Archive for the ‘ Recent Posts ’ Category

Well if there is anyone reading this blog post and would like to have me look over their plans whilst i am in the UK, NOW would be the time to inquire.

You can get my terms and conditions by replying to this blog post.

Or by sending an email to support with a request for consultations in the headline

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Start a Cup Cake Business

Author: HTSAB

May 23

When you start a business you need to visualize the end result.

A dream you say!

Well actually Yes, it is dreaming to some extent. But, lets face it unless we use the information within that dream, where will it get you? Just another sleepless night.

There are many people on the internet that like nothing better than to tell you they are guru’s of internet marketing and that they have made millions on line. But what they do not tell you is exactly how they have done it, (if they ever did that is, because most are fake).

I am not into internet marketing of false promises.

I have trained many people to make bread, cakes, and pastries. I can show you too.

I have created several bakeries and assisted in opening a few others. I have purchased one bakery that was bankrupt and made a profit in the first year.

OK. Enough about me!

There are people all over the internet judging by some of the articles i have read, that claim working from home is the ideal environment and easy to accomplish.

Well, I hate to burst your bubble if that is the route you are taking.

The laws of manufacturing food for human consumption in the home are strict. The equipment unreliable and the insurance un-protecting.

There are many area’s where states will not allow any food for sale to be made in the home. Many insurance agents will offer insurance but the insurance is often invalid without the proper business licenses and health regulation certificates.

Don’t go into business without at least getting legal advice for your area.

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Filed under: Recent Posts, The Crusty Bakers Comments | Tagged as: Bake shop, Cup Cakes, Fancy cakes

How to start a doughnut – coffee shop

Author: HTSAB

May 23

How to start a doughnut coffee shop

Designing any business is the same from day one.

First we start with an idea.

An idea can be made into any business and that is why we need to start with a business plan.

It is in the business plan that we write down all our thoughts of what we want to do with our idea.

In this instance our idea is to start a doughnut – coffee shop.

The question then is how I start a doughnut / coffee shop, since we can make two businesses from that one question we must break our business plan down even further.

It needs to be broken down and each part of the question investigated.

It is true that these two products go well together. This can be seen by the number of coffee shops selling donuts and vise-versa.

However, it can also be seen that trying to sell just donuts may be problematic, as well as trying to sell just coffee.

If you look at all the franchise outlets of these two products it can also be seen that neither product is sold alone. And in fact the franchise outlets also sell other food items as well as different beverages too.

One of the first questions to answer is how much or the business will be donuts and how much is coffee. This information might be found by investigating the doughnut coffee shop franchises.

In the past when I was looking to start a mobile doughnut coffee shop in the United Kingdom back in the early 1970′s the numbers were around 20% donuts to 80% coffee. Those numbers haven’t really changed that much. Though now that 20% includes all food items and the 80% includes all beverages.

OK. So you plan on going ahead with starting a doughnut coffee shop. So what is required?

Your business plan of course is number one.

A location you will want to start your doughnut coffee shop. So where will that be?

Well if you follow other fast food outlets you might want to locate near to one of those name brand outlets.

However, I would advise against that unless you are another franchise. Franchise outlets have deep pockets and can crush a smaller business owner by opening close to you. This has happened several times in recent history with sandwich shops.

So where would a likely place be to start you doughnut coffee shop?

A reasonable place to start a doughnut coffee shop might be your local strip mall, in full view of the main highway. The actual side of the road will not matter too much if there is easy access to your location. But it is that easy access that will help when you start a doughnut coffee shop.

Another reasonable location might be within an industrial area, especially if you are the only coffee shop within that area. Another possibility might be in a new housing estate where you might be one of the first businesses to locate in the area.

One thing you should investigate is, if you start a doughnut coffee shop in a strip mall, there is very likely a non-competition clause written into the leasehold agreement.

A non-competition clause states that no two businesses may operate in the same location with the same products.

I have seen recently a non-competition clause allow two alcoholic drinks outlets in the same strip mall. One was a pub, the other a beer store with a taster’s outlet along side. So be very wary of the terminology in the agreement. A bakery will be able to setup shop to sell donuts and coffee, but because they make bread and cakes, they will not be considered as a doughnut coffee shop.

Similarly a convenience store selling newspapers can also sell donuts and coffee.

The equipment is very much the same starting your doughnut coffee shop as is required in a bakery. Just about the only difference in the two locations is, one will require an oven whereas, the other a fryer. One will require cups and maybe saucers or mugs and a place to sit, whereas the other might have less or more of both.

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Filed under: Recent Posts | Tagged as: coffee, doughnuts, doughnuts and coffee, starta coffee bar

Magical Flavor of Coffee

Author: HTSAB

May 22

Is there a magical flavor in Gourmet coffee beans?

But what is it that decides whether a coffee is gourmet?

If you drink coffee and have ever stopped to look at the different types of the ground coffee bean can brands on the supermarket shelf. You might wonder if they really are gourmet coffee beans.

Buying a can or packet of the beans is a little bit too much in a packet at one time to actually give some a try next time you’re shopping for coffee.

Instead of grabbing that huge tub of ground coffee, the same brand you’ve been purchasing and drinking for years, or instead of grabbing that more expensive, smaller tub of “gourmet” ground coffee, break out of your coffee rut and give fresh beans a try.There are Dark Roast, as well as Medium Roasts and even Green Beans available.

But what is it that decides a coffee is gourmet?

For me gourmet means something that i don’t normally purchase like a more expensive treat, and it might be the same for you too. You can also say that Kona coffee is a gourmet coffee under the terms of a more expensive treat, as it is only grown in one place and that is on the island of Kona, Hawaii.

