How to sell handmade gingerbread cookies: the business story of the gingerbread house Personal experience: how I made money before the New Year Gingerbread business at home where to start

Many enterprising women think about how cool it would be to sell their culinary products. True, few have enough endurance and pressure to turn desire into business. Taya Slavuta, the heroine of today's column "", managed to do this by founding the SmakoTaya gingerbread workshop and told us how her business story began.

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At 20 I didn't really want to be an entrepreneur. Will explain. In my student years, many friends dreamed of having their own business, but I didn’t want to at all. Since childhood, I grew up in an entrepreneurial environment. Parents ran a business in the field of seed production and medicinal plants. In her free time from school, she helped: she processed the shipment of goods, drawing up accompanying documents, yes, in principle, as best she could, at that level and at that time, she tried to help with the development, as it is now correctly called, of the brand :). And at the same time, there was plenty of manual labor. This is probably why entrepreneurship did not seem very romantic to me.

To desire motivated to do business banking crisis. I have a financial education and 8 years of banking experience. And 2008 was a turning point for me, when I was simply laid off as an experienced and promising employee and sent to the stock exchange ... and there were many like me in the labor market. At that time, even in vacancies they wrote “we need an economist with work experience (not banking :). Because I love cooking very much, and especially confectionery, so I took up cakes, mastic, with figures, but I always strived for the fact that not only the form is important, but also the content.

At the time of the opening of our gingerbread workshop, I didn’t have a penny in my soul. my starting capital there was a stove bought for me by my dad, a refrigerator, a table and 6 chairs :) I borrowed the workshop that was correct according to all sanitary standards. The only thing I had was a quality product that was actively in demand.

The most difficult in the first 365 days was the execution of permits. Unfortunately, our state bodies do not perform advisory functions, but control ones. No one to ask anything. For all the only answer is "Read the legislative acts." And my continuation of the remark “and we will come, check and if you did something wrong, we will punish you” ...

But the most difficult thing was, and probably remains to this day, is a clear systematization of all working moments, from technological maps in production to the formulation (implementation) of plans in business processes.

In the first year of birth“of our own business”, we, with the whole team, outside the city, did yoga, played volleyball, ate seafood in honey-creamy sauce and drank white Macedonian wine.

As such, I did not have large investments and all investments paid off in almost 5-6 months. But further development occurred only at the expense of profit.

Tagline my "business": Feel the taste of happiness!

We always try to find out the need - give the customer the best, and often this is more than what he expected. We didn't have a strong sales setup because I don't like to praise myself up front. Now there is already something to show and something to brag about, there are positive reviews from large eminent clients, and with great pleasure I give sales into the hands of marketers, and I myself take care of the foundation of our activity - the quality of our product.

Passion for foreign cuisine has long led to the fact that our festive table is decorated with intricate cakes, gourmet cakes and cookies, fruit jellies and soufflés. Gingerbreads are not often seen, and they often lose in taste and “style” to sophisticated foreign pastries. But on New Year's holidays in my family, the finest hour of gingerbread traditionally comes.

Like my mother once, now I bake gingerbread and gingerbread houses for my children, relatives and guests. Everyone will receive their personal New Year's gingerbread, sweetly enticing health, prosperity and good luck for the coming year.
Production of holiday gingerbread at home
Initial investment: 15 tr.
Monthly profit: 30 tr.
Payback period: 1 month.

Gingerbread in Russian holiday tradition

Gingerbread is a dough product richly flavored with all kinds of spices (ginger, lemon zest, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, mint, nutmeg, etc.), honey bread was considered the predecessor of gingerbread until the 12th century in Russia. With the opening of the spice trade, this delicacy most likely appeared. By the 16th century, gingerbread spread everywhere, and their own dynasties of gingerbread bakers appeared. And by the beginning of the 18th century, the gingerbread business was flourishing, masters opened their shops in Berlin, London and Paris. Fairs, weddings, name days, church holidays were inconceivable without an abundance of all kinds of gingerbread.
If the baking of printed gingerbread with various fillings, with ritual motifs flourished in Russia, then Europe is “responsible” for the appearance of gingerbread in the form of houses. Someone believes that the Germans were the first to bake them, and someone that the Poles. But the real boom in gingerbread houses began after the publication of the fabulous story of the Brothers Grimm about Hansel and Gretel, since then the fashion for houses has not dried up and has reached our doorstep. Very good and kind fashion.

