September Update

I realize I haven't been blogging much lately. My day job has me working too many hours, and we have been blessed with good fortune at the bakery as of late leaving little time to wallow!

The first week of September started off on the right foot. The Austin Chronicle featured us in a food review with kind words and a great experience. That, combined with advertising our 1st anniversary specials, bumped up our business a great deal. We finally have a shot -- not big, but something -- of breaking even this month. Sales have been great as of late, our reviews in Yelp and repeat business have been building, and we are attempting to turn this thing around.

Something that irks me... We all know keeping our costs low is key to surviving. Problem is, none of the big boys will sell to us. We need flour. And sugar. And butter. Sysco and PFG have dropped us -- we just dont order enough things from them, so they say. So that leaves Sams Club, and lately their inventory controls have been mediocre -- they havent had 25 lb bags of sugar for 2 weeks now -- so that leaves local grocery stores. And if we can't buy in bulk, our profits are so low that we can't stay in business. I've looked online, but of course shipping costs counteracts any savings in price. We had a guy come to the bakery trying to sell us milk and butter -- his milk was 3.57 a gallon. I said why would I do that, and pass along that extra costs to our customers via higher prices of drinks, when I can buy milk at Sams for 2.99? He said noone sells it for less than 3 dollars. OK.

We try to buy our paper goods in bulk -- but we can only do so much because we just dont have the need for a truckload of napkins and toilet paper. Wish there was a wholesaler that catered to the small businesses, not just the chains who can afford to buy off the boat.