Gluten free bread

[Graziella Salter]

Hello all,

I am just in a very early stage of a business idea and I wonder if you could give me feedback.

I have a very good recipe of a gluten free bread that my kids and I love it. I would like to sell then fresh but not baked to cafes etc. However, I am not sure how I would be doing that.

Is there any online website that coffee supplier can use? how can I reach the small cafes? Would be just calling them or visiting them?

Thanks for your advice.

 

[Nord20]

What you have is a recipe - you don't have the means of supply, so I suspect your best route may be to go directly to the manufacturers who currently supply unbaked bread to cafes and supermarkets and pitch licensing your recipe to them.

Do you own this recipe? What's to stop someone else making the exact same thing as you? Which the existing players absolutely will do if you start to make any kind of headway.

 

[Graziella Salter]

Thanks for your reply. Anyone can do this recipe. The only problem is that the main item in the recipe needs to be imported.
So would a company pay me just to use my recipe? I haven't thought about this option.
The way I was thinking It wasmaking small batches at home and selling to some retailers. However, I think it would be mad to try to do everything on my own. Is there any website out there that you can post your product for retailers?

 

[Mr D]

How is your bread different than what the places currently buy in?

If they do the bread for their customers already then one way or another will have a current method of provision. And you would be competing with that.
With the possibility that those suppliers may fight back.

You making small batches at home won't be able to compete with the companies buying pallets / containers of ingredients and using big machines to make the dough.
You could market it as artisan bread? Its a niche market with some competition.

Generally artisan bread is using techniques / methods the big boys cannot do for cost reasons.

 

[The Secret Strategist]

I’d start by conducting some market research. Bake 20 loafs & then go and find 20 independent cafes.

Make sure you find the owner/manager/decision maker & say - “take this for free & try some. It’s gluten free bread. I was doing some market research to see if there was a market to sell it to you unbaked. What do you think? Would you buy it? Would your customers like this option? Would you prefer it unbaked or baked (& why)? How much would you pay for something like this if you were to purchase it regularly”

Ideally, if you get 15 rejections, 3 people semi interested & 2 people who seem keen - you have something to work with.

This will give you a starting point as to whether there is a market or whether you need to go away & re-think the idea.

It’ll cost you very little & will hopefully give you a few things to go away & think about in more detail.

Tip.
At this stage - say no to nothing. Take on board all advice & suggestions & worry afterwards about whether you can make it work or not. (You currently have no business, so are not letting anyone down if your gluten free idea doesn’t work, yet in the mean time they might suggest something else they think would sell well & you could do some reserch into that as well). Make sense?

Good luck.