The Bake Better Show

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Get Frosted Today is a mother-daughter bakery start-up that kickstarted during the pandemic where Sehr handles social media marketing and branding while her mother owns the baking space! Their product placement has been to offer bite sized dessert for a guilt free indulgence and therefore they specifically offer mini cupcakes, cookies and brownie boxes with a variety of flavours and customisation.

In this episode you will learn how having a niche market, strategic branding, taking constant feedbacks and acting upon them from the very beginning can help your Bakery business grow exponentially. Here, Sehr has shared the story, thoughts, experimentations and tips that has helped her home bakery business grow into a successful Online & Offline bakery brand in Delhi, NCR as well as Mumbai.

“Taking Constant Feedbacks has been at the heart of what frosted is…If you are not listening to the customer voice, if you are not listening to the people you are trying to serve, then who are you creating your products for?” - Sehr Taneja, Get Frosted Today!

Topics Covered:
 
2:19 - 9:30: How, When & Why “Get Frosted Today” started
 
9:30 - 13:10:  7 Steps taken when setting up Frosted 
 
13:10 - 16:12 : Delivery Partner & Packaging for cupcakes

16:12 - 17:02 : Raw Material Procurement
 
17:02 - 18:46 : First Professional Order
 
 18:47 - 21:50 : Importance of Feedback (Build, Measure, Learn Loop)
 
 23:15 - 25:35 : How Frosted Priced their Products
 
 25:36 - 26:38 : How did Frosted Get their first Kiosk Set-up?
 
 26:38 - 27:30 : How to Set-up and Run your first Kiosk/outlet
 
 27:32 - 28:22 : How & Why Frosted hired a team within 3 days
 
 28:40 - 30:10 : How Kiosk or outlets can help your bakery business. 
 
 30:15 - 31:50 : Frosted Team Building 
 
 32:10 - 38:30 : Was Hiring a Challenge for Frosted? How & Who did they hire?
 
 36:55 - 39:18 : How to intern at Get Frosted Today?
 
 39:20 - 41: 50: Why launch a website for your brand?
 
 41:50 - 42:32 : Which mode & platform can generate more orders?
 
 42:42 - 43:32 : What to keep in mind when running online ads?

43:34 - 44:57 : Marketing Strategy of Frosted

45:00 - 45:39 PR and Collaborations to help the business
 
 45:40 - 47:50 : Experimentations and Baking Disasters
 
 49:02 : 50:12 : Flavour testing
 
 50:14 - 52:43 : Why Frosted focus on Personalisation & Customisation?
 
 52:45 -53:45 : Most Memorable order for Sehr.
 
 53:50 - 54:39 : Average Monthly Orders (as per 2021 data)
 
 54:40 - 56:50 : How to plan your monthly Budget?
 
 56:51 - 58:56 : What Would Sehr do differently if she started all over again?
 
 58: 57 - 1:00:29 : How to maintain the product shelf life in Outlets.
 
 1:00:30 - 1:00:55 : Frosted’s Menu
 
 1:00:55 - 1:01:31 : A must read book for bakery entreprenuers.

 1:01:33 - 1:03:42 : How to stay motivated when business get’s tiring
 
 1:03:46 - 1:04:22 : How to get new orders? 
 
 1:04: 25 - 1:05:35 : Future Plans for Frosted
 
 

“Just having a passion for baking is not enough you need to have business sense also; You need to know how to market and build your brand”

Gitika Abbott is a cake artist from Delhi who started her baking venture in 2013. After getting inspired by a neighbourhood Bakery Boutique, she quit her job in tours & travel to start her bakery studio called Cake Me Over. She has received Iconic Bakery Award by Times Food Delivery & been a winner at Global BD Cake Artist Guild. This year She has also been listed under India’s Top 10 Home Bakers.

This conversation covers - How Gitika followed her passion after having her second child and step by step built her bakery brand. You will also learn about her experience at various cake competitions and how she ensured to win as well as, her approach when making extravagant wedding cakes and sculptural cake designs.

