The urge to open an artisan bakery for anyone with a passion for baking can be almost overwhelming, and there is no doubt that there is huge potential for this type of business to succeed as many independent bakeries demonstrate daily across the length and breadth of the country.
However, even if you are the best baker in the world, there are still several things you need to focus on to ensure that your new business is a success.
At Nelstrops Flour we have and continue to work with hundreds of artisan bakeries all across the United Kingdom. From our knowledge and experience in business and the various exposures we have had when partnering with artisan bakers, we have identified six critical aspects of the business that you need to focus on to dramatically increase your chances of success. Let’s examine those in detail:
Location
The location where you choose to open your artisan bakery is perhaps the most important decision you will make.
Take into consideration factors such as footfall, parking facilities, rates and competition. The secret is to be in a location that is not overly expensive, but where lots of people walk past every day. Shops that are en route to and from a secondary school or train station can be excellent as you have a virtually guaranteed flow of potential customers twice a day.
Parking facilities are important because your potential customers want to be able to stop quickly, grab the food of choice and be on their way quickly. They are highly unlikely to visit your shop if they have to find a pay and display car park, and then walk back to your shop.
The final consideration when it comes to location choices is to evaluate the competition. If there are already several other established bakeries you need to ask yourself if you genuinely think that you can differentiate yourself to disrupt the competition and gain a foothold in that market. It might be more sensible to find a different location where the competition is not so fierce.
Financing
Although nobody likes to think or indeed talk about money, the reality is that the cause of the majority of small business failures tends to be regarding cash flow and financing. Before investing too much time or money into your dream business, speak to a business advisor and ensure that you have a few months of cash flow available to cover not just the everyday running of the business, but also any unexpected emergencies or issues. Investing in a quality business financial advisor could be one of your shrewdest investments.
Staff
Unless you plan on doing every aspect of the business yourself, which is simply unsustainable you will need to invest in high-quality reliable staff.
The key to this is a well-oiled recruitment process which includes but is not limited to, finding a pool of qualified staff to recruit from – think about bakery colleges, undertaking a stringent and effective interview process including time in the bakery to show their capabilities, and then giving your new staff the appropriate training, investment and support to flourish within your business. Staff make and break your business so it is important that you not only recruit the correct staff but you then nurture them and make them feel valued once you have recruited them.
Ingredients
Every baker knows that the quality of your cakes, bread or other delicacies is directly linked to the quality of the ingredients that you use. Tempting as it may be to use cheaper ingredients to maximise your profitability, never forget that you are an artisan bakery and as such people are happy to pay for and expect that extra bit of quality.
When it comes to flour, which is without doubt the main ingredient in virtually all bakery products Nelstrop Flours is an acknowledged leader in quality. With over 200 years of experience and expertise in the industry and with the use of sustainable local flour you can rely on Nelstrop to ensure that your artisan bakery produces only the highest quality products day after day.
Suppliers
In much the same way as we talked about ingredients above the other thing you need to think about is who is going to supply your products. You never want to and never should run out of ingredients on a day-to-day basis, and whilst it might be tempting to use a company that is a little cheaper never forget that your business relies to an extent on their capacity to deliver on time when needed. That is another benefit of dealing directly with a company such as Nelstrops, who have our own logistics department. This means you can be confident that when you need more flour Nelstrops can meet your demand on time every time.
Marketing
The struggle with any small business, at least initially, is to get your brand known, after all, nobody can buy from you if they don’t know you even exist. Social media, such as Instagram, Facebook and TikTok are a viable and relatively inexpensive method of building a following and generating interest. You could also start a YouTube channel, with how-to videos or other tips and tricks that would generate you an audience and encourage people to come and visit your bakery.
Wellbeing
The final and perhaps most important aspect of launching an artisan bakery is that you remember to leave time for yourself and your health.
Running any business is hard work, and can be exhausting but with the early hours that bakers have to be up at it can be all too easy to burn out quickly. Take time for yourself, away from the business, so that you can enjoy and benefit from the fruits of your labour.