AIBU to ask if you’d buy this considering the situation?

[chocolatetreats21]

I have a new business idea, I want to make chocolate covered treats from home and sell them. I just don’t know if people would buy it considering the whole COVID situation? What do you think?

@BusyBB don't worry, I'll do it as a hobby first and see where it takes me.

If you can make them like the pictures and offer gluten Free, nut free, dairy free, etc AND have very stringent cleanliness with all relevant certificates and inspections then I could definitely see them selling.

How much of a margin you would make and if it would be a viable business, I haven't a clue.

There's 3 people already doing this sort of treat product in my small town. Very crowded market so can you stand out and make a profit? Your proposed product is easy for most competent cooks to do and can be bought commercially as well

Just looked eBay have large strawberry cake tins.
Maybe make and decorate those out of season.

I personally wouldn't but ultimately it's up to you to do your research and see if there's a gap in the market.
But beware of the people who swear blind they'll buy, because they prob won't!

Nothing to do with Covid, but I wouldn't buy things like this - seems like a waste of money.

If you don't have experience I think you might find it hard to make these to a standard to be sold. They arent as easy as they look.

OP I was looking for cake pops for my son's birthday just the other day so yes, I would buy something like this as sometimes I want something a bit more special than shop-bought cakes but lack the time/patience/talent to make them myself. Good luck!

I think step one would be to do a test batch and see if you actually want to do this for other people. I've made chocolate covered truffles before, and honestly, they are so fiddly and messy to make. I've done cake decorating courses and am quite a keen baker, but this was tedious. Then, price up your ingredients and work our how long you've taken to make them vs. how much they could sell for.

My SIL is a very talented cake maker but only does it for family and friends because people don't realise the hours that go into making pinterest worthy cakes. You can easily end up making less than minimum wage.

@flowerpotsandrain

FB is full of them here too, along with boxes of overpriced junk, soaps, candles and bath bombs. All the huns selling to each other but I'm not sure there's much profit in it.

@chocolatetreats21by “all the huns” I think @flowerpotsandrain means the large volume of pyramid scheme sign ups trying to sell multilevel marketing tat as well as the hessian heart brigade and Live Laugh Love/cover everything in chalk paint crafters who appear on FB. No criticism implied to all those people but it’s hobby territory not money making for almost all those people (apart from the MLM people who all lose money).

I think your idea would be devilishly labour intensive and hard to turn any kind of profit.

It's easy getting a personal (not premises) hygiene certificate, about £10 online. I have one and you learn a bit if you are diligent. It takes a few hours at most.

Premises rules are more lenient if a low risk product on a small domestic kitchen scale, but still require high standard of surfaces, risk assessment, traceability of ingredients records so diligence around production and storage.

A bit bizarre to plan a business based on seeing instagram pics without actually having made any yourself!

I think there are still plenty of people buying birthday cakes and bespoke things for celebrations, anecdotally one baker recently said she has never been busier.

I don’t know how anyone makes money off that sort of thing though, it must take 2-3 hours minimum to bake and decorate one cake or set of treats (Assuming very skilled), then maybe another hour to deliver it. And all the baking and decorating equipment and ingredients, fuel costs, packaging costs, time to maintain Facebook/instagram etc with photos, time responding to reviews, time discussing new commissions.

Have you worked out how much would you actually make per hour?

I would buy them OP. You are very talented. Could you start small? Test the market? Not invest too much.
I wont say ignore the doubters on here... But I would say - everyone on mumsnet loves a good pulldown. Makes them seem really knowledgeable and business lady like. This is particularly true in current COVID context.
The points on hygiene seem right though....

Have a look on Etsy. I'm on there in another area of business and there is a thriving market of chocolate makers, cake makers, brownie makers et al going on.

One shop is selling one chocolate covered snowflake oreo for £1.95 or a box of 6 for £11.50p and s(he) is doing a roaring trade with reviews just in the past week - so people are certainly not frightened to buy on there!

It's worth having a look on places like Etsy and Not On The High Street to see if you can work back on the costs - see what profit margins you would get selling at a similar price. Allow about 10% for fees if you're thinking of Etsy.

A friend of mine does cupcake bouquets and is sending her items abroad (as well as doing a great trade in the UK) at the moment as people just can't get them in the shops. She's done so well she's opened a small workshop and employs two people now.

I started my business with a thought of 'I'll give it a go - if it fails I'm no worse off' - busier than ever thank you! If you don't try, you'll never know.

There are a lot of ppl making and selling cake pops etc round me. I do think there are huge hygiene implications that PP's have detailed that you need to consider.

