home baking business advice please!

biglass

Hi folks,I am looking for a wee bit of advice from anyone who has done home baking for extra income working from home.It is something I have been considering for about 18 months and have done a bit of looking into,eg contacting enviro health,and am planning to do stuff like costing over the winter,with a view to starting very part time in spring,when holiday season starts.We live rurally,with holiday village nearby and local shop,who I plan to approach re selling cakes -simple baking,nothing fancy!
Anyone attempted this type of venture? Advice gratefully received!:D

leftieM

I have a friend who wanted to do this at one stage. However when she looked into it she found that her earnings would have been very low. The problem with this kind of enterprise that has a small profit margin per item is that you have to mass produce it and that can't be done at home. There are ways of adding value to the product - iced cakes sell for way more than un-iced, people pay a premium for organic - but you won't be able to charge a sufficient premium for a cake just because it is home baked.
If you can find a unique selling point then you can make more. Are there many people near you who custom-make iced birthday cakes etc? It's a popular thing to do but there may be a gap in the market where you are. If you could get a deal to supply a local coffee shop with cakes that might be more lucrative too.
Apologies for the negative tone of this. I hope someone comes along who has made a fortune doing home baking!

Murphy_The_Cat

There is a way to make money from home baking - really good money. But I'm afraid that it may take quite a while to do and requires quite a lot of skill.

I'm thinking specifially of making wedding/celebration/anniversary cakes. Not £5.00 sponge cake specials - but multi layered fruit cakes that are iced.

Try a few bakeries for quotes and be shocked at how much they charge.

MTC

the_optimist

Have you made any cakes for friends and family yet (and sold them?)?
That might be a good way to find out how well your cakes are liked - and they can recommend you to their friends and so on...

Also get in contact with your local Business Link. They do free start-up courses and are generally very helpful.
I live in a rural area and our business link just did a campaign for women in rural areas with more free and very useful workshops.

Astaroth

Would have to agree with the others, there isnt going to be much of a profit margin in just selling whole cakes to a shop or cafe for them to then resell unless the company is willing to pay well over the odds.

If you are good at icing then certainly wedding cakes and other special occasions ones can fetch very decent money and arent significantly more expensive to make (though of cause much more time consuming)

biglass

Thankyou to you all for your advice-food for thought!! Much appreciated! xx

GordonBritas

If you are a skilled baker there is the option of farmers/slow food markets. You need to research what products would sell, something like fair trade coffee cake, "cakes with a conscience" may work

Murphy_The_Cat

GordonBritas wrote:

If you are a skilled baker there is the option of farmers/slow food markets. You need to research what products would sell, something like fair trade coffee cake, "cakes with a conscience" may work

no money in it old bean !

to much time, to much distance to travel, to much time involved in flogging the stuff, not enough profit per item sold, not enough items sold to make it worthwhile, the market is getting saturated for similar products etc, etc.

But some decent research (as Gordon suggests) should make this immediately obvious.

MTC

GordonBritas

Murphy_The_Cat wrote:

no money in it old bean !

to much time, to much distance to travel, to much time involved in flogging the stuff, not enough profit per item sold, not enough items sold to make it worthwhile, the market is getting saturated for similar products etc, etc.

But some decent research (as Gordon suggests) should make this immediately obvious.

MTC

what a defeatist attitude MTC I know people who do very well out of farmers markets. Maybe your cakes suck :rotfl: (joke)

Murphy_The_Cat

GordonBritas wrote:

what a defeatist attitude MTC I know people who do very well out of farmers markets. Maybe your cakes suck :rotfl: (joke)

I prefer realistic attitude !
I also know people who do well from Farmers Markets - or think that they do well anyway. They sell plenty, but have no concept of vehicle running costs, extra costs for (typically) the home, allow nothing for accountancy, no provison for payroll, no backup for equipment failure, no business plan, work in conditions / hours that they would refuse to do if working for someone else etc, etc.
It's only whe you hit quite a large, commercial sort of size that any REAL money is made.


They do have something in common though.
They make good stuff
They're nice people.
They enjoy (love) what they are doing.
They make no money (or very, very little, certainly not minimum wage) out of it.

MTC

p.s. written from the perspective of a cake consumer. Not a cake maker !

Lulubells

I know someone in my village who does this and although I'm not sure if she makes a roaring trade it seems to be viable. I think she controls the time by having a cooking day/delivery day when all goods are baked,wrapped and delivered, this keeps the time input down and as she stick to very local outlets keeps her outgoings down. Over time she has built up a good reputation for quality baking and the locals by regularly even though they are a bit more expensive.

Good luck

Lulubells