Are you a hobby baker looking to turn your passion into a business? Do you want to start a bakery but don’t quite know how? Here are some of the five basics you’ll need to consider before you go into business.
- Find a niche
Bakeries tend to do exceptionally well if they have something special about them. This can be your menu, your interior, or just your general personality as a brand. It’s important to figure out this draw before you go any further. Do you want a specific theme? What kind of baked goods will you be serving? What are the ways you can incorporate a theme and personality into your business?
- Pick a location
A lot of bakers start out running home businesses that deliver to people instead of a sit-down café, and that’s okay. This is also something you need to make a decision about. Will you run your business from home or from another premise? If you go with the latter, you’ll need to find an appropriate place to rent or buy in a good location. Use factors like costs, accessibility, facilities and centrality to find a location that works for your business and makes it easy for people to find you.
- Get the right equipment
A baker’s only as good as their tools. Having the right equipment will help improve the quality of your baking and increase your productivity, by allowing you to bake more items at once or clean the equipment more efficiently. You also need to get commercial-grade facilities to run an effective business. Musts for most bakeries include deck ovens, mixers, display fridges, freezers and fridges, but you might also benefit from more specialized equipment depending on what you bake.
- Develop relationships with vendors and suppliers
Your relationship with vendors and suppliers is crucial. They’ll be the ones supplying you with ingredients for your baking, so make sure you research local vendors and build friendships with them. This will help you get good deals, high-quality goods, and develop long-term business partnerships that will be beneficial for both parties. Reach out to people, hand out business cards, and make sure to always be friendly and not burn any bridges.
- Learn how to advertise
You might be a baker, but like any small business owner, you’ll also need to be a lot more. Including a marketer. Getting the word out is essential for allowing potential customers to find you, so you need to become at least a little knowledgeable about the world of marketing and advertising. If you’re able to, take some courses, but if not, do your own research online. Discover all the ways that you can advertise your business and find loyal customers that will keep coming back. Social media is an affordable and helpful way of doing so, but there are also more conventional methods that include advertising on the internet and in papers, among others.
That might not be all you need to know, but you’re now a little bit closer to being able to open your own bakery! Start with these points and keep building on your foundations.
