Starting a home bakery.

[retired baker]

I thought I'd start a thread outlining some of the tips and pitfalls to getting off the ground.
Everyone feel free to add to the thread.

Get a copy of the healthcode (usually less than $15) from town hall and read it, know what you need before you start asking questions and putting a target on your back. What might seem like a harmless question to you could be telling them you're a potential threat to their job.
Every location is different so I can't say exactly what anyone else needs to do.
Up here in Maine they let us alone, there isn't a health inspector or building inspectors.
Maine food permit is $20, there is no yearly inspection if they even do the first one.
To get a start google "cottage foods" and your state.

So you have a product and don't know how to get the ball rolling, what I did was feed my neighbors and ask for opinions, that let me refine the products to suit the local mkt. Its more useful to ask what they don't like vs approval seeking.
Once I had my product line I made up samples to photograph and posted the pictures on our local facebook.
Response was more than I expected, I did an all nighter to fill an order of 10 boxes, another customer bought 1 box and called back 20 minutes later wanting another 6 boxes, so it went, sold out and I pulled my facebook posting down.

Upsell, knowing that people are coming to pick up orders I make macarons and pack into boxes of 6 for $5, give them a sample , one customer bought the batch, I made more.

Overhead, there isn't any. Not having to dole out several thousand dollars in commercial rent, the home bakeshop has a tremendous advantage.
Upgrade your packaging quality, you can ignore the rule of thumb for packaging cost, typically 3% max and now spend 6%,
amazon has very nice products in lower quantities (25 to 100).

there a lot more to add.

 

[retired baker]

Lots of home bakers do food fairs, trade shows , farm stands and pop ups.
I don't do that, because I don't need to, but if I wanted I'd attend craft shows and farmers mkts, ask who is running it and get on the list. Its a good way to build a customer base and get started.

Wise sellers pre-package everything in bulk,
no individual cookies in fancy , expensive and time consuming packaging.
The clever ones are just selling boxes of 6 or 12.
People actually like that because you've already made the decision for them.
Use window boxes so they can see the product.

Wholesale, its a tough game, it seems like a great way to get into volume sales , I did it but only in volume packaging, they all want individual packed and labeled products, they'll even ask for bar code labels, and people in hell want ice water.

There is no account so lucrative that you cannot afford to walk away from.
I had a meeting with Neiman Marcus, it went ok until they said "Net 90".
They would have a $30K bill after 90 days and the payment wouldn't be $30K , it would only be one or 2 invoices. In effect they wanted me to loan them $30K interest free, I walked.

Soon I'll order a greenhouse and set it up near the driveway as a bakery stand.
Its fairly common around here.