Do you want to start a bakery business? If YES, here are 10 best baked goods to sell in your bakery plus 6 items you must avoid because they don’t sell fast.
A bakery is an establishment that produces and sells flour-based snacks baked in an oven such as bread, cookies, cakes, pastries, and pies.
Some retail bakeries are also categorized as cafés, because they serve coffee and tea to customers who wish to consume the baked goods on their premises.
Retail bakeries prepare their items in-house and sell them directly to customers, with some locations offering seating for their clientele.
Commercial bakeries operate without a physical storefront, acting as suppliers for businesses that wish to sell baked goods, but don’t have the capacity to produce them in-house.
It is a fact that some baked goods a bakery churns out everyday tend to clear out of the shelves faster than others. As well, some items will yield much higher profit margins than others. It is good to keep your food costs under 35 percent and your total cost of goods sold under 50 percent.
Adding higher margin items such as coffee to your menu can also help make your bakery more profitable. Seasoned bakers often claim that there are two kinds of products: creative new inventions (like mash-ups) that drive higher impulse sales, and everyday mainstays that pay the rent.
To run a successful business, you need to stock these two items in the right proportion. But for you to stock these items, you need to know what they are.
If you are still struggling to sell your baked goods, here are some products that bakers have sworn that always fly off the shelves in an average day.
Best Items and Baked Goods to Sell in your Bakery
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Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chocolate chip cookies is a big favorite for people, and as such it is one of the items that clears off the showcase fast. If you are rally creative with this fare, you may even have people calling ahead to make reservations from your store.
You can equally have these kind of cookies in various other flavours, but chocolate chip is always a winner. Sugar cooking have also had favourable ratings, so you can look into baking them too.
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Mini Cheesecakes
Mini cheesecakes are typically cupcake sized fares that also get good patronage from customers. You can offer up different flavours at first to see which does best in your location. But regardless of the flavour, if properly created, mini cheesecakes draw in the crowd.
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Gourmet Brownies
Gourmet brownies are another baked fare that has good reputation among buying customers. You can offer a variety of flavors on a daily basis and bake them in cupcake wrappers for easy packaging.
The Turtle Brownie flavour has acquired some popularity, but don’t take my word for it. Endeavor to whip up a batch with different flavours to see which your customers prefer.
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Chocolate Covered Strawberries
We know how delectable chocolate covered strawberries always look, so they don’t lack people who faithfully pick them off the pan.
Though bakers usually see this fare as seasonal (typically valentine), but you can create them anytime you want and put them up for sale.
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Cupcakes
Who doesn’t love these little cakes? As long as you have great baking skills, cupcakes should be a must have in your bake shop.
If you are just starting out, it would be in you best interest to start off with the classic flavours that people are familiar with including Birthday Cake, Double Chocolate, Strawberry, Peanut Butter Cup, and Red Velvet. You can start experimenting with exotic flavours later.
6. Muffins
Muffins are a typical breakfast item so it tends to go off fast in the morning. They are single-serving quick breads, which rise with the help of baking soda or baking powder and eggs instead of yeast.
They tend to be sweet and somewhat moist, but heavier than a cake or cupcake. If you are good with the baking, you won’t have any problem selling them.
7. Cinnamon rolls
A cinnamon roll consists of a rolled sheet of yeast-leavened dough onto which a cinnamon and sugar mixture (and raisins or other ingredients in some cases) is sprinkled over a thin coat of butter. The dough is then rolled, cut into individual portions, and baked or deep fried. It is a breakfast staple, so people usually look out for it daily.
8. Bread
Many households cannot do without bread when it comes to breakfast, so that the reason why this fare generally gets good patronage. You can start with baking a few varieties at first to know what your customers prefer.
6 Things That Don’t Move Quickly
If we have baked goods that sell quickly at a baked goods store, we equally have those that do not make quite an impact and would always sit on the shelf at the end of a business day.
These products don’t move that fast, not because they are not delicious in their own right, but because of consumer preferences. These items may include;
- Cake Pops
- Rice Krispie Treats
- Turnovers
- Cookie Bars
- Exotic Cupcake Flavors
- Mini Pies, etc.
This list is really not exhaustive, and again, it may not be the same with your location.
Conclusion
According to research, cakes represent the largest portion of total bakery sales at 24 percent, followed by cookies 12 percent, breads/rolls 11 percent, cupcakes 8 percent, sandwiches/wraps 6 percent, and yeast-raised donuts and beverages tied at 5 percent.
New product success varied by type of operation. For full-line retail bakeries, cakes ranked first, followed by bread and cookies. New cake products included cake slices, individual celebration cakes, cake pops, seasonal cakes, and specialty cake fillings.