How To Start Your Own Bakery Business.

How To Start Your Own Bakery Business 

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Creating your own bakery isn’t just a new business venture—it’s a labor of love. As you consider creating your own bakery, understand that you will have complete control over the business and all its creative functions—and business decisions. What do you need to do to make sure that your bakery can rise to the occasion? 

To start your own bakery, you should learn as much as you can about the industry, create your business plan, create a budget, search for funding, secure the right insurance and permits, find your best business location, market your business, and make updates as needed. 

Following these steps can help you get to where you need to be when it comes to creating your bakery. Read on to find out more about your business plan, how to get funding, what permits you may need, and more. 

Learn more about your industry and what you want to make in your business. 

How To Start Your Own Bakery Business.

Before you begin, you need to learn everything that you need to know about the bakery industry. What kind of recipes are you going to use? What materials and ingredients are you going to focus on? What do you expect to make when it comes to your profit? Here, you should start at least brain storming what you think your items should be sold for. 

You should also decide on your business set up. You have many options, but most bakeries function as limited liability companies. You should also consider what kind of bakery you would like to open—is it a home bakery, a retail bakery, or a commercial bakery? 

In this step, you should also start brainstorming your mission statement, your business goals, and your business name. Starting with your goals, determine what it is exactly that you want out of your business. From there, you can craft your mission statement, describing how and why you have chosen to achieve those goals. Once you have both, you can start determining your business name. 

Create your business plan. 

A business plan is essential for any new or established business, as it outlines every step of the creation process and beyond. With this plan, you can plot out each step in the right direction to success. What do you need in your business plan? Some of the best plans have the following:

  • Executive summary. This is usually written last, but explains all the information found within your business plan including but not limited to a description of your business, what your business does, what accomplishments you may have had personally or in another business. What are your goals? Include those here. 
  • Market analysis. What does your community (or the community you are moving to in order to open your business) need? What do they already have? What is the price range, and what kind of items would you like to provide? What do people buy at a bakery in that area?
  • Competitive analysis. Using the data you found in your market analysis, start considering your potential competition. What is open around you? What do they sell? How long have they been in business? Are they a franchise, corporation, or a small business? Are there any opportunities they aren’t taking? What do they do well?
  • Plan of execution. This explains your day-to-day operations, along with who does what. 
  • Marketing plan. How are people going to find out about you? Outline it here. More detail about what should go in this plan can be found as you read on. 
  • A budget. Outlining your finances is key, and more details can be found further on. 

Additionally, your business plan, if properly outlined and written, can help you receive funding for your business. 

Your business plan shouldn’t just encompass your first few months or even your first few years. It should be your long term plan that outlines your business from start to fifty years from now. 

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Create a budget and search for funding, if needed. 

Now that your business plan is organized, it’s time to put together your budget. While this can be considered part of your business plan, it’s important to spend the appropriate amount of time looking over and determining what your budget needs to include. 

You should include not only how much you expect to spend on your supplies, your location, your licenses, your inventory, and your employees, to say the least, but also project how much profit you expect to make within several different amounts of time. A month, six months, a year, and ten years down the road are great markers in which to start. 

You will also need a budget and a business plan when requesting funds from certain institutions. Whether it’s securing investors or going after a grant or a loan, having this plan will make the process that much easier, and in many cases, the plan is required for those applications. 

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Secure your business insurance and permits. 
How To Start Your Own Bakery Business.

No matter what kind of business you’re going into, you’re going to need certain permits and business certifications. Especially when it comes to a food related business, you will need to have certain certifications to handle food and serve it in your location. These can vary depending on where you live, but can include but are not limited to a certificate of occupancy, a business license, serving licenses, food handling licenses, and a federal tax number. 

Having insurance is also imperative in your business. It can protect you in times of hardship, like an accident that can threaten the future of your business. Making sure you have liability insurance, commercial property insurance, and workers compensation insurance will help you in the long run. 

Find your location. 

While this can run concurrently with any of your previous steps, it’s important to make sure you have at least your budget sorted out and some of your business plan before making any decisions based on location. Consider any potential competition, ease of parking, and even established bakeries when you look for real estate. Do you want a smaller space with the possibility of expansion? Do you want to build your own property, or take over an existing one? Consider the businesses around you as well—are they businesses that also target your same demographic? 

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Start marketing your business. 

Marketing is key in telling your potential customers about your business. If they don’t know that you exist, they can’t become regulars, and you’re not making any profit off of them. 

The first steps include making sure you have a working branding package. Take your name, colors, logos, and anything else you would use to promote your business and standardize them. Whatever you do and whatever mediums you use to market your business, make sure you stay consistent in your image and your messaging. 

Wherever you decide to open your business, make sure you know your target demographic. That will help you decide just how and with what you market. If your target is a younger generation, consider using a social media app like TikTok or Instagram. Older generations do still use Facebook, but consider even a word-of-mouth campaign. In smaller communities, this still does work. 

You should also put together your own website. You can do this inexpensively when you do it on your own, or you can hire an expert. Consider print marketing as well. What works best in your community? How do people find out about new businesses? Every area is different, and you should cater your plan to how people find out about businesses and check out new things in your community rather than a broader scoped plan. 

Make updates as needed. 
How To Start Your Own Bakery Business.

The best and most important thing to remember when creating your bakery is knowing when to shift and update your business. Sometimes, your decisions don’t work—it doesn’t mean that your business is failing; it means that you need to shift your business decisions or your business model to reflect those possibilities. You can achieve success—it just comes with good planning and an ability to be flexible at the same time. 

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Frequently Asked Questions

How can my bakery compete with corporate and franchise bakeries?

Setting yourself apart all comes down to marketing and showing that you are a small business. Especially in this corporate age, people want to patronize smaller businesses. Show off that you’re not just there to sell and make a profit, but focus on the community and focus on providing the best quality items and the best quality customer service. People will not only pay for your baked goods, but for the quality of who you are, which they can’t always get in a larger corporation. 

How can I find investors for my bakery?

There are several ways to find investors for your bakery, including going to secure a bank loan or asking your family or friends. You can also search for investors on websites such as include SeedInvest, Fundify and StartEngine. Other options include finding business loans or grants for small businesses. Information can be found on the U.S. Small Business Administration website.

To learn more on how to start your own bakery business check out my startup documents here

This blog post is provided for informational purposes only. The information contained is not intended to constitute legal advice or to substitute for obtaining legal advice from a qualified attorney.