Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi,

I have recently started my own cake business, mainly doing celebration cakes at the moment but I have been approached by a local pub asking if I can regularly supply them with some cakes/deserts. Please can anyone give me some advice on supplying to pubs, especially info on pricing or suggest any good websites to look at. Thanks very much.

Hi KTS78

What a great question! Unfortunately I know nothing about selling wholesale although I would think your location would govern some of your pricing. I’ve found this wholesale forum which may be of interest to you:
http://www.wholesaleforum.com/discuss/cakes-6457/cakes-wholesale-suppliers-uk-distributors-flavoured-cakes-28114/
I am sure many members here will be very happy to give really useful information to build on. I don’t know whether you are currently a Pro member, if you are you can address your question to David here
http://www.cakeflix.com/ask-david
Even if you’re not you may find it useful to have a chat with him on how Pro membership can help you in this area of business.
With good wishes, best of luck!

Thank you so much for your reply. I will have a look at the forum you mention. I am a Pro member and did send David a question a week or so ago but haven’t received a reply yet which is why I thought I would put it on here! Do you know how long David usually takes to reply? Just wondering if he actually received my message! Thanks again for your help!

David has been away at cake boot camp but that has now finished. He is normally very quick at responding so please do email him again as soon as you can. Your question is probably still sitting in his mail and he’s just missed it as he did with one of mine. I am sure he will be delighted to hear from you especially with this very interesting question. It’s still good that you have put your question on here, I’m sure members will reply, things can be a lttle slow at the weekends, tomorrow there may be more people browsing.

I did something similar for a toddler group providing loaf cakes such as lemon drizzle or gingerbread and rice crispie cake etc. I charged £10 per hour for my time plus the cost of ingredients and a couple of pounds to cover overheads on each cake/tray. I didn’t add a profit margin in this case as it was a not for profit venture but make sure you factor this in for the pub.

The prices will probably seem quite high but I offered a discount for ordering more than one of the same product as I could batch bake. For example, I can bake three loaf cakes at once so there was a discount for ordering two or three of the same flavour. If they ordered four then they paid the discounted price for three of them and full price for the fourth as that meant it took double the time. I hope that makes sense!

Have a look around local cafés/pubs to see what they are charging. I think M&S charge £3.75 for a slice of Victoria Sandwich so if you were selling to the pub at say £2 a portion they can still add a hefty amount of margin. Hope that helps a bit!

Thank you doodlecake, that’s great and all makes sense!