Granola is considered to be a strong part of the healthy eating trend.

Granola is one of the simplest products to bake and package.

When I started my business, I made three kinds of granola and sold them wholesale through my local food co-op. Every week I delivered in bulk, using recycled five-gallon molasses tubs. Granola was not a well-known or popular product at the time, but co-op members were familiar with it and bought large quantities of this breakfast cereal.

Granola has an exceptionally long shelf and recipes can be adapted to a wide variety of flavors.

This variation includes coconut, cranberries, and walnuts.

One of the most frequent questions I receive is about recommendations for a product line. Although granola is now a saturated market with corporations selling artisan-style products, there is always room for small home-based food businesses selling locally, especially at a farmers’ market. I suggest you package in plastic or poly bags and skip the expensive glass jars.

Basic Granola
1 ½ cups oil
1 ½ cups honey
1 teaspoon vanilla
10 cups regular rolled oats
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup nuts
½ cup sesame or sunflower seeds, optional
2-4 cups mixed coconut, raisins, craisins, chopped dates, pineapple, etc.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease or pan spray baking pans.
1. In a large bowl or stockpot, mix together oil, honey, vanilla, oats, salt, and nuts. Reserve remaining ingredients to avoid burning: these should be mixed in after granola is finished baking.
2. Scoop ingredients into a large, deep pan (roasting pan or lasagna pan works well), or two jelly roll pans. Bake at 325 degrees for approx 60 minutes, stirring every 10-15 minutes. Watch carefully, if your oven runs hot you may need to drop temperature to 300 degrees. When granola is a deep golden brown, remove from oven and stir in remaining ingredients.
3. Stored in an airtight container, granola keeps for several months.

Home-Based Baking at its Best!

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Last week I attended my first Food Swap. I brought peanut butter cookies boxed by the dozen, with a plate for sampling.

Food Swaps are a relatively new idea, and spreading to many parts of the US. What is a Food Swap? These are a “recurring event where members of a community share homemade, homegrown, or foraged foods with each other. Swaps allow direct trades to take place between attendees, e.g., a loaf of bread for a jar of pickles or a half-dozen backyard eggs.”

Last week's small event was held at the Clinton Community Library located in Rhinebeck, NY.

Librarian Terry, left, and Annie (who owns blueribbonhearth, a small home-based food business) hosted the event.

MrMacho, above, is yakking with Terry.

These events are opportunities to taste different foods and meet your neighbors. Terry and Annie plan to grow the idea by hosting quarterly swaps.

How can attending a Food Swap help your business? Use this is an opportunity to introduce people to your products. But this is not the place for heavy marketing. Put your business card on an unobtrusive place (bottom) with the name of your product. If people like it, they will find you!

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Look who we found at the regional market in central New York.

Sweet Jimmy’s is a relatively new home-based food business in central NY that makes traditional, vegan, and gluten-free products. I was impressed with their unique product concepts and unusual flavor combinations.

We bought Sundried Tomato Butter Cookies and Lime Coconut Macaroons. Fabulous!

After returning home I visited their website and drooled over these chocolate creations.

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And I was totally impressed with these Emoti-Cookie Pops.

Thank you, Jimmy, for letting us use some of your photos! Visit Sweet Jimmy’s on Facebook.

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Venture capitalists annually invest $30 billion in start-up companies. In 2008, less than $50 million went to food start-ups. In 2012, that figure rose to $350 million. What kinds of food businesses do they invest in?  (Today’s New York Times.)

Some are reinvented ideas for online businesses that don’t actually produce food but help people find it, such as online ordering companies ChowNow or GoodEggs. Plated is another repackaged idea that sells the upscale version of ready-to-make dinner kits (sort of like Taco Bell already found on supermarket shelves).

Other businesses are capitalizing on the ideas of sustainable, environmentally correct, and health trends such as fewer animal products and organics. A most interesting business is Hampton Creek Foods.  Their homepage touts Innovation and Sustainability, and pictures three adorable cupcakes stacked and juxtaposed to links such as “Featured in Popular Science” and “Download our Sell Sheet Here!”

We’ll have to see where this trend goes. It seems the opposite of our back-to-nature, local, seasonal, healthy eating, organic trends. I don’t see any impact positive or negative on small home-based food businesses. But if you have a grand idea, apparently anything goes…

Have an idea? Looking for an investor?

Home-Based Baking at its Best!

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The Salt Sense product touts that it has 33% less sodium. (It’s also twice the price per ounce of real salt.) Couldn’t we just use less salt?

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If I was sprinkling salt on my food, I could sprinkle less. If I had a recipe and wanted to cut down on the salt level, I would change my recipe to reflect the reduction and measure less salt.

For instance, if my original recipe called for 1 tablespoon salt and I wanted 33% less sodium (as advertised above), I would change the recipe to 2 teaspoons salt. Would that not work?

Home-Based Baking at its Best!

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Today marks the anniversary of what many consider the birth of our modern environmental movement. April 22, 1970 was the first US Earth Day, which began as a national teach-in day. For some history, read here and here and here.

Are you prepared for Earth Day?
Do you have any products to help celebrate this popular celebration day? As a business, sales are created when we take advantage of celebration days. American Food and Drink Days is a monthly calendar to help us plan ahead.

Taking advantage of celebration, or special days.

For the above cookies, prepare your favorite sugar cookie or shortbread dough. Color half the dough with green coloring and marble together the green and white dough. Roll into logs and refrigerate until hard, at least one hour. Slice and bake.