Gingerbread house dough recipe

I will share with you a proven recipe for gingerbread dough and the base for gingerbread houses, which has never let me down. Of all the “budget” recipes I have tried, this dough is the most successful for me and working with it I get great aesthetic pleasure. They say that it is very similar to the recipe for Tula gingerbread. I don’t know the real recipe for them, but they look and taste very close.
So:
- 600 g of wheat flour;
- 125 g of softened margarine;
- 200 g of granulated sugar; - 2 chicken eggs;
- 3 tablespoons of honey;
- 1 tablespoon of soda (do not extinguish);
- 1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon + you can add dry ginger, or nutmeg, or ground cloves.
In an enameled cup or stainless steel, mix sugar, eggs, honey, spices and soda, add margarine. Without stirring the mass too intensively with a whisk, put in a water bath for 12-15 minutes. We patiently observe the mass without forgetting to stir it. You will get a very beautiful airy substance, add 1/3 of the total amount of sifted flour to it, mix thoroughly with a whisk and now put the container with the dough to cool in cold water (we use a basin of a wider diameter) for 10-12 minutes, stirring occasionally. In the cooled, but still warm dough, gradually add the remaining amount of flour, mixing with a whisk, then manually.
As a result, we get an elastic beautiful dough, from which, on a table abundantly sprinkled with flour, we roll out the layers of the thickness we need and “cut” according to the prepared patterns. For gingerbread houses, I roll out a layer 0.5 cm wide, you can do it at your discretion. Bake at 180 degrees for about 10 minutes. Keep an eye on the oven, the dough on honey is baked instantly. If you are already engaged in baking gingerbread, you can’t be distracted by other things
We decorate gingerbread cookies and houses with all the methods available in your arsenal with the involvement of unbridled imagination. We hang gingerbread figures on the New Year tree, beautifully pack gingerbread houses and hide them under the same tree, or delight everyone with amazing fabulous products for Christmas.

Gingerbread houses - baking business

New Year's Eve is a general pleasant fuss and anticipation, but also a busy and responsible period in production and service (summing up the year). Working women are torn in search of gifts, necessary products, jewelry. Everyone is ready to spend money at this time without looking back and regrets, so that the holidays in the coming year will be fun, joyful, remembered for something special.
You can go several ways:
1. We choose a recipe for a good universal gingerbread dough, make houses of different sizes and decorate them so that it is impossible to take our eyes off them. We pack in transparent food-grade cellophane and look for points of sale.
2. We surf the Internet far and wide and find an exclusive recipe for gingerbread dough (there are such ones), gingerbread from which is stored for more than 3 months and has an incomparable taste and aroma. The cost of such products is higher, so products from them can be made easier, not in the form of houses, but, for example, as Christmas decorations for children, or gift souvenirs. Such gingerbread cookies can be painted beautifully with icing with various wishes.
3. If you are an expert in gingerbread craftsmanship, then why waste time on trifles? We take everything at once! From exclusive dough we build a castle almost life-size, decorate it with all the breadth of talent and we can present our masterpiece at one of the New Year's fairs or trade exhibitions and sales.
The costs for this type of business are very small, no more than 15,000 rubles. With the full sale of products, income will amount to 30,000 per month.
The profitability of gingerbread production is about 20%. Taking into account the fact that you are preparing an exclusive, calculate your costs, evaluate the result and take the opportunity that is provided once a year, feel free to throw at least 40% over the cost.
No kidding, if you suddenly get carried away with the gingerbread business, then the good news is that New Year's is followed by many other holidays, Christian and secular. Gift and ceremonial baking can become not just your hobby, but a stable home business. Learn the history of the gingerbread industry, improve your skills, create a personal page on social networks, make yourself known. May good luck accompany you in the coming 2016, and life will be as tasty as Gingerbread!

