Bakery business in Nigeria has been in existence for a very long time. The reason is that bread has a long history dated to ancient times.
Before the Common Era, bread has been a popular food eaten among people and it is still so till now. It is widely consumed across the continents by almost all citizens, ethnics and religious groups.
Freshly baked and hot bread has a fantastic and inviting aroma that is difficult to resist. Even when you are not thinking of eating it the aroma alone is alone to buy one especially true when you live close to a bakery.
Starting a bakery business in Nigeria is profitable as you’ll find more and more bread-making companies sprouting almost every day. No doubt, it is one of the most profitable business ideas in Nigeria today.
A bakery is a large-scale pastry-making factory that consists of different sections all working together to bring out different types of bread.
As you must have been aware, the best product to deal with is the product that is in high demand in the market and bread happens to be one of such product.
A recent survey and research show that bread is among the ten most popular foods in the world. Bread makes a good gift in Nigeria. When people travel from one place to another, one common item that is bought and requested for is bread.
With these in mind, we can safely conclude that starting a bread bakery business in Nigeria and anywhere in the world is going to be a viable business.
If you are thinking of a business to invest in right now, I want you to consider starting your own bread bakery. The profit of this business is usually much better in comparison with other kinds of food businesses.
Bread bakery is not much difficult to set up once you have the financial capacity and ability to meet important requirements and regulations by the authority.
How to Start A Successful Bakery Business In Nigeria
Let’s proceed to discuss how to get your bread bakery set up and the materials you will need. Note that the following steps apply irrespective of the service(s) you opt-in for.
1. Carry out a market survey
As it has been mentioned in previous articles written, the purpose of a detailed market survey and research cannot be over-emphasized.
Conduct more detailed research to identify your potential customers, risks involved (this will be discussed as we proceed), suitable location, source of finance, profitability, and so on.
You should also identify other bread bakeries in your locality and evaluate their mode of operations.
Did you know that a bakery business is one of the top daily income businesses in Nigeria? You should check that out.
2. Get training
To become a professional baker, you need training in bakery and food processing.
Some people get their training by getting attached to a bakery to learn all the skills of baking from first hands experience.
Look for a professional trainee who will train you in comprehending the art of bread making. Your success in this business depends on how much you know; do not trade knowledge for anything.
The range of products you will produce should also determine the depth of training and courses you will take on the art of bread making.
3. Prepare your business plan
You need to have a good business plan that will guide you along the way. You can prepare it yourself or hire a professional to do it for you.
Don’t just assume you have everything in your head, lack of a proper and clearly written out business plan can make a business crumble within a short time.
The plan is something some concrete that will guide you on the way to success.
4. Find a suitable location
Equally important is the location of your bakery. There are many factors to consider when locating a suitable site for your bakery business in Nigeria, but the most important is the cleanliness of the environment.
This will come in handy when you apply for certification from the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).
While building and setting up your bakery, give attention to Sufficient foot traffic, convenient car parking space, sufficient storage space, and retail or wholesale dispatch space.
If your product is good, well branded, and marketed effectively, people will find you no matter where you are.
5. Registration
Register your bakery business with appropriate legal and governmental institutions. Get fully certified and receive approvals before you start your business.
Build your business and its structure in order to meet these organizations’ standards. Examples are registration with cooperate affairs commission (CAC) and NAFDAC.
With the increase in the production of unhealthy and substandard products, it is necessary to ensure that bread bakeries are up to date on best practices.
Moreover, your customers are much likely to purchase from you when they know you have been certified safe by the regulatory body.
For no reason should you substitute quality ingredients for substandard ones, you should not be giving poison to your fellow human.
One strong pillar of a successful business is integrity, once your customers are sure you will always give the very best quality, then you will always be in business maximizing your profits.
It’s not easy taking on a new business venture, especially one that relies so much on the taste of the customers. However, with the right quality control, packaging, and marketing, success is inevitable in the bread bakery business.
6. Employ qualified workers
For the smooth running of a bakery business in Nigeria, you cannot do it alone. You need competent hands to help you with production and administration works.
It is possible to run a micro-bakery alone but it is close to impossible to efficiently manage a large-scale bakery.
Employ experienced hands to manage the delicate part of the business while you can employ less experienced ones to carry on the rest of the production process.
All workers will still need to undergo a form of training or another in handling their assignment efficiently. Also, treat your workers well as the bakery business is a sensitive business. Have robust and well-packaged incentives in place for them
7. Good customer relation
For any bakery business in Nigeria to succeed, you must know that customers are your key to success. Happy customers become repeat customers, so work to make each customer experience a memorable purchase.
