-house duties, you can concentrate on customer service and marketing your business.

About Your Customers:

Your customers will be individuals who want delicious baked goods.

What You Need to Start:

• Bakery business plan
• Marketing plan
• Storefront
• Franchise (optional)
• Display cases
• Baking ingredients
• Baking supplies and equipment (mixers, bowls, cookie sheets, etc.)
• Furnishings (tables, chairs, etc.)
• Serve-ware (plates, napkins, utensils, cups)
• Other menu items (coffee, sodas, etc.)
• Staff (optional)
• Computer with finance software

The Good:

• A good bakery will always be popular.
• You get to spend your day doing what you love.
• It’s rewarding to please your customers.
• You can hire a staff to do most or all of the work for you.
• You are likely to see plenty of repeat business.

The Bad:

• The start-up investment is high.
• The hours are long.

Resources:

• American Bakers Association
• Retail Bakers of America
• Bureau of Labor Statistics on Food Manufacturing
• Wikipedia on Bakeries

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