And choc covered strawberries not being a cow but are incredibly easy to make have no shelf life at all.
We make them a lot in the summer and they go soggy very quickly.
They are very pretty and are my go to summer pudding for parties-back when such a thing existed.

I don't think the OP has actually tried making any yet. The photos are from Google. 😂

Have you actually made some to see how long it takes? I made some Minion marshmallow pops a while ago for a cake sale at work. I'm a competent baker and they did look great even if I say so myself but they took me all bloody evening just to make 12.

Also soft fruit tastes awful when it's not in season so I'd scrap the strawberry idea until next summer at least.

As to your actual question - would I buy during Covid - no, not off facebook or similar. Possibly yes from a stall at a farmer's market. Your pictures and terminology (something about the way you referred to "treats" for some reason!) looks like you might have got the idea from American based websites? They seem to have a culture of yard sales and door to door selling of girl scout cookies etc, I'm not sure we have the same mindset here.

Have you practiced? I mean if it’s good and you start off on the side with it and build up a customer base then possibly.

Hi OP, those exact same examples you have posted i have seen people selling them by the dozen here. Our local bakery does these and they are so reasonable priced that I would just get them there. Another completely oversaturated market is home bakers. I really wouldnt get into anything food related. There are just so many people doing it.

By the way, if you do go for it and use a platform like Etsy, get your social media set up like Instagram, Facebook etc to drive your customers to Etsy (or whoever).

@BelsizeNameChange mentioned the time used to post photos etc to social media. There's a great platform called Hootsuite. You can schedule up to 30 posts at a time, spread out over days, weeks or months, linked to your social media. It's a scheduling calendar tool.

I tend to use Twitter and Facebook as they get me more views on my Etsy shop. So I set up 3 posts about 3 of my products each week on the two social media platforms through Hootsuite - so 6 posts being used from my 30 free posts in total but only 3 products being showcased if that makes sense.

I tend to spend half a day scheduling four weeks worth of posts. Hootsuite then posts them at the time and day I specify on the calendar for each one. As long as you don't post more than 30 in total you don't pay a bean. I do 4 weeks worth at 6 posts a week as that's 24 posts scheduled in total which leaves me a few to schedule if I suddenly remember an event linked to my product or I want to showcase something I'm working on.

And, of course, as one scheduled post appears on Twitter or whatever, that post rolls back into the 30 pot you can use ready for your next scheduling session.

It managed to give me a 65% increase in sales this year and I don't have to pull out my hair finding time to do it every single day - I just put half a day aside. The hardest thing is going through the events in the year to make sure I've got Valentine's day products or Mother's day products photos ready in the mix ahead of the big days.

My husband’s relative set up a business making home made chocolates about 6years ago. The chocolates are hand made at their home but they have industrial grade equipment and stainless steel benches where they are made, they are inspected for hygiene like any other food premises (they are always a 5). It’s been hard graft for them but they seem to do ok, one of them works full time in the business. They sell online, in local farm shops and at those farmers markets where they have food stalls. It’s run as a professional operation, not some hobby in their kitchen. I think it can work, but setting up at the moment would probably be tough, they have established links with shops they supply now and regular customers so covid doesn’t appear to have had such a large impact on their business.

If you were going to do it you’d have to fork out for professional equipment and spend money adapting your kitchen, then apply to be inspected to get your hygiene rating. I wouldn’t buy handmade chocolates off some random who just posts them on fb personally, it’d need to be a professional setup.

@BeardyButton

I would buy them OP. You are very talented. Could you start small? Test the market? Not invest too much. I wont say ignore the doubters on here... But I would say - everyone on mumsnet loves a good pulldown. Makes them seem really knowledgeable and business lady like. This is particularly true in current COVID context. The points on hygiene seem right though....

They're not the OPs work though. They're pictures from Google/Pinterest. It would be like if I posted 'I'm thinking of becoming an artist' and then posted a bunch of Van Gogh paintings as an example. Nobody knows the OP's talent level and people have pointed out these things are harder to make than they look.

OP, do you even have any talent for baking/cooking? This thread reads a bit like "I hear people make money from acupuncture. How hard can it be? Would you pay me to come round your house and stick needles in your face or would the pandemic put you off?"

People are so negative round here

I think there’s a market for it if you can do it well! I bought homemade cakes from a local facebook group in June (the first time I’ve ever done this, it felt more ‘safe’ than buying from a shop). If you can get a few customers to give you good reviews and make them look nice, I think you could grow it (making it into a full time gig would be hard work though!)

The item is a special once a year treat and probably at a price I wouldn't be prepared to pay. I'd rather make do with a packet of bourbons at 60p a pack. If I wanted these fancy things for a special occasion I'd probably make them myself. The covid situation doesn't really factor into my decision making.