NEW Vendorfront Beta is now available! »

· Articles  · 9 min read

How to Open a Bakery in Canada (2024)

Want to start a Bakery or Small Business? Here's how you can get started.

Want to start a Bakery or Small Business? Here's how you can get started.

  1. Create a Business Plan

This may sound generic, however putting your idea pen to paper or I suppose keyboard to pixels can really help flesh out your thoughts.

Some of the things you may want to think about when writing out a business plan are the following:

Your Small-Business Name

In my opinion, one of the funnest parts is thinking about a name for your future Bakery, this could be as simple as your firstname+bakery(e.g. DivyaBakery ), or it could be more elaborate.

the world is your oyster, just make sure that it’s not already taken or trademarked.

Here are some ways you can check if the name is already taken:

  • As archaic as it might seem, search the interwebs(Hint: You can put quotation marks “DivyaBakery” in your google search to search for an exact match) and go through the first 10 pages.

  • Check Social Media to see if the handle is already taken, search the domain by using services like NameCheap or GoDaddy, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and even Twitter and ensure that once you decide on a name, you lock it down.

  • Search Canadian Databases

Your Physical & Virtual Storefront

  • Think about the style of Bakery you want to start off with, that could be starting from a whisk and flour from your home advertising on Instagram, a pop-up shop or even a full-blown storefront

  • Your online presence, will you have your own website? How will clients book you? Do you opt for a management system like Vendorfront?

  • How much sqft do you need, and what will the seating capacity look like if it’s a physical location?

  • Demographics & Location: Where will you try to sell your services and which demographic are you aiming for? The gluten-free, vegan or the sweet-tooth fanatics?

  • What is the street presence? If you’re looking to buy a storefront, we would recommend just setting some time aside to go and watch the foot traffic around the area for an hour or two every day

Your Holy-Grail Recipe

Perhaps this is the one you got from your hall of fame grandmother who used to bake the best cakes for the entire neighbourhood, perhaps you want to start a Bakery to show the world your grandmother’s baking prowess.

Whatever the case might be, this is the section of your business plan where you want to jot down your recipes. Here are some ideas for this section:

  • Write down your recipe.

  • Is my recipe scalable?

  • What is the cost for x amount of food?

  • What is the time required?

  • What’s my USP(unique selling proposition) or taste profile?

  • How will I estimate the caloric and nutrition profile?

Market Analysis:

  • The future demand for the industry as a whole, are you trying to start something in an emerging market or is it saturated?

  • Keep your friends close, and your competition closer; What do they offer? How are they adderessing your pain points?

  • Are there any trends associated with your product, e.g. is it more lucrative during the summer months when weddings season is in full throttle? Or in the winter when people are seeking their comfort snacks?

Marketing Strategy

You could have the best cake in the entire world, but it won’t mean a thing unless people find out about it:

  • Think about writing out your distribution channels, and how you’re going to let the world know about your amazing Bakery.

  • Do you already have a logo? You can hire an expert through fiverr to craft up a logo, look on canva for inspiration or simply write your initials with a backdrop, what is important is that you don’t harp on this for months in the initial stages.

  • Branding; Your logo, the colours you use, your USP, your mission statement, and a curated message to your demographics, all of this ties into the definition of branding.

  • Start thinking about how you’ll circulate your marketing materials.

    • For example, you can send out flyers through Canada Post

The Financials

Ah, the not so fun part of planning out your dream business, the numbers:

  • Estimate the cost of your tools and maintenance required.

  • Personnel needed if any, and the amount of hours or FTE required and costs associated with that.

  • The monthly expenditure of your physical storefront whether that’s a hip spot in Downtown Toronto or from your home.

  • Client management and tools to efficiently keep your leads.

    • Compare the different tools out there on the market like Booksy, Fresha, AcquityScheduling & Vendorfront.

  • Breakdown of the ingredient pricing, do not account for sales at your local supermarket at this moment.

  • Marketing & Distribution costs that could be associated with any form of Ads or Marketing material you’ll be using to build brand awareness.

  • Licenses & Permits, for example any costs associated with Health & Safety or inspections.

  • Packaging, a high level overview of the materials and a comparison chart of the different options of materials.

  • External funding; whether that’s loans or help from a friend, what would the interest be and the requirements of getting approved?

  • Cash-flow analysis, you want to think about the potential flow of transactions and project based on different levels of foot-traffic.

  • Doom & Gloom analysis: Yes, things might not work out as scary as that sounds, so you want to calculate how much it’d cost you to shut the operation down if required and what the financial risk might look like.

  1. Validation Phase

Business plan done? Let’s do some test runs.

Now that the hard work in putting your idea to paper is finally done, we can put our hands to work and flesh out everything that we outlined in our business plan.

The goal of this step is to validate that there is a need for your product in the market before you put too much time or money into it, I know we all want to rush to the bank, get a personal loan and rent out a location tomorrow but let’s take a deep breath and start slow and steady:

  • First, assuming you’re brand spanking new to this - Let’s do a test batch and do a taste test within your immediate family or friends.

  • Assuming that goes well, the next step would be to branch out into your neighbourhood and ask for honest feedback in exchange for free baked goods.

Ensure you’re keeping food safety in mind when branching out to strangers and provide disclaimers when required in accordance with local and provincial laws.

All of that went well? Do you have people asking you without prompting whether you can make cakes for their son’s birthday or event?

That would be music to your ears, because it would mean that the initial validation would be done and you can start thinking about how you want to validate whether people will pay for your baked goods.

  1. Social Media Champion

In today’s world, having a social media presence is word of mouth on a global scale. So if you’re done validation, let’s see how we can spruce up our Instagram or Tiktok.

  • Take pictures of your food and build a following, it doesn’t need to be tied to your business yet but you want to get into the #foodscene.

  • Follow all your competitors and friends & family to build awareness.

  • Instagram has a scheduling function, so ensure that you’re posting on a semi-regular basis to connect with your followers.

  • If you’re using a management platform like Vendorfront, link it in your bio.

  • Do giveaways and often, there’s no better way to spread word of mouth other than having people try your amazing baked goods.

  • Have clients leave testimonials on your Instagram page or reviews on your management platform.

  1. Build Brand Awareness

We have the initial validation done, and we have a funnel setup to keep and nurture client relationships so now it’s time to keep your foot on the accelerator:

Participate in all local food festivals & markets, here are some resources to find them.

Join Local & National Business Associations:

National:

Provincial:

  1. Health & Safety

Regulations that you will need to look into but not limited to:

Think about things like

  • Allergens that your product might have (We don’t want our neighbour to break out in hives).
  • Pest Control (Turns out, mice like cakes too).
  • Temperature control while stationary and during transport of the goods.
  • Sanitation & Hygiene protocols.
  • Ensure you have the appropriate insurance for what you’re selling.

  1. Celebrate milestones and curate an “Inspo Board”

It’s easy to lose motivation, so ensure that you celebrate any little milestone whether that’s successfully doing a validation test or even figuring out the name of your future business, it’s important to celebrate; even the little things.

Furthermore, create an Inspo Board on www.pinterest.com or even get materials from your local dollar store and start pinning up some pictures of what your dreams are and your motivations.

Cake Walk, Right?

This concludes our post, a lot of reseaarch went into the background of this blog-post, we wanted to make sure that it was informational and specific, hopefully this helps you start making your dream into a reality and the Vendorfront Team would love to be a part of the taste test in the future.

We want to wish you the best of luck with your new endeavor and if you ever need a management platform, feel free to take a look at what we offer to make your life a little bit easier.

Back to Blog