Ask your customers for feedback, talk with them at the counter, have a suggestion box and have them dropped their product suggestions and ideas.
Don’t joke with those recommendations, a factory folded up because the owner refuses to listen to his customers. He stubbornly rejected their ideas and suggestion thinking that they want to extort him.
So, make your customer experience count as that will be a way to get repeated customers and more money in your account
8. Host a Grand Opening
In Nigeria, it is a usual practice to host a grand opening in an effort to welcome customers and draw attention to your new business especially when it is food related.
A successful grand opening can get your new bakery off to a good start and help create some loyal customers.
You should advertise your grand opening to create awareness and interest and ensure that customers know when your bakery is opening.
One great way to get customers in your bakery on your grand opening is to offer discounts and specials. For example, you can offer discounts for the first 100 people to visit.
Another option is to give customers who order or buy a particular benchmarked number of bread more loaves in addition, f.
You can also offer free samples of your breads and other baked goods to help convince customers to make a purchase. Make your opening entertaining and impressive.
Necessary Equipment Needed to Start A Bakery And Other
Here are some key equipment you’ll need when starting a bakery business in Nigeria;
Industrial baking oven
There are different types of industrial ovens and the types largely depend on the number of kilograms of flours they can process at a single baking process.
You need to go for the industrial baking oven if you can afford it. That is what a professional baker who makes bread in commercial quantity use. It cost much but well worth the price and will make your work a lot easier.
If you cannot afford it then go for the popular mud oven and in the future as the business expands you can upgrade your oven.
Industrial flour mixer
Mixer is a machine that mixes the flour and other ingredients into pastry ready for baking.
There are local mixers and there are standard electronic mixers. Go for the one that is suitable according to the standard of the bakery you are setting up and your initial startup capital.
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Baking pans
These are aluminum bread molds of different sizes and shapes used in baking bread. Some called it baked wares.
You need to buy or design baking pans according to the generally acceptable specification obtainable in the market.
After the bread dough has been mixed properly, it will be transferred here, placed in the oven and the bread will come out according to the shape of the baking pan, either rectangular or circular.
Slicing machine
This is important if you intend to make slice bread.
Sliced bread is the most popular and most respected in the Nigerian market. Therefore, a slicing machine is a machine you should consider having.
Dough proofing chamber
This machine helps to regulate the humidity and temperature at which the bread rises. As you know, the dough must rise, an essential piece of bakery equipment, a proofing cabinet allows you to control these variables for the perfect dough to proof uniformly.
Chiller
A chiller is must-have bakery equipment for storing cold ingredients like butter, milk, and cream.
The good thing is that most chillers have flat worktops, which are great in providing the much-needed working space in bakeries.
Preferably, getting a chiller with a stainless steel worktop may actually lessen your burden of having to buy more work tables, since you’ll have enough space for storing all the baking items that you need.
Cleaning and washing machine. Proper hygiene is of utmost importance. Get sink compartments that would be used as cleaning station and also washing machine for you baking pans.
But, be sure to order handwashing sinks for your employees, disposable gloves, cleaning chemicals, sponges, scrubbers, and other essential cleaning items.
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Bread wrapper supply and other ingredients
Make arrangements for well-branded nylons in advance before production commences and there should be arrangements for a constant supply. This will be the face of your brand.
The basic baking ingredients needed are flour, sugar, baking yeast, baking fat, butter, vegetable oil, Salt and water. Stock them in bulk quantities.
Power generating machine
There will always be the need for electricity with all the machines and equipment installed. So a standby big generator is needed. Your production is sensitive and you can’t afford to joke with it.
Supply Truck
The supply truck will help in marketing your goods and makes your service convenient for your customers. There no way you will be able to market effectively if you don’t have at least one supply vehicle.
This may not be needed if you are going for eat-in and café services or bakery food truck.
In addition to your large equipment, your bakery will also need to be stocked with small wares, such as weighing scale, mixing bowls, work table, shelves, refrigerator, bakery display case, storage boxes, bread knives, aprons, and so on
Types of Bread
There are different types of bread that you can bake. Just to mention a few are:
- Coconut Bread
- Wheat bread
- Sliced bread
- Chocolate bread
- Fruit bread
- Baguette bread
- Italian bread
- Brioche bread
- Banana Bread
- Dinner rolls
- Hamburger bread
- Round sponges
Types of Bakery Services
There are different types of bakery services you can choose from.