 “Anatomy is something that’s very important to know when doing sculptured cakes and it’s all about a lot of practice”
 
 Inside the Episode:

• Gitika’s Introduction - 2:10
• What type of bakery is Cake Me over - 2:50
• How she started Cake me Over - 3:20
• Her training as a Baker- 5:40
• How she planned on opening the bakery - 7:00
• How she set up the studio - 8:10
• Her Wedding & Innovative Cake Designs - 10:05
• Her Technique & Tools for making Sculpture Cakes - 11:50
• Major Roadblocks xxx - 16:38
• The Why, Where, How & What to do at Cake Competitions - 19:08
• Strategy for standing out in competitions - 2:12
• How to ensure your win - 21:40
• How to look out for competitions & collaborations - 22:49
• Gitika’s collaboration with Sugarin Global - 25:05
• How she caters bulk orders - 26:25 
• The Team behind Cake Me over - 27:30
• Why she hired a personal driver for Deliveries? - 27:54
• How to start taking workshops? - 30:30
• The Audience of Cake Me Over - 32:30
• How to balance Teaching & Fulfilling Orders - 33:13
• What works better? workshops or cake orders- 34:00
• What would Gitika like change in her journey - 36:00
• Her tips for young Bakers - 36:30
• Gitika’s Future plans - 39:23

Links Mentioned in the show:
 
Gitika Abbott-Cake Me Over

Instagram @cake.me.over 

Facebook.com/gitika.abbott

Sponsors:

Truffle Nation

Bake Better Online

Collaborations:

Cakeology

Gitika’s Buttercream Combo

Saracino magazine

Cake Masters Magazine

Shivya Gupta is the founder and the owner of Bake Your Own Brownies by Shivya (BYOB). She is a custom cake designer from Ghaziabad, who started off 2 years back as a home baker and opened up a Boutique Bakery Display Studio and a commercial kitchen set-up after a year in 2021. She successfully sustained her bakery business and her new set-up through covid, and now proudly runs it along with 3 team members.
 
 From having zero interest in baking to building a successful bakery business, a loyal team, and massive clientele, Shivya has surpassed against all odds with her dedication and hard-work. Learn about her pro-baker thought process, her ups and downs, and everything about her journey in this episode.
 
 “Do not do branding in the hopes of sales; do branding in the hopes of marketing. It will make your brand name reach places…Don’t do branding in the hope of Sales…Sales can be done when you get the query and you have it in your hand but Marketing & Branding is an investment from the point of view of increasing your brand’s name.”
 
 - Shivya Gupta, BYOB
 
 Topics Covered in this Episode:

1:50 - The Mindset to have towards fellow Bakers
3:26 - Difference between a commercial bakery and a boutique bakery
4:42 - How BYOB got started
7:27 -  How to convince people about your pricing
11:12 -  How BYOB coped with Covid
15:35 -  BYOB’s team and hiring
16:48 - Staff Training & building loyalty
 22:13 - Why the name - BYOB?
 24:00 - Logo Designing
 25:05 - Packaging, Manufacturers
 27:25 - Products & Flavours offered in BYOB
 28:57 - How Shivya Priced her menu
 30:58 - Should you reinvest or withdraw your salary in the start?
 35:20 - Display Studio Model of BYOB
 37:27 - How to avoid discount Models
 40:14 - How to maintain a balance between personal & professional life
 42:58 - How BYOB handle their Delivery
 52:22 - Zomato for Bakers
 53:34 - Promotions and Marketing
 57:33 - Product Procurement
 1:00:47 - Marketing & Branding
 1:02:37 - The myths related to baking career
 

 Links

Packaging Manufacturers

Impressioncart 

Schmancy

Delivery:
 
Wefast / Borzo

Pidge

Lala moves

Swiggy Genie

Zomato

Vendors:

Sagar Essence , Ghanta Ghar 

Baker’s Hut, Noida 

Baker’s Lounge, Indrapuram

Kartikeya Essence Mart (Raw Material)

Nilash Banker’s Bank, Vaishali
 

Sanjana Aggarwal has been a self taught Baker, who experimented with her mother’s recipes, infused them with liquor and started her own bakery - TDB, The Dessert Bar. Her love for desserts and liquor is what has inspired her to start her Home Bakery which now runs as a Cloud Kitchen. “My goal was to present each form of dessert into an alcohol infused version”.

Sanjana had always wanted to get into the food & beverage industry. Therefore, she quit her job in 2018 and the same year, started with her Bakery. She got on board a professional patisserie chef as her co-baker, Mr. Pramod Negi, whose experience, knowledge and technical expertise immensely helped in giving a good start to her venture.

