As your store continues to grow, it may be tempting to incorporate an in-store bakery for creating pies, bread, and other baked goods. This expansion may seem natural and progressive but could end up hurting your business more than helping it.
There are several things to consider when deciding whether to launch an in-store bakery. The costs in fronting the facility transformation, hiring experienced professionals, creating a quality brand, and complying with regulations regarding the manufacturing and distribution of foods. Cumulatively, the costs born by your company will likely number in the hundreds of thousands within the first year of operation.
Outsourcing the creation of pastries and baked goods could save your business hundreds of thousands of dollars in production and maintenance costs. At the same time, the quality of goods you are purchasing could far outweigh what you could produce on your own.
When you are hiring talent to staff your kitchens, you must consider experience and expertise. Hiring an inexperienced individual to create quality baked goods runs the risk of producing sub-par goods that don’t sell. This risk comes with a hefty price tag. Multiple staff members in your kitchen could easily cause expenses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.
When you are operating a facility meant to create and sell food, there are inspections and other health and safety measures a company must comply with in order to maintain business. Not only is maintaining a clean facility in accordance with regulations difficult, but a slip-up could result in hefty fines. If you aren’t ready to risk stopping your business and pouring resources into maintaining a top-notch facility, then creating an in-store bakery may not be the right direction for your business.
By creating your own baked goods, you are entering a competitive market filled with larger businesses with more money at their disposal. These businesses have had years of experience creating new recipes and products that attract interest and drive sales.
Many recipes used in commercial bakeries are well-guarded trade secrets. For your business to be competitive, you must create your own unique or quality recipe that can be easily replicated and mass-produced. This can be a timely and costly venture.
With all these costs and risks, it should be more beneficial to outsource the production of your bakery production to professional bakeries. Depending on the number of goods you’ll be selling, outsourcing your production to a professional bakery can end up saving your business lots of money and trouble.
Rocky Mountain Pies is a bakery that provides in-store bakery pie manufacturer services for grocery stores.