Homemade Cake Business

AHewlett

Hello everyone,

Hopefully I've got the right forum area to post this in.

My Mum and I love making cakes. Her fruit cake is popular with neighbours and friends as is my lemon drizzle cake. We were talking the other day about what it would take to do a small business with cakes.

We're not good with decorating cakes, so we thought just about the cakes themselves.

We're doing a lot of research at the moment and looking around for any advice, which is why I've come here.

At the moment, we're only looking to sell at an attic sale every month, maybe less than that. I read somewhere that if you sell more than that, then you need to your local council involved as well as getting a hygiene certificate or is that not true?

Also, we live in a flat and I also read somewhere that you need to have two sinks and keep animals out of the kitchen. And of course, let your landlord know what's happening.

Have I missed anything out?

Any advice would be wonderful! And yes, I understand that selling cakes probably won't bring much money in but it's better than nothing.

Thank you!

greyteam1959

I have been in the food business for 30 years now, a couple of pointers !!
1)
If you sell to the public you will need Public Liability Insurance.
You can get this fairly cheap from several sources.
2)
You will need a Basic Food Hygiene Certificate at the very least.
Dead easy to do though.
3)
Two sinks ?? You need one for washing utensils & a separate one for hand washing
4)
I dont think there are any specific rules about keeping animals out of your kitchen BUT you leave yourself open to all sorts of nasty problems if your pets contaminate your food products !!!
5)
Finally the best bit of info last....contact your local Environmental Health Department at your local council.
Details will be on their website.
The EHO officers are usually very very helpful & will come out to your how to advise you & also to inspect your kitchen if & when you start to make your cakes.
6)
Do a proper costing of your products....no point in selling your cakes at £2 each if they cost you £2.50 to make !!!
HTH

Savvy_Sue

You may find there's already a lot of competition out there, but it would be worth looking at the Up your Income board, where home baking is quite popular.

You'd have to register as self employed with HMRC as well.

motorguy

mervyn11 wrote: »

Do a proper costing of your products....no point in selling your cakes at £2 each if they cost you £2.50 to make !!!
HTH

I think this is key. Its very easy to make very nice cakes when you're giving them away to friends and family regardless of actual cost.

My wife makes a marvellous cheesecake. Its the talk of the family. When you add up the costs though, it comes to about £8 per cake.

To make a very nice cake, with enough profit in it to cover your labour, distribution and overheads is another thing altogether.

Also, if you're going to say, sell them to the local shop, then they'll expect a decent markup on the way through. Very very hard to find a balance point and do, particularly given its a crowded market.

Interesting point about the local 'attic' sale. IF they charge you say, £10 for a stall, then if you sell 20 cakes you'd need to factor in 50p per cake just to cover the stall price.

Mistral001

AHewlett wrote: »

At the moment, we're only looking to sell at an attic sale every month

What is an "attic sale"? I have not heard of the term. Is it similar to a garage sale that they have in USA?

AHewlett

Thanks to everyone who replied, so far!

We've got all that written down so it's nice to know we were going in the right direction but you are right in terms of selling cakes and getting a profit. It's going to be hard but then trying to get a good income today with your own business is a bit difficult in the first year anyway, even though we're not started.

An attic sale, is kinda like a garage sale and yes, they do charge £10 a table.

A friend of mine asked if I could cakes for a church event and I don't know what she wants yet. This could be an opportunity to get a word around that we're looking to sell cakes, which might bring in the orders.

Then, we don't have to be charged £10 a table!

But yes, we need to do some serious pricing work.

theseeker1

I'm smiling because this post gave me ideas because it's one of my dreams to sell something homemade too.

I don't have anything else to say because they said the info needed and tips are well said.

Thanks.

greyteam1959

Forgot to mention......
You will also need a good printer to print off your product labels & ingredient labels.

motorguy

mervyn11 wrote: »

Forgot to mention......
You will also need a good printer to print off your product labels & ingredient labels.

I've one of these. Great job

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dymo-S0838810-Label-Writer-450/dp/B0031SG048/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1360456593&sr=8-1