calling: baker to caterer- your input, please

[breadster**]

i have a small high end bakery- we do primarily retail and mail order-we havent done much work with caterers- if so it's by by customer request

thinking about soliciting caterers-

what are you looking for from a bakery?
what is more important- quality or price?
must the bakery deliver- or will you pick up?
we are very specialized- what we do , we do very well, but we dont do everything-

what would make you want to try a new/different bakery supplier?

what problems do you encounter with bakeries?

i would appreciate any feedback

thanks!

[fodigger]

You should check the past posts. There was a thread a couple of months ago by W. Debord with the start up of her business I think you will find the info you are looking for

[W.DeBord]

Linda, my homework found that most all of the caterers have their own pastry chefs here and aren't buying in anything but wedding cakes. You'd have more clients marketing to restaurants and clubs because the majority don't have pastry staff (excluding the high scale restaurants).

#1 is quality with-out quality you have no sales and then price doesn't matter. Places use either 3x or 4x cost for standard pastry mark-up. So you can sort of work backwards to figure out what their willing to pay based on some info on their menu prices. With the exception that some clubs will take less mark-up because quality is hard to find and the manager needs real quality or they get heat from members.

If you want to do alittle digging on high quality pastries being sold to clubs and restaurants find the number for E. Justice. Sorry I can't find his card. E. Justice is the owners name (he's a WONDERFUL older gentleman!), he should be listed in wholesale bakeries. He is a distributor and has many product lines. No printed catalogs so a saleman has to come out (if you do call them try to get E. Justice himself to talk to)...he also sells product from local bakeries so you could also solicit him to sell your wares. At the club we used to buy some items from him and occasionally when I was swamped we bought some baked items. I was very pleased with his quality. His frozen cookie doughs were actually better then MOST scratch! He doen't have any items similar to your product line (that I'm aware of)...

And you have to deliver...the only way anyone might pick-up would be for a discount.

[angrychef]

As a pastry chef for a catering company, I can tell you delivery is the way to go. Makes our life much easier. The only thing we buy out is bread ---baguettes, some danish and artisan type breads. Larger catering companies do have their own pastry department, and occassionally will get wedding cakes from other bakeries.