That means of course that the coffee growers of Kona Hawaii need to transport their products to you the purchaser. And we can do that too, right to your door, either ground ready for your coffee making or as roasted and even green beans.

Some people already own a coffee grinder, or remember when their parents used to purchase beans and grind them at home. Many stores can still accommodate you purchase of roasted beans with a grinder right in the coffee aisle and also many coffee houses grind their coffee as they make your drink too.

The beans our parents purchased and ground were usually not gourmet coffee beans, it was simply cheaper to buy the beans and grind them yourself. If you don’t have a grinder at home, coffee grinders aren’t expensive.

You’ll also enjoy the smell of freshly ground coffee beans. While some savor that rich smell when they open a tub or brick of pre-ground coffee, once you’ve opened and inhaled the aroma of freshly ground beans, that tub of coffee won’t ever smell quite the same to you again.

Some people who are very choosy when it comes to coffee, purchase several different types of beans and combine them in certain combination’s to get the coffee taste they want. Most of us probably aren’t going to take the time to do that.

We know what we like when we drink coffee, and we know what we don’t like. That’s why we frequent the different coffee shops offering things like a doughnut or a sandwich with our cup or mug of coffee.

In that case, gourmet coffee beans can be ideal because they’re already specially chosen and designed to offer up a much richer, more complex taste than that bag of coffee grounds you can purchase at your local supermarket.

You don’t have to purchase the same old beans or ground coffee from your supermarket anymore.

You can break out of that habit with gourmet coffee beans from the Kona coffee guy, you can buy coffee beans online and have them delivered right to your door too.

You can find blends of different beans like the almighty Arabic, Jamaican, Colombian and many others in the supermarket isles, as well as beans that are infused with different flavors. But by adding your own flavors the taste is totally different.

You can add cocoa that will give your coffee a chocolate flavor, or cinnamon or even a hint of fruit or vanilla, or almost anything you can imagine even rum to give it that extra punch.

When you’re looking at gourmet coffee beans, you literally have hundreds of choices, and that choice can seem almost overwhelming. Most places that offer this many choices have information about different types of coffee beans, roasting times, flavors and hints of flavor and general coffee information to help you choose which type of coffee beans to purchase.

And don’t forget the people you buy for.

Coffee lovers can truly appreciate a thoughtful gift of gourmet coffee beans. If you’re unsure whether they grind their own beans, you can purchase the beans whole and grind them just before gift-giving. While gourmet pre-ground coffee can also be a thoughtful gift, whole beans will give the person on your gift lift the freshest coffee experience possible, and put you at the top of their list.

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Filed under: Recent Posts | Tagged as: coffee, coffee bar, Dark Roast coffee, esspreso, gourmet coffee, green coffee beans, Kona Coffee Beans, lattes, medium roast coffee

A baker seeing RED

Author: HTSAB

May 21

A Baker Seeing RED.

Are you reading or listening to the people writing articles on the web that are not even in the trade about which they are writing about?

Can you believe their words, after all they might be doing a little research over the Internet.

Personally speaking some of these article make my blood boil.

Here they are telling people that this or that is not good or they ought to do this or that. Yet almost all of them have no real idea of what a bakery actually is.

It would seem to me that these people are walking into a supermarket and seeing all the sliced over wrapped cardboard style breads and deciding that because they dislike a certain brand or colored wrap that the bakery in which it was made is not a good place or business to be in.

They themselves have never even been inside any sort of bakery let alone worked in one.

Do you think that I would have stayed in the trade for over 50 years if their words were correct.

Yes. That’s right! I have been a professional baker for over 50 years.

I was taught from the ground up. Having begun at the age of 15 and started by cleaning the baking pans and sweeping the floor, then obtaining a certificate of skills to prove my worth.

From there, I went on to becoming an assistant bakery manager then the bakery manager and area relief manager for the same company. Ive been responsible for operating what I termed a plant bakery, where we made 280 pounds of flour into a bread dough in three minutes, 24 hours a day, which then the baked breads were sent up to the slicers for over wrapping in the different colored super market brand wrappers.

I have been responsible for starting several bakeries as well as building bakeries and owned my own bakery.

If you think I am blowing my own trumpet, Sure, Absolutely, I am! Because right now I am somewhat incensed by the negative attitude that these articles are displaying about an industry that has been my whole life as a professional baker.

Now who on earth can say that the job they have is the best job in the world for any sustained period of time.

Construction workers will tell you they have to work in all weather conditions to contend with. Office workers will tell you their job is boring shuffling papers from one place to another. Police officers will tell you the court system releases criminals because the courts are overwhelmed. Doctors will tell you the health system needs more money. Teachers will tell you they are on strike to help our kids learn. (If you can believe that one).

I am certainly not going to glorify or put any of those jobs down because that is the profession those people chose. I chose the bakery to be employed within and have for the most part enjoyed my time in the industry.

There are problems in any and all businesses, but if you are going to glorify only the problems then it is no wonder unemployment is so high in many area’s and industries.

The bakery or rather the food industry has their fair share of problems of course. Some of those problems are people related. Though unions will say that the people related problems are because those people are not unionized. Which of course is crap in my opinion.

The main reason I have seen in the food industry, is the people concerned in some of these food related businesses have not followed along with business guidelines or health regulation. And that is a problem with employing un-skilled and often un-educated people, which at times are immigrant employee’s not understanding the language of their employers.

Please don’t mis-understand me! As any employee can be trained for a position of employment, so long as they continue to do the job as they were trained to do. It then come back down to the instructor to train these people in matters of safety of the consuming public.

This is one of the main reasons I am so incensed with some of the articles I have read about the bakery being an unhealthy place to work.

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Filed under: Recent Posts | Tagged as: A baker, professional baker

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