Is this a good time to buy a bakery?

Well - low carb breads are normally heavier grains that digest more slowly than refined grains. Whole vs. separated, etc.

I think the whole low carb thing is moving toward requiring glycemic index information on everything. Not a bad idea.

The current trend is a fad. Much of the maligning of carbs comes from plain white bread. I hate plain white - I like whole wheat. Always have, always will. Only exception is Italian bread and I'm experimenting with whole wheat with that too.

Your main obstacles seem to be number 1 & 4. Yes, you'll get very tired of bread in a very short time, unless of course you love doing it. For some people the baking process itself is fulfilling. You need to look deep inside yourself and see if you really think you could do it.

As to #4, if you really think the place is underutilized you can hire sales help, hey I bet there's even a consultant out there that would help with that.

Taking something you love doing and trying to do it for a living can be tricky. If you're the one who is doing it, you may find that you tire of it, and not only does it become "just a job" but you also lose the fun of doing whatever it is in your free time.

On the other hand, you might find that you end up hiring people to do the very thing that you find to be fun while you end up doing all the management things and/or all the other assorted things that your employees can't or won't or shouldn't do.

. . .

. . .

Tom:

One of my friends has been involved in the bakery industry for many years in various capacities such as overseeing production for a large, mass-market baking company's plant. About a dozen years ago, he was hired by a national chain of franchised bakeries to develop techniques and training materials for the franchisees.

One of the debates among management was whether it was easier to train a baker how to run a business operation or train a person with experience in business how to produce a good bakery product.

After looking at their experience with their existing franchisees, they concluded that it's easier to learn business than baking. It's possible to provide step-by-step guides for things like accounting, advertising and cash management. It's much more difficult to teach the skills and qualitative judgement which come from experience in hands-on baking.

Your experience as a hobbyist baker should be very helpful in your understanding of the baking process and your ability to judge the quality of your commerical product -- and probably more valuable to the success of your business.

Cheers, The Old Bear

Running a business is not the same as enjoying baking as a hobby; your priorities are different in the business world. If your goal is to earn money in bakery business you had a lot of catching up to do.If you had not run business before . You are in a different ball park. You have to study the financial aspects,interpersonal relations with clients,staff, customers, and the other management side of the equation.

From my observation in this field it does not require exceptional baking skill in running a bakery business but good business acumen. I had seen people who had a smattering of bakery knowledge; in some cases totally ignorant about baking,but become succesful bakery businessmen. In the other side I had witnessed people who are highly capable bakers but became a disaster in running their own bakery business. But I am not trying to discourage you totally but just given some form of warning. If you are persistent and if you see that there is an opportunity in such business; anyway just do your homework,hire somebody who will train you in the entreprenureal aspects, and keep an open mind and be optimistic . If the bakery business (by previous owners )if already established then there is less effort to market its products nor maintain the business than starting from a scratch. Hire a capable staff as you will not less time in doing baking your self. Roy

Or maybe a load of problems that will take forever to fix.

Getting customers to come buy is harder than simply increasing production. Can you afford to advertise? Look deeply into costs for that. I find it very expensive.

EZ on and off the road? People pass my shop at high speed on the way to work.

That's a very major plus!

Also a major plus. But until you do front line work every day until you're bored sick of it, you are only fantasizing.

It won't be exciting after about six months. After that, it'll be a grind, I promise.

You betcha. BIG difference.

A current fad. Probably worth ignoring very soon.

That might kill your business. Unless you can afford to hire a salesperson. I hate it too, and I did it for years.

Do you fully understand the hiring/firing process? Do you have the cojones to fire an employee? Will the present owner spend a month with you going over every part of the business?

All that being said, if you really love baking, you're well off. Any self owned business will become humdrum if you don't love it.

I do most of my own baking, product ordering, inventory control, and lots more. My wife does the books, (with the help of a CPA) a lot of the baking, payroll, and much more. We both work the counter, make deliveries, and put in 70+ hours a week. Every single week. Often more. We will have been open a year on mid-March. We have not made a penny profit yet. That is expected as a start up. We knew what we were facing. Peopel LOVE us, but sometimes they don't return for weeks.

It can be both exhilerating and discouraging at the same time.

Yesterday, sales were very poor. Today they were terrific, but there is NO explaining why.

I strongly strongly strongly advise you to go to a local office of the Small Business Developement Center

Get allthe help you can from them.Needless to say, there are a million factors to look at-- How long youcan go without a salary, condition of the equipment, your lease,employees, suppliers, actual value of the business, etc. SBDC will help you, at virtually no cost, much more than you can imagine.

This sounds great and very exciting to me (READ: one who isn't doing it).

THE GOOD: Have you looked at what your wholesaler or baking supply house might offer? I know BakeMark offers a wide variety of frozen doughs and mixes that would take a lot of pressure off of you until you get your thing going full steam. How you fixed on cooler/freezer space? Anyway, one could start an entire product line with the things they have.

THE BAD: I'm taking it that you are going to be making everything up by hand, at least the bread? Yes, there is a big difference. Ya gotta be fast, fast, fast. Which can only come from time, time, time. You might be able to hire an experienced bakery worker who could show you some stuff during their fleeting moments of sobriety. Habla Espanol?

THE UGLY: One thing hardly mentioned is that commercial baking is really a physical challenge, particularly when doing make-up by hand. I've worked at two commercial bakeries (one large one small) and developed trouble with my hands after about a year at the small one because of the constant trauma due to the make-up and scaling. Also the hours are a bitch given that decent bread can't be done in one 8 hour shift. Are you married? You know you're a REAL baker when you come home and your wife says, 'Excuse me, sir, can I help you?"

What type of equipment are you going to be using?

sounds great, but it will be VERY HARD work as i am sure you will already know. Iused to be a baker but on a much smaller scale and i slogged my guts out from dawn until 2pm. when i finished.And i did not make bread! what i did make was all the cakes, trifles, biscuits and scones and decorated the cakes etc. i used to make hundreds of scones each morning doing about seven different varieties, then monday to saturday i would also put on a "special" from another list of about five. these proved to be very popular, so, maybe you could do that with your bread. bake the popular breads daily and do a different "special" once or twice a week.this would give your customers something to look forward to and would not tie you down to dozens of different breads daily, )until you make a mint and can afford staff) go for it and good luck.