The production of gingerbread is one of the most profitable types of business that even a person who is not very knowledgeable in the intricacies of the culinary art can do. Moreover, the prospects for the development of the gingerbread business are truly stunning. So, according to the marketing research of the STK Group company, the capacity of the domestic market alone has prospects for a direct increase in consumption of about 3.7 thousand tons of finished products of various types of gingerbread and gingerbread similar to them, in terms of the market segment and production technology, gingerbread. Do not forget about the possibilities of exporting products, which have been talked about a lot there lately.

Gingerbread Cooking Technology

Gingerbread is a confectionery product, rectangular, round, oval or complex shaped, made from special gingerbread dough, with the addition of jam, spices, crushed berries, nuts, honey or candied fruit. As a rule, an inscription or a simple drawing is minted on top of the gingerbread plate in various ways and a layer of confectionery glaze is applied.

A feature of the gingerbread dough in the finished product is a long shelf life, which is why this culinary sweet is popular as a souvenir.

It should also be noted that domestic gingerbread houses have good and glorious old traditions, which are also known abroad. So, in particular, family gingerbread men from Tver, at the end of the 19th century, maintained their own branded stores in the main European capitals and made excellent money on this.

Pros and Cons of a Gingerbread Cooking and Selling Business

The most important, and in many ways the determining factor, is that this kind of production, of course, not on an industrial scale, can be placed at home. At the same time, a very significant item of expenditure is excluded, the rental of premises

Gingerbread dough, unlike yeast dough, does not impose increased requirements on the quality of flour. This is also a very important factor. Since when preparing a number of the same bakery products, the indicators of gluten and IDK in the grain of the food group and the flour obtained from it are decisive. First of all, we are talking about the possibility of using cheap flour of the 2nd grade.

The finished product is stored for a very long time, which allows reducing the acuteness of the issue of efficiency and speed of sale of the finished product and its stocks by several orders of magnitude.

A fairly simple technological process of preparation, such operations as proofing, dough maturation do not require increased requirements for temperature and humidity conditions

The main components for production are available and do not require special conditions during transportation and storage

The most time-consuming processes of kneading and shaping the dough are easily mechanized by available means.

It is clear that the gingerbread business, like any other, has its pitfalls and negative sides:

High competition, and many players in the market have long and proven production traditions. Entering the market and winning your niche is not easy

One of the conditions for winning the sympathy of the consumer is the production of a high-quality product and exclusively on natural ingredients, which allows you to cut off large but ordinary manufacturers who base their own recipes on various kinds of modifiers, essences and other ersatz products. It follows that your own recipe based on exclusively natural products will have an overestimated cost and, as a result, a reduced competitive potential.

In the case of using exclusively manual labor for kneading, shaping the dough, the wage fund grows significantly, when it comes to attracting hired workers to the production, the maximum possible mechanization of manual labor imposes increased requirements on the size of the initial capital

The production of food products causes certain difficulties in terms of compliance with sanitary and hygienic requirements, both for premises, transport, and personnel.

How much money you need to invest and how much you can earn in the manufacture and sale of gingerbread

Having weighed all the pros and cons of a purely organizational nature, one can begin to develop a disposition on the economic front.

The calculation will be made on the example of the recipe of the "Tula jubilee gingerbread", which is distinguished by technological simplicity and stability of the output of the finished product.

