Baking

Baked goods are simple to prepare in a home kitchen as most people enjoy biscuits and cakes, especially for special occasions such as a birthday party.

1. Start with part-time baking during the evening and on weekends.

2. DIFFERENT WAYS TO SELL YOUR ITEMS:

   1. Walk door-to-door selling your baked goods and initially consider giving away free samples for your customers to taste. This will encourage them to order more!

   2. Take orders for next-day deliveries.

   3. Encourage your customer base to spread the word about your delicious baked goods: ‘word of mouth’ always works well – as your network grows, so will your orders and your financial rewards.

   4. Accept online and telephonic orders and deliver them to the areas around where you live; customers who live close to your premises can collect their own orders.

3. As the orders increase and profits are being made, it may be necessary to acquire a retail space and more equipment for the business to expand and succeed, as well as the need to employ staff as the orders multiply.

4. Your customers will be spending their hard-earned money on your products, so treat them with respect, and sometimes offer a discount to customers who purchase a lot – always a winner to help spread the word.

5. Consider taking a course to improve and upgrade your skills. A Moja certification in Food Production will help you to improve your product selection and ways of making mass production of baked goods much easier by learning short-cuts and using the correct ingredients.

6. Start with simple recipes that use the basic ingredients in baking. These are flour, sugar and eggs. Quiches are a bit more challenging using milk and/or cream, and pastry requires special techniques, where room temperature plays an important part.

7. Examples of easily baked goods include sponge cakes, pancakes, bread, biscuits and crunchies.

Once you have mastered the easy recipes, then you can experiment with those that require more skill and speciality ingredients such as nuts and chocolate.

1. Basic icing can be used for cakes and cupcakes and your creative skills will be learnt when you start making speciality cakes for special birthdays and weddings.

2. Packaging is especially important: make sure it looks appealing and attractive and try to use recyclable packaging – cellophane and thin board boxes are better than plastic wrapping.

3. NEVER SELL STALE ITEMS as your reputation will be ruined.

Requirements

• Start-up Capital: $200

• Space required: Cooking facilities and preparation areas

• Equipment: Oven, electric mixer and other baking requirements such as measuring cups and spoons, cake and cookie tins

• Specific skills: A basic knowledge of baking

Free online courses & information

www.bakedbyanintrovert.com/baking-101/

www.webstaurantstore.com/article/12/start-a-bakery-with-three-planning-essentials.html

www.smesouthafrica.co.za/a-guide-to-launching-a-bakery-business/