I have been baking and doing sourdough for 35 years...selling for a little over 20 years. I have always based my business on having the freshest bakes possible...so everything I sell is never more than about 24 hours old. However, due to some health issues, it is getting harder and less sustainable to bake from 3am friday to 3am saturday for farmers markets. Is there any instance under the sun where it is OK to bake half on thursday and half on friday to sell on Saturday? Like, what things are ok to bake Thursday, still be fresh Saturday and be OK for customers to keep out and freeze by monday or tuesday? For markets I take my sourdough artisan loaves, sandwich loaves, scones, focaccia, cinnamon rolls, sticky buns, dinner rolls, pull apart bread, challah, banana bread, muffins, bagels and English Muffins. For orders I bake the night before or the morning of pickup so that is never an issue. If you read all this, thank you! (Pic just because 😆)

I completed the homework in #1.2 of "Who You Serve". This customer profile exercise was enlightening because I learned who I wanted my customers to be. I found I love the artisan style of baking, and my customers are the ones who care about clean ingredients and simplicity. Here is my customer in one sentence: "I create handcrafted artisan breads and goods for people who value real food and thoughtful ingredients." What do you think? Too simple, not enough, or too broad? I would value some honest feedback:) Thank you. @Henry Hunter

Here are my Chocolate Chip, Cinnamon Roll, White Cheddar,Rosemary, & Everything Bagel Focaccias mainly for website photos but hubby was waiting off camera with plate in hand.

This is @Kim Cochran’s setup from Royal Delights this past Saturday. I want to walk through it, because she’s doing almost everything right and there’s a lot here to learn from. Start with the shape. Most bakers set up one long table and stand behind it like a cashier. That table becomes a wall. Kim went with a U, and that horseshoe pulls people into her space. They slow down, they step in, and once they’re inside they’re browsing instead of walking past. Her cloths drop all the way to the floor and they match. That’s what separates a business from a bake sale. Nobody sees the totes and the backup bins underneath. It’s clean and it’s finished. Her branding repeats. The Royal Delights logo is on both runners and on her signage, same mark every time. When a customer sees the name three times before they’ve said a word, she stops reading as somebody’s mom selling cookies and starts reading as a bakery. The product is tiered. She’s using risers to build height, so everything climbs instead of lying flat. A full, stacked table tells the customer other folks have been buying and there’s plenty to go around. A sparse table says the opposite. Prices are out where people can see them. A lot of customers will walk rather than ask what something costs. Kim took that friction away. One color story, pink and white, right down to the cooler. Even the cold items that have to stay cold got worked into the look instead of fighting it. And her chair’s off to the side, so she can step out and greet somebody instead of being walled in. She also showed up in the rain. That’s its own kind of marketing. When people learn you’re there every Saturday no matter the weather, you become the stop they plan around. The one thing left for Kim is a website, and that’s what we’re building now. The table only sells to the people in front of it. A site is what lets a Saturday customer find her again on Wednesday and order for the following week. That’s how a market table turns into a real bakery with repeat customers.

Thanks Henry for inviting me! I have been doing farmers markets for a little over 20 years, running my cottage bakery for 22 and teaching sourdough for 15. I look forward to learning and helping others on their journey 🫶🏻