Post Covid, TDB saw some adjustments and it has now become a family business wherein each member is contributing to the bakery as per their skills.

In this episode, Sanjana has talked about how she made a career shift and right-after started with her bakery; her approach and tactics for offline and online marketing; why she had to shut her cafe in a few months; the effects of Covid on her business and how to reach out and collaborate with other cafes.

“I used to wake up in the morning, check Zomato and make a list of all the new cafes that have opened up in the vicinity. I then used to contact the owner or the manager and propose a collaboration plan to them; that’s how I got to supply my products to other cafes … All you have to do is to step out of the house” - Sanaja Aggarwal, TDB The Dessert Bar

Other Topics Covered:

• How Sanjana came up with the concept of liquor based desserts
• The early days of her Bakery 
• Do we need a Liquor License for alcohol infused sweets?
• What went wrong when she had opened up her cafe
• What things to keep in mind when opening up a cafe
• How she fixed the Deliveries of her Products
• How to do B2B and B2C marketing 
• The logo design and rebranding of TDB, The Dessert Bar
• The products, pricing and menu of The Dessert Bar
• How to get more customers on social-media
• How to partner and sell your products in other cafes

Show Links:

TDB, The Dessert Bar

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tdb_thedessertbar/?hl=en

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/tdb.thedessertbar/

Zomato: https://www.zomato.com/tdbthedessertbar

Mr. Pramod Negi: https://www.facebook.com/pramod.singhnegi.7

Delivery Partner:

Pidge: https://www.pidge.in/

Cafe Collaboration: 

Branch Cafe: http://zoma.to/r/18567806

Raw Materials Procurement:

Baker’s Solution : https://www.justdial.com/Delhi/Baker-Solutions-Near-Esscx-Farm-Adchini-sarvodaya-Enclave/011PXX11-XX11-140208162127-G8D6_BZDET

Shreya Dhar Chowdhury is the founder and sole operator of Madeleine Patisserie, a home bakery that offers cakes and other baked goodies for both humans and dogs. Moreover, her menu also provides vegan, keto, sugar-free & gluten-free options to the customers.

Shreya started Madeleine Patisserie in December 2017, and hasn’t looked back ever since. She likes trying new things at her bakery and that’s why she loves making customised cakes that give her the chance to do something extra special and specific for a particular order. Experimenting with the themes, colour palette, flavours and adding different floral elements and designs to her cakes helps her in keeping the monotony at bay.

In this episode, Shreya has talked about each and every minute detail and factors that have led her to start Madeleiene Patisserie. She has seeked every learning and experience as a growth opportunity and has come a long way from starting as a novice to becoming a high-end professional baker who has now figured out her right market, products, menu, packaging, deliveries and social-media presence.

“Over the years I have realised that if you don’t set your market right from the very beginning, it is very difficult to make a shift later… had I been catering to this current segment that I am currently catering to from the very beginning, my market would have been much wider by now. But, since I had to make that shift, I lost a lot of clients on the way and had to make a new clientele”

Topics Covered in this episode:

• Shreya’s early journey and training as a baker
• Her experience interning at a hotel vs interning at a home bakery
• What baby steps she took before self-funding her home bakery
• How she spread a word about her bakery and got her first orders
• Instagram’s algorithm, the importance of engagement and why having your own website is a safer option
• Third party deliveries and experience
• The lockdown period for Madeleine Patisserie
• Legalities needed for home bakeries
• How Shreya maintains the quality of her products
• What all factors decide the selling price of your products
• How she came up with the idea of making cakes for dogs
• What things does she keep in mind before baking cakes for dogs
• Her Consistent & Seasonal Menus for humans as well as for dogs
• Her take on collaboration and food/dessert festivals
• What things she would do differently having the present knowledge and experience
• Shreya’s future plans for Madeleine Patisserie
  
  

You can find Madeleine Patisserie on web portals like Instagram, Facebook, Zomato, Wedmegood, Justdial, Restaurant-guru, Magician, Nicelocal, Cakerush, LLB, Eatcaketoday and Tripadvisor. Some of the links are mentioned below. Best way to directly reach out to her is via WhatsApp text.

