How to start
a bakery from
home in 8
simple steps

Admit it; there’s nothing better than the warm smell of freshly baked pastries, muffins, and cakes in the morning. Does your kitchen smell like paradise whenever you whip tasty goodies for casual and special events? Do your friends and family love your freshly baked treats?

It takes a unique skill to prepare and bake yummy treats everyone loves and cherishes. If you have this skill, you may have considered taking it to the next level by opening a bakery – from the comforts of your home!

Launching a home bakery is an excellent way to make money while doing what you love. Home businesses, since COVID, have become increasingly popular. More people are applying their skills to earn income from their homes. What’s more? You can save up on rent and other expenses when you set up a bakery in your home.

However, starting a bakery at your home comes with new challenges, especially if you don’t know what to do. With the right information at your fingertips, you can kick off your business successfully.

8 simple steps to starting your home bakery

Here, we present you with insider secrets on how to pull it off. Read on, follow these 8 simple steps, and you’ll be in for a treat!

1. Understand local regulations for home bakeries

First things first, you need to understand the local regulations for home bakeries before starting one. One of the mistakes people make during this formative phase is to overlook this essential step.

It often ends with the bakers being on the wrong side of the law, having to deal with mounting charges and fines. Regulations for home-based bakeries are quite different from retail and commercial outlets – in terms of health standards, production, taxes, and many more.

Each county and state have different regulations concerning home bakery operations. You should check with the local and state departments for more information on the regulations. It would help if you had a lawyer who would seamlessly facilitate the entire process.

2. Get a baking license for at home business

Another thing you need to have in place is a home bakery license for at home business. Before starting your business, you need to understand the local laws, licenses, and certificates you may require as a business owner.

Many businesses launched without identifying and having these licenses in place tend to face the harsh side of the law. You don’t want that.

Because your business deals directly with food, you need to check with the local and state health departments to determine the requirements and documentation required to earn a license. You should also apply for a renewable sales tax and food handler’s permit. Other licenses include patents, copyrights, and other intellectual properties.

Licensing for home bakeries varies from county and state. You need to check with the local licensing office to identify the documentation required to be licensed and certified to run your home business.

If you’re overwhelmed by all this or too lazy to pay a visit to these offices, your family lawyer can handle the process and facilitate the paperwork for you.

3. Decide on the baked goods to sell

After getting licensed and certified to run your home bakery, you need to decide which baked goods to sell to your target customers. However, this decision isn’t a piece of cake and shouldn’t be made on a whim.

Take some time to review your specialties, skills, availability of materials, and other factors before deciding which baked goods to focus on.

Do you have a knack for whipping up tasty cakes and cupcakes? Are pastries or bread more your style? It would help if you decided before launching your business. But how do you do that?

You can ask your family or friends to analyze and tell you which of your baked goods they’ve always enjoyed from you. Get the general consensus and make your own adjustments.

4. Write your home bakery business plan

Every business needs a plan to thrive successfully. A home bakery business plan is essential before launching your business, as it sets a framework for your responsibilities, short and long-term goals, business structure, and services.

It also serves as a blueprint for potential stakeholders and investors to understand your business and make informed investment decisions.

Your home bakery business plan should contain the following:

• Executive Summary. This is a brief overview of your business plan, highlighting the sections that will be addressed. This part should be written after the business plan has been formatted and completed.
• Business Overview. This section includes your business's mission, vision, and corporate goals. You should be honest with yourself and what you want to achieve with your business.
• Products and Services. This section should list and describe all the baked goods your home bakery will offer to potential customers.
• Market Analysis. Conduct a SWOT analysis, market trends, and sales projections and input them in this section.
• Competitive Analysis. Review your main competitors, analyze their strengths and weaknesses, and highlight your unique selling point.
• Sales and Marketing. This section will list all your digital and promotional strategies for getting people to know and patronize your business.
• Management Team. Here, you’d list out the roles and corresponding responsibilities in detail.
• Operations Plan. This includes your procurement, equipment, assets, and logistics.
• Financial Plan. This section features profit and loss estimates, cash flow, balance sheet, start costs, and financial projections.
• Appendix. You can include any other business-related documents, copies of licenses, etc.

You can successfully plan your business with all these sections in your home bakery business plan.

5. Get the right equipment and supplies

A huge success of your business is tied to getting the right equipment and supplies for your home bakery. You need to get everything in place as soon as you know the baked goods you’d be offering.

This equipment includes an oven, piping bags, wrappers, tins, a mixer, a refrigerator, gloves, pans, and many more. The role of a sufficient workspace cannot be overemphasized. You need enough space to move around and work freely.

You also need a storage cabinet to store your ingredients and other materials for your cooking. If your kitchen doesn’t have one, you can order them online or hire a carpenter to build one.

Some food laws may require you to separate your baking equipment from your personal cooking equipment. It would help if you got the right supplies for your unique offerings. You need to monitor the costs of your supplies, so you can properly price your menu and do your taxes without feeling at home.

6. Arrange your home bakery kitchen

Your kitchen is the most important part of your business if you’re planning to launch a home bakery. It’s essential to free up space and move around your kitchen smoothly. This means you’d need to declutter that part of the house.

If there are items you won’t be using for a long time, you can take them to your basement or garage for storage. You can gift some items to your friends, put them on sale, or give them to a charity project in your community.

7. Create a marketing plan to advertise your home baking business

Launching a home bakery is just a piece of the cake. You need to ensure that people are aware of your business and know just how to patronize you. There are various ways you can go about this. It includes:

• Word of mouth. An excellent support system is essential for kicking off a successful baking business from the comfort of your home. You can tell your friends and family about your plans to launch a home bakery. Your loved ones can help share the news with their friends, attract local customers who will need your services, and give your startup an initial boost. You’d need to give out free samples to sweeten the pot.
• Advertising. You can also market your home bakery by using local advertising mediums. They include brochures, flyers, or radio. People in your locality may be interested in your business.
• Press release. Print and online newspapers are also other options you can use for your marketing. Your local paper may print your bakery launch if you submit it as a press release.
• Social media. Beyond connecting with friends and family, social media remains an untapped resource to promote businesses. Chances are your target customers have social media accounts. So, why not create business pages there?

8. Use software to process online orders

With everything set up and ready to launch, what more do you need? A software to seamlessly process online orders for your business.

Whether you’re tending to a local or broader audience, you need a software where your customers can look up baked items, place orders, set a pickup time, and make payments.

Vev is user-friendly, innovative and online ordering system for bakeries where you can create a page for your home bakery, display all your products, and attach prices to them. Your customers can look up your page, select the items they need, and choose a pickup date and time.

The bakery page shows which items were ordered, their respective pickup times, and the customers’ contact details. With such information at your fingertips, you can easily plan your day. You get total customization in inputting your opening hours, including your business logo, product pictures, and descriptions.

Vev is completely free to use, giving you more control and power over the bottom line of your home bakery.

Ready to start baking, making and selling that bread?

Setting up a home bakery business comes with a lot of challenges. However, with proper planning and an efficient online ordering system, you can launch your business comfortably and achieve the best results.