The sweet smell of excess
If you're good at making cakes, jams, sweets, you can make some extra pocket money selling them at local fairs and car boot sales. And if it gets really popular you could even make a whole business out of it and sell regularly at fairs and over the internet. Jams and other treats also make fantastic Christmas presents and stocking fillers. They look great, show you care and beat a pair of boring old socks hands down! Christmas is almost here, so if you're looking for ways to make a bit of money on the side and you love to don a pinny, read on... Our advice is to start small and then build up your business if you want to. This isn’t something that you necessarily have to do on a regular basis - if you’re a little short of cash one week, it’s easy enough to hunt down your next local car boot sale and get baking. You’ll need to have a good few recipes under your belt and a reasonable idea of what people would buy. And although you don’t have to be qualified for this, there are hundreds of baking/cake decorating courses you can go on which are likely to benefit the quality of your products. You can find courses at LearnDirect. Step 1: Research
Take a trip to your local car boot sale or farmers' market and look for which food stalls are the busiest. If it seems like jam is the ‘in-thing’ and there aren’t that many stalls that sell it, you’ve found your product. If you’re at a car boot and there aren’t any stalls selling food then it’s a good idea to take a look at the people that are there. Are they the sort who would prefer to buy upmarket, fancy, homemade produce or a couple of 10p fairy cakes to nibble on while they have a browse for basement bargains? Make the kind of cakes and sweets you think you could sell easily.
Ask your family and friends what they’d like. Try to ask a wide range of people and see if you come out with any unanimous decisions. Also, speak to any cake sellers you see at fairs and markets and ask them which cakes sell best.
It’s also important to research the food safety standards you'ill have to meet to keep on the right side of the law. Legislation says that all food businesses must register their kitchens with their local authority unless they operate on a "casual and limited" basis only. So, if you’re simply selling once in a blue moon at a car boot sale or market then you don’t need to worry. However, if you are planning on making an income in this way, contact your local council and ask them what the rules are in your area: oddly the laws vary depending on where you live. For example, in some places you will need to become a registered trader even if you only sell your food once every couple of months. If you do have to register your kitchen, it’s totally free to do so and the council is obliged to accept your application. Be aware that if you're regularly selling food produce, it’s highly likely you’ll need to take a course in food hygiene. You can do this over the internet and it’ll cost you about £30. The course is mostly just common sense so it’s reasonably easy and you can complete it in your own time.
Step 2: Costings
If you want to make this moneymaking scheme worth your while, you need to do some basic costings. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Here’s a list of things you’ll need to take into consideration:
- Cost of the ingredients
- Cost of the sale location fee (car boot sale/farmers market fee) if there is one
- Cost of travel to the location
- Cost of the food packaging (keep it simple to start with - just clingfilm will do in some places)
- Initial cost of food hygiene training (if you’re planning on regular sales)
- Cost of labels/general stationery/invoicing pads
- Extra cost of gas or electricity for your oven
Once you’ve worked out how much all of this is likely to cost you, you should be able to work out how much you’ll need to sell your cakes, sweets and jams for to break even and then make a profit.
While you do your research, you should be taking note of how much other stallholders sell their cakes and foods for, to get a rough idea of how much you can reasonably expect to charge.
If you have to price your products extortionately just to make a profit, see if there’s anywhere you can cut back on costs. Shop around for cheaper ingredients or look for different locations that aren’t as pricey. Step 3: Recipe experimentation Once you’ve got a good idea of the kind of people you’re going to be selling to, it’s time to get your product sorted. You’ll need to come up with a range of different products to make this work. If you want to sell jams then make taster pots of all different flavours and try out different variations of ingredients. For cakes, try out different methods, ingredients, flavours and fillings. With sweets test out different recipes. You could try focusing on one area, like chocolate, fudge or maybe even health food! Get your friends and family to try all your samples out and find out which are the most popular choices.
It’s worth knowing that at farmers' markets, you’re not likely to sell a lot unless you use local, organic ingredients. People who go to these events look for traditional homemade foods and one of the pros of shopping for food at a farmers' market is that you’re able to ask the stallholder precisely where the food came from and how it was made. Stallholders at farmers' markets should be prepared to give honest, credible answers to customers - so factor these more expensive ingredients into your budget. It's also important to get the right equipment. This Tefal Electric Jam Maker will make any jam maker's day much easier. It does cost a rather hefty £79.99 (including recipe book, three jars and a recipe book) but if you want to be able to make jam on a regular basis it could be a really worthwhile investment. The maker has become one of Lakeland's biggest sellers ever. Do you have one? Let us know what you think about it on the messageboards.
Step 4: Location
Before you decide to make a real go of this, it’s advisable to give it a few test runs somewhere that isn’t going to cost you the earth. Try out a stall at a car boot sale first, because it will only cost you between £5 and £15 to set up there. You can find your nearest car boot sale on Carbootjunction.com.
Once you're more established, you might consider going a little more upmarket, although if you have cracked the car boot market you could also simply increase the number of cakes you take with you and let your business grow that way. There are a number of other outlets that will let you sell your goods, such as the Women’s Institute, which runs country markets around the UK. It costs just 5p to join and they’ll take about 10% commission on sales to cover the costs of the market. To join, you just need to pop down to your local market and have a word with the controller. You can find the contact details for your local market on the website or you can call their head office on 01246 261508 for more information.
To set up a stall at a farmers' market, you need to find one local to you. You can do this by searching the Certified Farmers' Markets website for your nearest market. The website doesn’t deal directly with the people who run the markets so you can contact them via the details they provide on the site.
Step 5: Presentation
Presentation is important, particularly if you sell at an upmarket venue. Consider your customers: are they going to want "cheap and cheerful", or posh-looking homemade produce? Packaging can affect your sales in a big way. Ribbon is cheap if you buy in bulk and can neaten up any edges around your cakes. If you’re selling jams it’s worth getting some fancy labels printed, or spending some time decorating your own. And if you’re looking to find the cheapest stationery or labels, have a look at our Buying business stationery article, where we’ve searched for the best value companies. Sweets are really popular around Christmas and Valentine's Day, so why not try themed packaging? Whatever you use to package your products, it’s important to remember that you’re dealing with food. This means that you are limited to certain types of packaging depending on what food you’re selling. It’s mainly the use of adhesives which is restricted but again - you’ll need to contact your local council for more information.
Step 6: Taking it further
A simple way to get some repeat business is to get some business cards printed off. If you’re making cakes, you could then advertise the fact that you bake to order for parties and events (if your kitchen can take the strain!). Pop into local cafés and coffee shops (not the chain outlets), hand them your card and make your services known - maybe even provide them with a few samples.
If you’re looking to make a real business out of this, there are a lot more things you’ll have to consider. Download our free guide on how to set up your own business.
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