Find Madeleine Patisserie on:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madeleinepatisserie17/

Zomato : https://www.zomato.com/ncr/madeleine-patisserie-chittaranjan-park-new-delhi

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/madeleinepatisserie17/

“Love, Passion & Hard-Work” are the three things that define Sara Taneja, the founder and head-chef of “Let’s Bake Love”.
 
Sara was a trained Bharatnatayam & Western Dancer who turned to Baking as a profession, right after her school. Her first encounter with baking was when her tuition teacher taught her to bake a biscuit cake in class 7th.

She was so intrigued by the process that thereafter, she would spend hours experimenting with her cakes. Soon, she bought herself an oven and a mixer and sold cakes as a home baker.

As a strong-headed girl, she went on to fund her culinary course, interned in The Claridges, and honed her skills in every arena. It was quite early on in her journey when she realised that she would be her own boss and would start her own bakery.

At 21 yrs, she opened her dream Pastry Store, “Let’s Bake Love” but unfortunately, it had to shut due to the pandemic. However, lockdown gave her enough time to think about the right business model for her bakery as well as for deciding the products and flavours that she should offer on her Menu. “Just keep trusting the process”, she says.

Now, “Let’s Bake Love” runs a Cloud Kitchen with a huge team at the back-end.

“The biggest mistake that people often make is of not delegating their work; You cannot keep your hands and feet into everything” - Sara Taneja, Let’s Bake Love

Even for Sara, it has been a transition from being a control freak to becoming an encouraging and super-supportive boss lady to her staff.

In this episode, we have covered so many important and interesting topics that you got to give it a listen as a young and aspiring baker. From training, internships, hiring and staff management to products, packaging and delivery, we have covered it all for you. So go ahead and give it a listen.


Topics Covered:

 - Sara’s early start into the baking world

- Internship - the best training days for Sara

-  Are college and good marks really important for a successful career?

-  Early challenges as a Home Baker

-  Importance of delegating work

- How to become a good boss and manage your team

-  Hiring and Logistics

- How to set-up a delivery team

- Sara’s USP as a baker

- When, why and how she refreshed her Menu

- Packaging & Its costing

- Logo Designing

- Sara’s future Plans for Let’s Bake Love

- Her Success Mantra

Links:

Let’s Bake Love :

Website: www.letsbakelovebysara.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/letsbakelovebysara

Zomato: http://zoma.to/r/18356840

Facebook: www.facebook.com/letsbakelovebysara/

Packaging Partner -  Delhi Design Company - www.delhidesigncompany.com

Pan India Delivery Partner - Delivery - www.delhivery.com

Website Photographer - Ankit Nandwani - www.ankitnandwani.in

For this week’s episode, we invited Aditi Sahdev, the Chef Owner of The Dessert Studio which is a vibrant and cozy bakery located in Civil Lines, Delhi. 

It is a pocket-friendly, go-to neighbourhood cafe near university campus where college students and even the localites love to come, play games and enjoy the baked goods and snacks. 
 
Popular on their menu are Gelatos, brownies, cookies, cup-cake, breads and their most celebrated freak Shake! 

In Aditi’s words, her cafe is a reflection of herself - Friendly, playful, homely and cheerful.

About Aditi? Well, Aditi had never planned to pursue baking and always considered baking as just a stress-buster. 

She would often bake some delicacies for the guests at her family’s Bread & Breakfast retreat in the Himalayas and receive tons of positive reviews that really used to encourage her. 

It was during a career counselling session, that she realised an ever-present inclination towards Hospitality. 

Thereafter, She went to Switzerland to study hospitality, acquired business training and worked all across the globe to develop her skills further. 

Returning to the homeland in 2017, she opened up her bakery “The Dessert Studio” right away, to tap early into the bakery market. How has her journey been from 2017 up till now, we have covered it all in this episode.

In this week’s podcast, you will learn about Aditi’s experience during her training as a bakery chef; about how “The Dessert Studio” happened and what all went behind opening up this bakery cafe. 

The conversation includes topics from market-research and brand positioning to hiring employees and managing the team. 