Flour of the 2nd grade - 100 kg, / of which 0.75 kg for molding table dust /

Sugar, for dough and glaze - 35 kg

Molasses - 45 kg, /in the case of using natural honey, the conversion factor is 0.45/

Margarine - 2 kg

Vegetable oil - 0.55 kg

Baking soda - 0.4 kg

Drinking water conditioned by moisture capacity - 26 l

A mixture of spices ginger powder, cloves and cinnamon crushed - 0.04 kg

Output of finished products 175 pcs.

Based on the fact that the prices for the products and finished products indicated in the recipe can vary significantly in the regions of the country, for an objective calculation, you should substitute the figures that are objective for your area, subtract the associated production and non-production costs and obtain the cost and projected profit.

So, on average in the Russian Federation, the average cost of a kg of finished product is 28.47 rubles, while the average selling price in retail is 62.74 rubles.

As a general information, it should be added that for a small production with a productivity of finished products of the order of 1000-1400 kg per month, the expected profitability level should be in the range of 45-60% and should not be lower than 35%.

Permission and OKVED code for a business selling gingerbread

It should be recalled that the production of gingerbread and gingerbread is regulated by OKVED 10.72.32. and before the start of production, it is necessary to acquire the necessary package of permits.

As a conclusion, I would like to note that starting with a small production of gingerbread, as an exclusively family business, an entrepreneur in a short time will be able to massively increase not only production volumes, but also the range of sweet pastries. It is worth actively seeking opportunities to reduce costs by optimizing costs and, of course, looking for new sales markets, not dwelling on already well-developed ones. Excellent safety of products, their excellent transportability and resistance to adverse factors opens up very broad prospects for both qualitative and quantitative growth of your company.

A step-by-step plan for starting a business for preparing the sale of gingerbread

The organization of a gingerbread business is not much different from other activities related to baking confectionery. The Entrepreneur Action Plan includes:

1. Registration of activities in the tax service, obtaining permits.
2. Rental of premises and its arrangement in accordance with the norms of regulatory authorities.
3. Purchase of equipment.
4. Buy raw materials.
5. Find a market.
6. Conduct advertising, create a website.

Conducting marketing research, drawing up a business plan will greatly simplify the work of a novice entrepreneur. Having an action plan in hand, starting the production of gingerbread is much easier.

How to choose business equipment

For the automated process of making sweets, you will need to purchase special equipment:

• Apparatus for kneading dough;
• Boiler for cooking gingerbread;
• Apparatus for product design;
• Electric oven for baking products;
• Equipment for packing.

The equipment is purchased depending on the needs of production. In addition, it is necessary to buy furniture for arranging a warehouse, a special uniform for staff. For delivery of gingerbread, you will need a car.

What documents are needed for business

The first thing to do is to register an individual entrepreneurship or LLC. Next, you have to get approval from the SES for the premises, approve the recipe and production plan. In addition, the entrepreneur must conclude agreements for the removal of garbage, disinfection of premises.

A new tradition - gift painted gingerbread - is gaining popularity in Russia. Tula businesswoman Elena Nikishova decided to build her own business on the production and sale of beautiful and sweet treats.

Elena's story is like thousands of others. After the birth of her second child, she went on maternity leave, and when it came time to go to work, it turned out that, in fact, there was nowhere to go - her company closed. After being unemployed for a couple of months, Elena came to the conclusion that she needed to start her own business. But what? And then a chance turned up: when she came to her friends' birthday, she received a beautifully packaged colorful gingerbread in the shape of a flower as a gift. When asked where they get these, they explained to her that they ordered from the master and that this pleasure is not cheap. Elena decided to learn how to bake such gingerbread.

“I found out where they teach the skill of baking gingerbread,” says Elena. “I went to 10 classes in Moscow. My husband had to fork out. They are voluminous figures like gingerbread houses. In principle, for any woman who knows how to cook and handle the oven, there is nothing super complicated. "

The first orders, as it always happens, were distributed among relatives and friends. Within two months, Elena "tricked her hand" and earned an image from potential clients. She didn't have to buy any special equipment. She already had a quality oven. The only thing that had to be redone was one of the kitchen cabinets - for a gingerbread dryer. And, of course, buy various baking molds, as well as a syringe for applying glaze. Soon real orders began to arrive. Either fifty "strawberries" for a children's holiday, or "cars" with a logo for a corporate party.

