Imagine you operate an artisanal pita bread bakery. Your brand is expanding, and your goods are selling well. You get a call from a buyer at a major grocery chain who wants to sell your bread. That implies that you must rapidly scale up production! There is no room or money for full-scale commercial baking lines. But you want to guarantee that your goods retain their handmade flair when mass-produced.
This is a frequent occurrence, particularly now that artisanal goods are popular, and artisanal bread is booming. The transition from local market favorite to national brand recognition hasn’t always been simple for small manufacturers.
There are around 2,800 commercial bakeries and 6,700 retail bakeries with combined yearly sales of $30 billion. Bakeries must differentiate themselves in a growing market. The finest bread in town? Small bakeries? Bakeries have unrivaled marketing skills. Local bakeries rather than commercial bakeries create demand. Operational and marketing efficiency influence profitability. How do you scale your bakery?
Appealing to Senses Is Effective
One of the lowest barriers to entry in marketing your bakery is something you already have—the lovely fragrance of your baked goods. Anyone who knows anything about baking knows that keeping their doors open as much as possible while the weather allows is a great way to promote their business. As long as you are baking, you can prop up your doors and entice hungry visitors!
When it comes to marketing to bakery consumers, you must constantly offer them something fresh to entice them to purchase. For example, gluten-free is the trend these days (and it seems to be!) to create a complete line of gluten-free items to cater to this new market segment. When you introduce something new to your consumers, they are far more likely to be persuaded to try it for themselves as a result.
As you stroll by any boutique stores or neighborhood eateries, you’ll see that the majority of them have a blackboard outside on their patio, which you can use to write on. It often contains a brief, witty statement and the store’s name, and some promotional verbiage. This is another low-cost yet very successful method of attracting local foot traffic into your bakery.
Using Digital Marketing
Take some time to learn about social media marketing before you go ahead and publish anything you want on the internet. You should avoid bombarding them with obviously commercial materials when they are on social media. It is their time to look at pictures and videos, reconnect with former friends, and find out about the latest happenings.
Discussion, content, and promotion are the three elements that make social media function best. The optimal combination of each factor will vary based on your industry, company, and target audience. Still, you can bet your bottom dollar no one wants to follow a Twitter account that posts advertisements and promotional material.
Upgrading Your Equipment Prepares You for Demand Surge
Commercial baking equipment from a respected manufacturer is built to last for years, if not decades. In five to ten years, you might decide to update to the most recent model, which will have additional features. Alternatively, you might need a giant machine. Your appliances will not only have served you well over the years, but they will also be in excellent operating condition and worth something. You can either trade them in or sell them to pay for your new gadget.
Residential equipment is not intended for the arduous, repetitive labor that is required in a business environment. Not only will your equipment struggle to keep up, but you will almost certainly end up with a poor outcome. You won’t have to worry about keeping up with demand or maintaining a high-quality product when you use commercial ovens and mixers intended for big-scale production of a high-quality product. It’s time to upgrade your ovens and even hanging crane scales.
The process of baking several tiny batches in succession requires additional time and slows down the manufacturing line. If every person and equipment in your kitchen is working at peak performance, don’t you find that you work more efficiently? When you invest in contemporary appliances, you can get the smooth and quick operating procedure that you need.
Consumer trends are essential in the bread industry. The food sector has the most volatile customer patterns. The bakery, pastry, and chocolate industries have seen significant trends rise, and a few stand out as the most important ones of 2019. Knowing current customer trends is critical in every organization. A company cannot thrive if the owner ignores customer desires and requirements. The company will flourish if the proprietor is aware of customer trends and knows what goods and marketing methods to use.