top of page
Search

Growing a Microbakery With a Toddler, an Assistant and Wholesale | Episode 19

  • Nov 12, 2024
  • 6 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Listen on Apple Podcasts or watch on YouTube


Delaney Peters started her microbakery the same way a lot of us did, with a post saying she had some extra bread. She did not even know cottage food laws were a thing until after she hit publish, and then she went and looked them up.


A year later she is running porch pickups year round, doing a summer farmers market, wholesaling to local coffee shops, and she has had 80 loaf weeks. She is doing all of it in Palmer, Alaska with a sixteen month old and her twin sister as her assistant.


She was wearing a sweater in a video while it was 105 degrees here in Texas, so I spent part of this conversation openly jealous!


Here is what she told me about capacity, hiring help and starting wholesale. Almost none of it is specific to Alaska.


Let your season set your capacity

Delaney's honest answer about capacity is that it moves.


When she started she could not manage more than about ten loaves. In summer she has 80 loaf weeks. Come winter the farmers market stops, people up there slow right down with the seasons, and there will be weeks where she bakes fifteen. She has decided ahead of time that this is fine.


That last part matters more than the numbers do. A lot of the pressure we put on ourselves comes from expecting January to look like July.


Write down what you can genuinely produce in your busiest month and in your slowest month, and plan for both. Your pre-order limits, your ingredient buying and what you expect to earn should all move with your real seasons, and not with what another baker is posting.


The capacity check that is not a spreadsheet

I asked Delaney whether she has a system for knowing when she has taken on too much. She said trial and error, and then she said something I have not stopped thinking about, which is that she gauges it on her son.


When she signs up for more than she should, she sees it in him first. He is sleeping and eating well and still having meltdowns, because she is more distracted and less hands on. That is her signal that she has said yes to too much.


Your version might be your sleep, your marriage, the state of your house, or how you feel on a Sunday night. Pick the thing that tells the truth earliest and actually watch it.


Saying no is how somebody else gets a yes

One winter Delaney's husband was between jobs, so she signed up for every summer event she could find. By the time summer came around he was working again, and he told her they did not need to burn her out over it.


She pulled out of several events. The part she loved was that other bakers got those spots.


That is worth sitting with if your calendar is already full for the fall. An event you release goes to a baker who wants it, and the weekend goes back to your family. Nobody loses.


The oven decision

Delaney bought a Simply Bread oven in February, roughly four months into her business, when she was selling fifteen to twenty loaves a week. She was in the group whose ovens were delayed, so it did not turn up until the end of April.


Fifteen to twenty loaves is very doable in Dutch ovens, and it is a six or seven hour bake day. She bought the oven because she already knew what she wanted to do next, which was events she could not physically have said yes to otherwise.


It bakes twelve at a time. Her bake days got much shorter, and she said her loaves even looked better, which she thinks was really her own confidence growing around equipment she could rely on.


The question she answered before she spent the money was whether she was in this for the long haul. Her answer was that baking is the one hobby that has always stuck around, and that as the owner she gets to decide how big or small this is. That is a much better reason to buy equipment than one busy month.


Bringing on your first assistant

Delaney's twin sister McKenna moved back to Alaska and started helping her. Her advice for anyone thinking about a first helper is refreshingly practical.

  • Show them instead of telling them. Delaney says explaining a task out loud rarely lands. Stand there and do it once in front of them.

  • Save work for them. Pile up the dishes rather than doing them yourself the night before. Deliberately leave the tasks that will genuinely give you time back.

  • Text them the plan the night before. She sends a short agenda, which tells her sister what to expect and gets it out of Delaney's own head so she stops carrying it around at bedtime.

Start with the tasks that are easiest to teach. McKenna pre-measures dry ingredients, shapes and cuts scones, bakes the scones and cookies, and packages on pickup days. Shaping loaves came later, and slowly.


On timing, Delaney's marker for needing help is when a single pickup is taking twelve hours, two days running. And help does not have to mean more output. It can simply buy back your hours.


What she learned starting wholesale

Check your laws first. Wholesale is not open to cottage bakers everywhere, and my own state does not allow it. Delaney's advice is to talk to your local health department and keep a record of those conversations, because a phone call asking about it will come eventually.


Past the legal piece, two things she learned the hard way:

  • Only sell something in bulk that you already bake efficiently. If your system is shaky at your current volume, wholesale orders will break it.

  • Watch what your flavors cost you in labor. She ran three scone flavors one summer and two of them had lemons, so she spent the season peeling lemons. Her fall lineup has nothing that needs cutting.

What she likes about wholesale is that it is predictable. A market weekend depends on weather and foot traffic, while a standing wholesale order is a number you can plan your week around. The coffee shops she supplies also market her bakery for her every single day.


The rhythm that keeps customers coming back

Delaney's menu opens Friday, closes Monday, and pickup is Wednesday. She has not changed it.


That predictability does more for her than any single post ever will. New customers learn the pattern instead of having to work her out, and they know exactly when to look for her.


She keeps staples on the menu every week and rotates flavors around them, so there is always something familiar and always something new without the menu getting bloated.


If your pickup day moves around, that is the cheapest thing on this whole list to fix.


If you are already established

Delaney did not grow by doing more of one thing. She stacked channels that feed each other.


She does the summer farmers market specifically to grow her porch pickup list, because leaving the house every week is not sustainable for her long term. Wholesale gives her a predictable base and puts her bread in front of new people all week. Porch pickup is the part she actually wants to keep.


Look at your own channels and ask which one is the destination and which ones are feeding it. If a channel is not feeding anything, and it is not where you want to end up, it might be time to let it go.


Final thoughts

The advice Delaney gave at the end of our conversation was to only make things you enjoy making, because you will be making them a lot. She does not love making bagels, so she does not make them. She loves English muffins, so those stay.


There is a whole business philosophy in that. You are the one who decided to do this, which means you get to decide what it looks like. Ask for help, because most people are glad to be asked. Watch your own capacity instead of somebody else's. Then bake the things you like.


Cheering you on,


Caroline


Keep going

If you liked hearing how another baker actually runs things, here is where I would send you next.


Links to things you might like!


 
 
 

Comments

bottom of page