“I started selling my gingerbread in the spring of 2015,” Elena recalls. “It was just the eve of Easter. I was asked to make gingerbread in the form of Easter eggs, Easter cakes, Easter bunnies and chickens. But in the end, it turned out that I earned about 40 thousand rubles. And after that, after weighing all the pros and cons, I decided to register an individual entrepreneur. "

Why IP? Elena considered that it would be much more profitable: there are less reporting, fixed taxes, and there was not much to collect documents for opening, and everything cost 800 rubles. Mom - an accountant - helps with reporting. So, since July 2015, her micro-enterprise has been fully operational. Incomes have become fairly stable. Elena did not give any additional advertising: she relied on word of mouth, plus social networks in which her friends acted as advertising agents.

All production is located in the kitchen - so, no rent and additional costs.

Elena's smallest gingerbread costs 30 rubles, the largest and most painted can cost 1000 or more. Gingerbread houses go for 1500-2000 rubles. Elena sets prices herself, but with an eye to competitors, who, for example, have appeared quite a lot in Tula this year alone.

“A separate topic,” Elena shares, “is the production of glaze. “At first I tried standard recipes from powdered sugar and proteins, plus dyes. But there were many problems with it. Therefore, I switched to using ready-made sugar-protein drawing mass - icing made in Italy. I have to go to Moscow for it, but it is much more effective and reliable. I also buy spices in bulk there, because in real gingerbread, in addition to ginger, cloves are used , cinnamon, anise, coriander, cardamom, nutmeg, pepper, dill, orange peel (bitter orange), mashed bitter almonds, lemon, mint, vanilla, cumin, salt and, of course, honey. boxes for packing sets and constantly bribe new interesting cut-outs for figurines.

Of Education I am a geographer, but I have not worked a day in my specialty. Those years it was too hungry a profession. I had to earn money, and I accidentally became a news editor with a friend at a large publishing house. But the main part of my journalistic career has been connected with Forbes magazine, where I have been working since its opening in Russia in 2004. And in November 2015, I quit. Tired of the profession, enjoyed it enough, learned everything that could be learned, and at the age of 41 went nowhere. I didn't really know what I was going to do.

I wrote about small business in the magazine, so the thoughts about it somehow hovered in the air, but there was no specific idea. And literally on the eve of the New Year, one of my friends once again asked what kind of business I want. And I'm already so tired these questions, and I answered the first thing that came to mind: "culinary." Somehow it came out of my mouth. But when I said it, I realized that this is what you need. Mom once taught me how to bake, I really liked it, and I always baked something tasty at home.

My pocket was empty, but I was not at all prepared for my dismissal. I wanted to earn something for the New Year. And me and my girlfriendand Forbes colleague Nika Miroshkina, as well as with myMom decided to make New Year's gingerbread cookies, paint them, pack them beautifully and sell them to friends on Facebook. On the one hand, it will bring some money, and on the other hand, I will understand whether I really like it, whether it is worth developing in this direction.

At home, I have already made several times gingerbread recipes from the book. So I was sure that I could cook delicious and high-quality products for gifts in a conventional oven.

Custard gingerbread

We bought the necessary products, flour, everything for the glaze- only 2400 rubles. No special equipment was required. Yet1200 rubles were spent on cardboard, glue, ribbons, ropesand beautiful wrapping paper. We made it ourselves: I cut and glued the boxes, a friend painted them watercolor . This took a lot of time. But I could not find ready-made boxes for our products, they simply did not sell them in small batches suitable for us. So there weren't many options.

I baked choux pastry, they were all honey,glazed with chocolate.They offered four options: small, medium, large in the form of different figures, and you could also order gingerbread houses separately.

