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4 Things to Do Before You Sell Your First Loaf of Sourdough | Episode 133

  • Jul 9
  • 7 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Listen on Apple Podcasts or watch on YouTube


You have people asking to buy your bread. Your friends keep saying you should sell it. And there is a real temptation to just open orders this weekend and figure the rest out as you go.


I understand that pull, and I am going to ask you to slow down for about a month. Not because you are not ready to bake, but because four specific things are the difference between a business that lasts and one that exhausts you before the end of the year.


This is a little bit of tough love. It comes from watching a lot of bakers jump in fast, hit the wall, and quit something they loved. If you have already started selling and you skipped some of these, there is no time like the present to go back and shore them up.


1. Understand your state's cottage food laws

This is the foundation, and it is the one people most want to skip.


Every state in the US has its own version of cottage food law, and they are not close to the same. Your state's law decides whether you can sell from your home at all, which foods are allowed, where you are allowed to sell them, whether porch pickup and markets and shipping are on the table, whether you can sell wholesale, and exactly how your labels have to read. Some states require licensing and an inspection. Some do not.


Here is how to find yours.

  • Search your state plus "cottage food laws." Forrager is a good starting point for a plain-language summary.

  • Search Facebook for your state plus "cottage food" or "cottage bakers." Nearly every state has a group, and the people in it have already worked through the questions you are about to ask.

  • Read the actual rules, then read them again. If anything is still unclear, call your local health department. They will clarify it for you.

For me here in Texas, the labeling requirements are very specific and there are firm limits on what I can sell and how I can sell it, but no license or inspection is required. Once I was compliant on products and labels, I could get started. Your state may be much stricter, and it is much better to know that now.


If your state does not allow what you want to sell, you have real options. Adjust your offerings, look into renting a commercial kitchen, or reach out to home bakers near you and ask what is working for them. What you do not want is to build customers and momentum and then get fined or shut down. If you want the wider view of the business pieces that sit alongside compliance, Understanding Business Basics for Your Sourdough Microbakery | Episode 87 covers them.


2. Get your starter consistent before you sell anything

I am going to be clear about my lane here. I teach the business of a microbakery. I am not the person to ask about the science of your starter, and there are excellent teachers who are.


What I will say is that consistency is a business requirement, not a craft preference. A customer who pays you for bread is buying the same loaf they got last time. If your loaves are coming out pale no matter how long you bake them, that is usually an acidic starter, it is extremely common, and it is fixable.


Search "the Sourdough Journey acidic starter" and follow Tom Kaza's steps. Read The Perfect Loaf Cookbook by Maurizio Leo. That combination is what turned my own baking around, and my starter has been happy ever since.


Then dial in a small batch before you go anywhere near a big one. Bake the same recipe one or two loaves at a time, over and over, until you know exactly how that dough looks and feels at every stage. When you scale up, the dough will behave differently, and knowing your small batch cold is what makes that learning curve short.


The bakers who last are the ones who keep learning their craft. I get baking books from the library and read them at bedtime, which is a little nerdy, and it has made me better every year.


3. Practice bulk baking and learn your real capacity

This is the mistake I see most often. You have been baking two loaves at a time for friends, you open orders for six, and the whole batch surprises you. It proofs faster than you expected and comes out flat, or you shape too early and it is under fermented.


So practice bulk before you sell bulk. Do a few runs of six to twelve loaves and plan to give them away. Those reps are where you learn to troubleshoot, and they cost you flour instead of customers.


This part matters more than it sounds, because a microbakery runs on economy of scale. Mixing six loaves in a bin takes barely more effort than mixing two in a bowl, and it is three times the income for nearly the same work. If you are happy earning a little extra with four or five loaves for friends, that is genuinely fine. If you want this to be real income, your ability to bake efficiently in bulk is where the profit lives.


While you practice, write your capacity numbers down. I know exactly how many loaves I can mix at once, how many I can cold proof in my fridge, and how many I can bake at a time. When I had a smaller oven I could bake eight at a time, and now it is sixteen. My fridge used to cold proof about forty and now it holds around eighty. Those numbers are what let me open the right number of pre-orders instead of guessing and then panicking on Thursday night.


Two questions to answer for yourself: how many can I make in a day without losing my mind, and what does each bake really cost me in ingredients, time, and energy? Calculating Your Capacity for Markets and Pre-Orders in Your Sourdough Microbakery | Episode 45 walks through that math in detail.


4. Set expectations that match reality

This one is the tough love. This business is romanticized beautifully on social media, and the version you see there is a woman in a flowy dress with perfect light and no flour on the floor.


Your real bake days will have flour everywhere. Spills will happen, fails will happen, and you will burn a pan of muffins the way I did. None of that means you are failing. It means you are doing the work.


So decide these things now, before you open orders.

  • How many hours a week can you genuinely give to baking and selling? Track your hands-on time during your practice bakes so you are working from a real number.

  • How much do you need to make each month for this to be worth it?

  • How will you handle pickup windows and customer messages?

Expect weeks with slow sales even when you do everything right, because the ebbs and flows are normal. Expect your capacity to move around, especially if you have little ones at home. That flexibility is one of the best parts of a home-based business! You get to scale back the week your kids need you and pick it up again after.


If you have been selling for a year or two

These four are not only a beginner's checklist. They are worth an annual pass, because the answers change as you grow.

  • Re-read your cottage food law any time you add a product category, start wholesale, or begin shipping. What was compliant for a bread-only menu may not cover cheesecakes or jams.

  • Recalculate your capacity numbers every time you add equipment. Most bakers I talk to are still opening orders against the number that was true two ovens ago.

  • Re-time yourself once a quarter. Your hands-on hours per bake day drift, and that number is what tells you whether your prices and your pre-order count still make sense.

If you want a picture of what a deliberate start looks like from zero, Exactly What I'd do in the first 30 Days if I was Starting my Microbakery from Zero | Episode 9 lays out the order I would do it in.


Final thoughts

To put it plainly: know your cottage food laws so you are compliant and confident, get your starter consistent and reliable, practice bulk baking until you know your true capacity, and set expectations that match the actual work.


If you have not started yet, you are about to build on a really solid foundation and I am proud of you for slowing down long enough to do it right. If you are already selling and you cannot check all four off, do not panic. Pick the weakest one and work on it this month.


It is worth the time now so you can grow this thing for years without burning out!


Cheering you on,


Caroline


Keep going

If you are in the early stretch of building your bakery, these three are the ones to hear next.


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