Starting a cake business from home: 5 steps to follow

Mums Tips

Mumpreneurs & Mums at work

Published on Wednesday, 25 March 2020 11:25

Last Updated on 27 March 2020

Monica Costa

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Do you regularly bake cakes for friends and family? Do you have a passion for this sweet treat? If so, you might be exploring ways of turning this passion and baking talent into a viable cake business.

Thanks to the power of the Internet, it is easier than ever to start and run a profitable cake business from the comfort of your home. However, there’s still a lot of work involved before you can start dreaming of churning cakes out for serious cash.

To help demonstrate the amount of effort needed, and also guide you on the way to success, here is a quick five-step guide for starting a cake business from home.

The regulations for baking at home

If you are running a food business of any kind from home, you need to adhere to a wide assortment of regulations. In general, it’s essential you keep the food preparation area clean and in good condition. Check out the list of the Food Standards Agency requirements before you get started too.

Additionally, it’s highly recommended you get a food hygiene certificate ASAP.

Funding your business

Even if you are operating from home, there will still be costs associated with starting a cake business. Consider ingredients, specialist equipment, marketing materials, and so on.

While it won’t be as expensive as other business operations, it’s necessary you have a cash injection ready to go. If you don’t have the money in your bank account, cash loans are a suitable alternative to get the necessary finance in an instant.

Think of the cakes you want to sell

Even in your local area, there will be a variety of cake and baking businesses already in operation. This means you need to differentiate from the crowd and offer something different. You could offer cakes based solely on dietary requirements, or focus on a specific category such as weddings. Although if you’re confident in your baking skills, simply serving the best tasting cakes is a major selling point.

Just remember: no matter how ‘out there’ you go, you can’t go wrong with a classic chocolate cake!

Advertise, then advertise some more

When it comes to a cake, there are two main selling points: how it tastes and how it looks.

Therefore, your marketing efforts should be focused on these aspects. Attractive cakes are made for being shared on social media. Get it right with an Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter post, and your creations can be viewed by potentially tens of thousands of potential customers if the snowball effect comes into play.

As for getting people to taste your cakes, you could have a stall on a market and offer tasters to those passing by.

Other useful marketing strategies include:

• Email marketing
• Leaflets
• Blog content with a focus on recipes
• Listing on Google My Business
• Become active in the local community

Register your house and gain permission

Before opening, you will need to contact your local authority’s environmental health service to register your home. Thankfully, this is free to do, and the authority cannot refuse the request. You will, however, need to do the registration 28 days before trading commences. This will see someone inspecting your kitchen.

Furthermore, you might need to gain permission from your mortgage lender or landlord regarding your intention to start a cake business.