At first they used ordinary patterns that were at home - in the form of hearts and stars. Then they started making them themselves. They found a beautiful picture, for example, a deer. They copied it in a simplified version, cut it out of paper, glued it with adhesive tape for strength and applied it to the rolled out dough.

It sounds easy, but technologically it was a long process:

• 20 minutes is enough to prepare the dough,
• It took 25 minutes to roll it out and mold ita dozen and a half figures,
• 20 minutes to bake them
• and another half an hour to cool.

• you need to cook chocolate icing, it takes about 20 minutes,
• cover the gingerbread cookies with it and let them dry. Some parties with us dried for almost a day;
• after that you need to paint the gingerbread cookies with white icing - this is another 1.5 hours;
• and again dry them for 12 hours.

My entire small apartment was occupied by our products at various stages of production. and packaging . As a result, the only free place in the house was my bed.

In total we got about ten orders. Mostly they were friends and friends of friends on Facebook. The largest order was made by my friend from yoga classes, she needed 35 large gingerbread cookies as gifts for relatives. For us, it was an insane amount.

We started working on December 21st. And before the end of the year, minus expenses, they earned9 thousand rubles for three. Then the orders ran out. We assumed that there would be more Christmas, but we were wrong.

From a business point of view, these were ridiculous numbers. But it was my experience, and for me it was useful. The idea was to see if I could start working from home aspastry baker. I realized that I canbut by no means at home, and I wanttry your hand at this area. Now I have been working as a baker for the second year, so now I do it professionally, albeit without special education.

Frying cutlets

I would go to school to be a baker if I had the money. But they were not, and I needed to start working faster. At first I tried to get a job in the kitchen as an assistant cook, but without experience, no one wanted to hire. Then another close friend of mine, who at that time was the manager of a small burger joint with an open kitchen, invited me over. It was necessary to fry cutlets and collect burgers. And I decided to try. The money, of course, was ridiculous there, as elsewhere in this market, but the atmosphere there was good. I ended up making burgers for seven months.

Then I realized that I still want to bake bread, uploaded my ridiculous resume to job sites and began to look for vacancies. I somehow managed to persuade the head of production in one of the bakeries of a large grocery chain to take me to work with my experience. It was a small bakery where they baked only pies and buns. Small volumes allowed me to smoothly move from home level to small-scale production.

In a couple of monthsI transferred within this network to a bigger bakery, wherein addition to small products baked bread.Here I have a mentor named Azim , who taught me literally everything in this matter.Four months later Ioffered to become a technologist already in their third bakery.

I have now changed jobs andI participate in the launch of a new bakery production.In the future, of course, I want my own business. But investment is neededaccording to the roughest estimates -at least 4-5 million rubles.

1. It is advisable to open a home bakery if there is a large kitchen. When it is less than 10-15 square meters, it is difficult to organize the process. You need a place where everything is folded, cooled, dried, packed. I was also lucky that my husband was on a business trip during the period of my experiment.

2. Nothing special is needed from the equipment, a home mixer and an oven are enough. But if possible, it is better to buy or make a small rack for sheets with products. Such a multi-storey "bed" will save space. In production, it is called a "hairpin".

3. It would be nice to organize a tandem, otherwise you will have to be a man-orchestra: it’s delicious to bake, and beautifully decorate, and pack in an original way, and sell well. Ideally, take another person to outsource to look for orders. I have been told a lot about this by businessmen I have written about before, and my personal example confirmed the importance of this advice. If I had a big kitchen and a person for promotion, I think we could earn 70 thousand.

4. It is important to soberly assess your strengths. I had several acquaintances who were ready to join the process if necessary. So we immediately had opportunities for “growth”. In part, we tested this idea in practice when we involved my mother to work on larger orders.

5. Home culinary production cannot be an addition to work. And to work and fulfill orders is real, only refusing to sleep and rest.