“I have seen this in many hospitality industries, in India at least, that most of the people get really overworked and ultimately end-up resenting the job. I wanted to a create a very good work life balance with everyone and that’s been one of the driving forces for me to expand my staff” - Aditi Sahadev, The Dessert Studio

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

Zomato: https://www.zomato.com/ncr/the-dessert-studio-civil-lines-new-delhi

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/the_dessert_studio_/?hl=en

Aditi Sahadev - https://www.instagram.com/aditisahdev/?hl=en

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/thedessertstudioindia/

Equinox for food hygiene inspection - https://www.equinoxlab.com/audits-and-inspections/

Eurofoods for raw materials - https://eurofoods.co.in/

FSSAI License - https://foodlicensing.fssai.gov.in/index.aspx

Pidge Delivery Service - https://www.pidge.in/

Pierre Hurme’s Books - https://www.amazon.in/Books-Pierre-Herm%C3%A9/s?rh=n%3A976389031%2Cp_27%3APierre+Herm%C3%A9

The Cake Company is a bakery, only confectionery- based in Gurgaon, operating from a commercial space. It got started in 2018 by two sisters, both playing at their strengths.

Chef Chhavi, is the brand face and handles all the operations while Shivani is the co-founder and the marketing head at the company. It was their common love and interest for baking, cooking and hospitality that sowed the seeds for their cloud Kitchen - The Cake Company. The idea behind their bakery was to introduce American Desserts to the Indian Audience. They pioneered the 10 layered chocolate cakes in India. Their designer drip cakes, big American cookies, chocolate tubs and gelatos are a huge success among their audience.

In this episode, Chhavi and Shivani Khatter share how they trained themselves in their respective fields and how they overcame the obstacles to set up their bakery. They also gave insights into the equipments they use in their kitchen and shared about the team behind The Cake Company.

“Do what you are very good at and sell it the best way possible. You have to truly believe in the product. If you find it is crazy good, it is going to sell like crazy good” - Shivani, The Cake Company

Some topics covered in the podcast:

- Chhavi & Shivani’s background & training

- Challenges while Setting up a kitchen from scratch, trademarking the brand, looking for vendors, and working with a consultancy.

- How they handle in-house deliveries and deliver all over Delhi, NCR

- How to decide the Menu and figure out costing for the products

- Experimentation with different flavours

- How to Increase your Social Media Following

- How to get B2B Collaborations

Links Mentioned in the podcast

The Cake Company :

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thecakecompanyin/?hl=en

Facebook -https://www.facebook.com/thecakecompanyin/

Zomato - https://www.zomato.com/ncr/the-cake-company-dlf-phase-1-gurgaon/order

Chef Chhavi Khattar - https://www.instagram.com/chefchhavi/?hl=en

Shivani Khattar - https://www.instagram.com/khattarshivani/

Jean Marie Auboine - https://www.jmauboinechocolates.com/

Pidge Delivery Service:https://www.pidge.in//

Varun Mahana is the second generation to join his family’s 26 yr old bakery business called Kandy’s Pastry Parlour. The cafe got started in April 1995 by his uncle & his elder brother, and it’s Varun, who now looks after the marketing and operations of the cafe.

Located in Kalkaji, Delhi, It is a friendly neighbourhood outlet for the locals and has been a go-to cafe for the customers for its pocket-friendly and mouth watering desserts and baked savouries. After a successful 10 years run in Delhi, the family opened another outlet in Chandigarh in April 2005 and both the cafe’s have been up and going ever since with little hiccups due to lockdown.

In this episode, Varun talks about the changing trends around bakery over the years, social media platforms as a boon for business and for convenience, the team behind Kandy’s Cafe, and exploring partnering with companies and outsourcing products as an expansion of the business, among lot of other things.

“If your kitchen is running  at a hundred & twenty percent capacity, you can make same amount of money or more as you would be opening up an outlet. There’s a lot of things that can happen in the back-end.. We do tie-ups with high-end wedding caterers, with the tours companies as well as with the corporate offices to work at 120% capacity”

Some Topics That We Discusses Include:

• Shift in the bakery trend from 1995 to 2021
• How to maintain Hygiene & Shelf-life of the products in your bakery
• How Kandy’s Kafe do their in-house packaging
• Partnering with Swiggy-Zomato (experience)
• Importance & ways to be visible on Social Media
• Kandy’s Kafe’s Team & Hiring Process
• How to sort revenues and expenses
• Experience of opening a second outlet in a different city
• Benefits of Tie-ups, Partnering and Outsourcing

Resources mentioned:

Kandy’s Kafe on Instagram | Kandy’s Kafe on Facebook

Flurys Calcutta

Wengers