While the majority of them may not be popular here in Nigeria, it provides a good opportunity to start something new and unique.
This way, your bakery business sells itself in the market. Your options include:
Wholesale and retail service
This is the most common type of service in most bakery businesses in Nigeria.
From the bakery, bread is transported to different locations where your wholesale customers are, from those points, consumers will come to buy your products.
You can even customize the stand or counter with your brand name and logo. With a small commercial space, customers can walk in and pick up baked goods from an employee-managed counter.
These are the traditional kind of bakeries where you will have one of your customers attend to the consumers as they approach the counter.
The loaves will be supplied to them at a discounted rate while they will sell it at the regulated flat rate in order to make profit. It’s the typical kind of bakery you see, and the great thing about it is that it provides quick service to customers.
Specialty service bakery
When starting your bakery business in Nigeria, you can adopt this service type.
In this type, you specialize in certain types of baked goods. Usually, the products customers purchase from these types of bakeries are those that are pre-ordered.
They describe to you what they want to be done, and you give it to them according to their description and taste.
Online bakery service
You can start out online. This will afford you to provide your baked goods at a lesser cost. There is no need for a storefront, all you need is do business through the Internet.
What they do is obtain the necessary licenses that one usually gets when putting up a bakery.
Once you are legally certified to start your bakery business and after acquiring all needed skills and equipment, then you can proceed to create a website where you can post pictures of your products and add a shopping cart service onto the website for making and receiving orders.
Eat-in and cafe services
You can attract more customers and gain more profit by letting your customers dine inside the premises of your bakery. You will provide clean seating and waiting services for them to eat.
These kinds of bakeries are like cafes, adding coffee beverages and other refreshments, only that you still would mostly specialize in baked goods.
Bakery food trucks
Rather than using a brick-and-mortar store, you can sell your products from a mobile truck.
This function like a mobile restaurant in which the bread will be baked elsewhere and the baked bread will be loaded in the van.
Associated Hazards & Challenges of Running A Bakery Business In Nigeria
Like most business on earth, there are some of the risks involved which you’d do well to be aware of.
Being aware of these risks will help you make contingency plans properly on how to completely avoid or minimize them.
It will also help you to properly plan your income and expenditure. Below are some of the popular risks in the business.
i. Burnt bread
This is one of the major risks every baker must be aware of because of the potential danger it carries.
But it’s a risk that could be avoided if you take proper precaution Moment of carelessness by your workers could get your bread burnt easily, which may result in decreased production of quality loaves, burning down the building, and loss of life and money.
Therefore, install a smoke detector at all locations of your bakery, its help comes in handy especially for night shift workers. Don’t overlook little mistakes from workers otherwise, it will come back to haunt you.
ii. Degeneration
Due to poor handling or long stay of bread in stores, these bread get damaged or develop mucus, making it not presentable for consumption.
This reduces its marketability and profit. To reduce the effect of this risk, train your staff in proper bread handling and always have a timeline to recall bread that has over-stayed in stores, to keep your product fresh and hygienic.
iii. Price Instabilities
Prices of baking raw materials is the most unpredictable as baking flour can change within days unannounced thereby negatively affecting production cost, but not necessarily the selling price, hence reducing the profit margin.
When this happens, you buy flour at a higher cost and still sell your bread at the same regular price as the bakery business in Nigeria is a very sensitive niche, you can’t increase the price anyhow on your own.
iv. Stealing
Internal and external theft by your staffs, people who may come into the premises, touts on the roads, and others may reduce your profit in the business.
You need to develop various control measures to curb theft and safeguard your raw materials, equipment, materials, and even baked bread.
Conclusion
Starting a bakery in Nigeria presents many unique situations, and it is different than starting a traditional restaurant or other foodservice establishment.
One of the best ways to ensure that opening your bakery goes smoothly is to stay organized and ensure you’re being thorough.
Creating a detailed business plan, following it precisely, and keeping your documents organized will help get your business off to a good start.
The lesson for potential investors in the bread bakery business is that there is a vibrant market for the product.
Bakeries are a popular type of foodservice establishment, and they allow you to express your baking creativity while also serving a unique market.
Additionally, people with non-baking backgrounds can get into the industry easily by first opening a home bakery or getting sound training at a reputable bakery.
Opening a bakery presents many unique challenges that are different from other types of businesses. However, there is a huge opportunity that can yield massive profit waiting for you to be looked into.
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