To want to start a brownie making buisness

[jdoe8]

Just watching the apprentice and she makes rocky road for 19p and sells it for £3.00 a slice. She's turning over 80k a year and making 40k profit. Sounds very well paid for what it is. Has anyone else tried it?

[BikeRunSki]

I'm impressed that she makes it for 19p a slice!

[Domino20]

I've recently opened a Café. The margins on our homemade stuff are great but no-one sets up and immediately makes those kind of returns. There's a long long period of establishing yourself/brand. Not to mention the costs involved in perfecting product and set up. But, if you have the money to see you through the first couple of years then go for it!

[BarbaraofSeville]

Does she really make it for 19 p a slice? I haven't seen the programme, but do know that home baking can be relatively expensive, usually because the quality produced and ingredients used are far higher than all but the best commercial alternatives.

It would have to be very small or cheap ingredients to do it for that price and then I would be surprised if you could sell it at £3 a piece. For that price you expect premium ingredients, or captive market/tourist location, which costs.

Brownies would be even harder because you need a lot of chocolate and butter, which is expensive. Is she costing out all her electricity, staffing and equipment costs.

[burninglikefire]

Thought it was 90p per slice for the ingredients, but might have misheard.

[Lovelongweekends]

There's the Brownie Lady where we live. She's insanely popular and always sells out at any event she's at - she also targets the students at the Uni and seems to do very well there!

[BertrandRussell]

I was very sceptical about that. I am pretty sure she won't have factored her time or transport costs into that.

And I was also a bit at the 19p a slice even if it was just materials if they were a high end product. I rarely make anything chocolate because the materials are too expensive.

[Jellybean83]

I think she said 90p to make as well, selling price £3. I can quite believe £3 per slice at events and festivals where food mark up is massive.

[BertrandRussell]

Oh, I heard 19p too!

90p sounds about right. And so does the 3 quid selling price.

[BarbaraofSeville]

90p is much more believable but agree with Domino that there would be a lead in period before achieving that sort of turnover, but you would also need to pay for ingredients, equipment and pitches at festivals and farmers markets upfroont, which would be costly.

You would also need to have kitchen facilities of a certain standard, be inspected by the Local Authority and have a food hygiene certificate. With outdoor events, you would also be at the mercy of the weather and offerings by other traders. If attendance was hit by bad weather you could be left with a large amount of perishable products that you are unable to sell.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but doing a bit of baking isn't always an easy route to riches.

[BertrandRussell]

Another reason I tend not to do chocolate things is their limited shelf life. You can't freeze them. And they melt.

[NotGoingOut17]

I heard 19p too. Which does seem very cheap but I don't think it can be 90p as she said in the Q&A that she would sell to retailers at £1, not sure it'd be worth the effort at 10p a cake.

Problem is OP, you'll have a lot of competition. You can't be the only one to have thought this.....I can't even bake and said last night I'm going to set up a cake business after hearing about her profits

[TheWrathFromHighAtopTheThing]

Who on earth would pay £3 for a single brownie!?!

[ilovesooty]

Oh I'm sure it's an easy way to make money and no one's ever thought of it before. Fill your boots.

[BarbaraofSeville]

£3 is about the average price charged for a nice piece of cake in most coffee shops, at farmers' markets, festivals, tourist venues and other similar places.

It is a lot for what you get, but the fact is that's what it costs and these things sell, suggests that enough people are willing to pay that amount.

[foxessocks]

In her presentation at the end I'm pretty sure she said £1 a slice to make £3 to sell...So that would make sense of she has said 90p earlier not 19p...

[WhoKnowsWhereTheT1meG0es]

I might pay £3 in a NT or other nice café, but not on a regular basis from a deli which was one of the main thrusts of her pitch.

[BigGreenOlives]

I think a lot of people do - we have a local cafe which sells brownies etc for £2.75 each & is always busy. I prefer to spend my disposable income on other items but each to his own.

[BeautyGoesToBenidorm]

She must be using very cheap ingredients - brownies always cost me a fucking fortune to make, but then again, I make cheesecake swirl ones with all sorts of gubbins in

[RebelandaStunner]

I heard it as 19p to make. She then sells it for £1 to a cafe or whatever.
They sell it for £3.
All the cafes around here sell for that price eating in, food festivals, delis, bakeries a tad cheaper.
They looked good, she has done well.

[DailyFail1]

£3-4 for a single premium slice/cake is about right. Lola's cupcakes sell boxes of 6 for approx £18. Their competitors are Starbucks/Costa/specialist cake makers etc not necessary the local bakery who can mass produce.

[Jellybean83]

I still had the interview episode on my planner, just checked she did say 19p, I heard wrong.

Don't know how she can use the 'finest Belgian chocolate' and make them that cheap, butter isn't exactly cheap either. Either way I hope they make their way to Scotland so I can try them.

[19lottie82]

Brownies are quite expensive to make as each tray requires 300g dark chocolate, 5 eggs and a 250g block of butter. (And also flour, sugar and vanilla extract). That's about £4 a tray minimum.

[Sunnymeg]

It may be economy of scale. Presumably she buys her ingredients in bulk from a specialist supplier and as she only offers 6 different types of cake, and never mentioned expanding the range that would keep the ingredient cost down that way as well. It's a bit different to us buying our ingredients in a supermarket.

[BarbaraofSeville]

Wholesale costs won't be significantly cheaper than supermarkets. The likes of Makro are more expensive than places like Aldi.

[jdoe8]

It's defo 19p, she wouldn't be selling a food item to a wholesaler for a 10% markup.

She must have some good contacts for wholesale cheap luxury Belgium chocolate. I have heard that for some items supermarkets are the cheapest places