Home-Based Baking at its Best!

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Do you have fear of pie?

Do you have fear of pie? Stay ahead of the trend and make your own luscious pies. Find out what’s involved in making perfect pies and pastries. We’ll make two different crust recipes – both simple, both delicious – mouth-watering crusts that will have people asking for more. You’ll leave class with a homemade pie plus a strudel or tartlets, and the knowledge that you’ll be able to reproduce these again.

If you live in the Hudson Valley, join us for our next pie class: Homemade Pie! April 24 4:30-8:30 pm

To register, call BOCES (845) 331-5050

Home-Based Baking at its Best! If you’re thinking about starting a business, or want to expand your product line, this class is for you.

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Are you starting, or thinking about, a home kitchen business? Writing a simple business plan is the first step in launching a successful business. The second step is understanding basic issues such as efficient production methods, how to maximize your kitchen workspace, and the all-important food safety.

Join us next Saturday, April 20, 9:30 am – 3:30 pm for my next class at the Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, NY.

Home Baking Skills for Profit or Pleasure
Gain the confidence of an industry professional! In this class, we’re moving out of the kitchen and into the classroom for a comprehensive discussion of commercial baking techniques. In just a few hours, you will find out how to turn your kitchen into a well-run production area, utilizing shortcuts and tricks for recipe and product development, quantity production (including scaling up recipes and using the assembly line method), shelf-life testing, packaging, storage, food safety, and more. You’ll learn everything you didn’t know to ask about equipment and appliances, and how oven heat affects baked goods. And you will discover the art of maximizing baked goods for visual and sales appeal and discuss how to adapt traditional recipes for healthier baking with whole grains. Whether you’re baking for profit or simply want to learn tips and tricks from a professional, this class is for you.

As a participant in this class, you will enjoy lunch and receive a copy of Home Baking for Profit to take home.

About the Instructor
Mimi Shotland Fix, author of Start & Run a Home-Based Food Business and Home Baking for Profit, began a licensed home kitchen business in 1979. She has since owned and operated several successful retail bakeries, worked as head baker and pastry chef for multiple restaurants, was featured in Cooking Light magazine, developed products for corporate food companies, and tested ovens for a major appliance company. Later, she returned to school for an MA in writing and food studies. Ms. Fix owns a culinary consulting firm and teaches business and hands-on baking classes in several local colleges. Her website, BakingFix.com, provides continued support for small food businesses.

To register for next Saturday’s class.

Home-Based Baking at its Best!

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Are you thinking about starting a business? Writing a simple business plan is the first step in launching a successful venture. This plan will help you understand your overall ideas, if they are feasible, and how to proceed with implementation. In general, a business plan will help you to ask and answer basic, important questions such as:

Why should customers buy from you instead of the competition?

Writing a plan will help you figure out what to sell, who to sell it to, and the importance of product pricing.  A finished plan will help you reach your customers. It will identify your target market and your competitive advantages (what you offer over competing businesses serving that same market), and what advertising strategy you need to reach them.

If you are new to business and new to food-related production, I don’t expect you to know all the answers. But most important, you will begin understanding the process. Unfortunately, many folks jump in without considering the reality of basic business issues. Small business failure can often be averted by starting at the beginning with a detailed business plan.

One day I was having lunch with a group of office workers (who had no knowledge of my business background).  From The (Faux) Pastry Chef: How I Found My Baking Fix, page 247.

… I made a Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Torte and during lunch as we cut into the cake, Louise said that the bakery on Ray Way Drive was out of business and the River Baking Company (which I thought was not that good) had moved in.

“You should open a bakery!” exclaimed Louise, putting down her fork.

“Been there done that,” I replied.

“You should open one in Mayville,” she continued. Mayville was a nearby, economically depressed little town. Louise began yakking about an empty storefront that had several different businesses in succession and was currently empty. Most recently it had been a deli owned by a woman with a catering business. The owner didn’t have regular store hours because of her catering. I guess she figured people wouldn’t mind showing up for coffee and donuts and finding a locked door.

I responded that the location was not great, but Louise insisted it was the best place ever to put a bakery. Their lunchroom conversation turned to the idea of how a gluten-free café or a cupcake shop would be packed with customers. Others chimed in, sure that the location was a winner. Were they thinking about opening a bakery?

This is a good example of why small businesses open and close so quickly, I thought. People with no business experience listen to people who also have no business experience.

“Don’t forget to write your business plan,” I said, heading home.

The above conversation happens far too often. If you do not want to be another statistic in the failure column, please take the time to write a business plan.

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The (Faux) Pastry Chef: How I Found My Baking Fix

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Cookies loaded with whole grains and fruit.

Cookies for breakfast? These cookies are certainly healthier than donuts or most breakfast cereals. The healthy eating trend is here to stay. If you sell at a farmers’ market and don’t already have a product that incorporates a whole grain or fruit (fresh or dried), please consider at least one “healthier” product.

Young couples with children shop the markets looking for fresh, local, seasonal, and healthy.

Oatmeal cookies are a natural for this healthy eating trend. Most oatmeal cookie recipes already incorporate oats and dried fruits. Create your own recipe: start with your favorite oatmeal cookie recipe, use whole wheat flour instead of white flour, and add any combination of dried fruits.

My cookies have just enough batter to hold the dried fruits and nuts.

Small cookies are perfect sold in a small bag... bet your customers can't eat just one...

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