Hi Everyone,

I am looking for some advice if possible. My business partner and I opened our shop at the beginning of February, and it has really gone from strength to strength. What I wanted to know is - for those of you that have a shop or rented premises, how many cakes do you take on per week? I know that it comes down to how many you ned to make in order to make a profit. Basically we have broken even or made a slight profit since we opened. We started out with just the two of us, but we now have two part-time employees too. I just wanted to know how many cakes you all take on average per week.

Thanks so much!!
Pauline

I am out of the biz now, but I would do as many as I could and still maintain quality and sanity.
It all comes down to efficiency.
Bake all your cakes for the week and freeze.
Make your signature BC by the gallons and freeze in containers that hold enough for your cakes. (example, an 8 inch round takes ___ amt, a 10 inch takes ___ amt)
Look ahead for any gumpaste work and start on them as soon as the order is finalized and make extra if it is a popular figure or flower.
Are you training your part timers to take on more responsibility?

The best answer is one that only you can answer. Minni is right...as many as you can handle without compromising product quality. If you are counting as just cakes...a 5 tier "simple" (and we all know what that means) wedding cake is not the same as a single tier or even a carved.

I would think you need to look at your schedule by the types of cakes being made to know whether or not you can take on another.

If you are breaking even in only 5 months...kudos to you. Your partner and you are doing something right.

Thanks so much for the replies! At the moment we do approx. 20 cakes per week, and that can be anything from wedding cakes to a simple iced cake. I guess I just wanted to find out how that compares with other people who have their own shop. So anyone that can give me a rough figure of how many their business does per week or month?

Thanks
Pauline

Single or double oven capacity? Convection or regular oven? Hours you'd like to spend in the shop? How big is your freezer for bake-aheads?

Only you can determine what you can do, but I found that you can surprise yourself on what you can do. Sometimes people only learn how to work faster by being forced to work faster.

Remember ..... you'll always be where you already are if you just keep doing what you've already done.

Sometimes people only learn how to work faster by being forced to work faster. .....lets sew this on a pillow!

in my 9th year...still having growing pains!
around 30 top 50.