Homemade Bakery: What It Is and Why It Sells

Many people wonder what a homemade bakery is and how it differs from a regular bakery. Let's clear things up.

Buying bread from a shop is convenient, there's plenty of choice and it's cheap. But many people still feel that warm, fresh homemade bread straight from their own oven smells and tastes better, and is worth the time and effort. "Homemade bakery" means bread made at home, usually from simple recipes anyone can follow.

It has since grown into a fast-growing business, with fresh bread baked and sold daily as well as made-to-order production. It's an attractive way to make money that's easy to start, with a fairly low budget and baking times of just minutes in an ordinary oven. Today there are even recipes for delicious bread or cake made in a microwave. You can also promote your products on social media, so earning an income is surprisingly easy, and it has become many people's dream business.

5 Things to Know About Homemade Bakery

Learning to bake bread and treats at home is easy today. Here are five things to know about homemade bakery:

1. "Homemade" means food made at home: bread, cakes, cookies or other treats baked in an ordinary small or large oven depending on your budget or volume. They aren't factory-made or produced on an industrial scale, but come from food made for the family. If you sell them, you can scale production up or down as needed. The selling points are freshness from the oven every day and no preservatives.
2. A homemade bakery should smell wonderful: if you open a shop, the aroma of baking as customers walk in makes them feel good and sells itself without any words. The smell of fresh homemade bread attracts attention even better than beautifully decorated bakes.
3. Start with your family's favourite recipes: use special ingredients or add what you love; you don't need standard recipes. Many people have heard of gluten-free bread for those allergic to gluten, the protein found in wheat flour and grains such as barley and rye. When people need to avoid gluten, they can choose homemade bread instead.
4. Control your ingredients: bakery products are made from flour, sugar, salt, butter, cream and milk, which can harm your health and cause weight gain if not eaten in moderation. Too much sugar raises the risk of diabetes, and too much salt is bad for the kidneys. For people losing weight or watching their health, homemade bakery offers clean, home-made recipes so they don't have to give up delicious treats while dieting. The quality is better than shop-bought bread, and you can keep costs reasonable too.
5. Homemade bread is unique: it suits people who love fresh bakes and are becoming more health-conscious, who want to control what goes into their food and add beneficial ingredients and nutrients as they like.

Selling Homemade Cakes vs Reselling Cakes

Selling homemade cakes and reselling bought-in cakes each have pros and cons that suit different investors.

1. Time

In terms of time, reselling cakes has a clear advantage over selling homemade cakes. Resellers don't have to spend time making cakes themselves, and starting the business doesn't require learning how to bake: you can find a wholesale cake supplier and start selling straight away. Selling homemade cakes means learning how to bake and where to source ingredients, so getting started takes quite a while, and producing everything yourself while selling also takes more time than reselling.

2. Cost

In terms of start-up investment, homemade cakes cost more than reselling, because you need equipment and ingredients, which resellers don't. But in terms of product cost, making cakes from raw ingredients gives a lower cost per unit than buying cakes in. For example, 200 baht of ingredients might make 20 cakes, a cost of 10 baht per piece, while a bought-in cake might cost 20 baht per piece for the same shape and size. And if the cost per unit is the same, homemade cake will be of higher quality.

3. Quality

Homemade cakes are clearly of higher quality than bought-in cakes, because you choose the ingredients and control production yourself, giving fresher, cleaner, more consistent products. Most customers also prefer homemade products.

4. Difficulty

Running a homemade cake business is much more complex than reselling. You have to start by sourcing equipment and affordable yet satisfactory ingredients, learn how to make the products yourself and handle every step of production, so it's considerably harder than reselling.

5. Profit

The profit per unit on homemade cakes is higher than on resold cakes, because the cost per unit is lower. Quality also often lets you charge more: compared with factory-quality cake, you can set a much higher price, which means more profit. Made-to-order homemade cakes, for example, can command high prices that customers are happy to pay.

These are all good reasons to support homemade bakeries, to bake your own bread to save money, or to give homemade bread as a gift on special occasions. It is especially popular during festivals and at events all year round.