Market bread.What would you pay?

I have been selling bread for about 5 years now. I have a recipe for Amish White Bread that makes 4-5 loaves a batch. I was getting $3.00 a loaf but when I sold a couple weeks ago I sold 2 loaves @$2.00 a loaf. At least around here people aren't buying much.

I have 3 different sizes of the foil bread pans. I just made the medium, glass pan sized, oat/flour loaves for the hen party sale du jour.

They charged $5 and it flew. Same sized pan at a previous library sale was priced $7, and 9 of 11 sold. Depends on your market, and no I wouldn't pay $5 for it myself.


If you add fruit or nuts add.

Really small, about 2 rolls worth size, might be fun for people and work well.

Saw a large loaf at a good health food store 50 miles away. $13. I'd eat rice first. But they sell.

I go in the dumpster behind our village bakery and get 5 loaves a day for free!

The wealthy gentry class can afford such prices. If you live in a yuppie area, go for it. There is a reason lot poorer folk dont go to farmers markets and the like. Boutique priced groceries are luxury, the cheaper crappier commercial stuff itself is too expensive, but no alternative, especially in extended drought years. So as they say "let them eat bread"....

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

it would have to be some really special bread for me to pay $5 a loaf for it. I generally limit my bread costs to around $2.50 at the high end and regularly pay $2 a loaf or less..but if you can get it..go for it.

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Brenda Groth
http://restfultrailsfoodforestgarden.blogspot.com/

I'd pay 5 dollars for good sourdough and wouldn't bat an eye. It seems to be hard to find around here......

I think people need to think in terms of nutrition. I couldn't make a loaf of my bread for $2 -- but then, my bread isn't Wonder Bread, either.

The plain, white, square, 1.5 lb loaves which are the closest thing you'll see to the fluffy white stuff you buy in plastic tubes at Aldis certainly wouldn't get $5 at the market -- the types of bread I'm describing are big, crusty, four pound, hand-thrown hearth loaves. You don't need to eat four slices of this stuff to fill you up, one will do, and provide more nutrients than are present in that ENTIRE loaf of store-bought, sugar-filled paste most people think of as "bread".

There is nothing "artsy" or "snobby" about this kind of bread -- it's what our ancestors were eating, the staff of life, LONG before commercial food manufacturers figured out that people would happily eat -- and pay for -- that white sponge which was so inexpensive to produce in factories.

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Ignorance is the true enemy.

I've seen the village, and I don't want it raising my children.

www.newcenturyhomestead.com

I`d just like to say our local farmers market accepts food stamps.Also for myself I use high end ingredients.I also always keep them healthy.I try and spread the wealth by buying local mostly.If I`m making fruit or veggie breads most of the ingredients are organic.As someone said these are not "wonderloafs"...lol.

I don`t have a lot of money that`s for sure.But I shop at Earthfare.I try and shop for health,fair trade,and buy locally produced foods.And I try and grow what I can`t afford to buy.

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"You can only come to the morning through the shadows."~J.R.R.Tolkien

Then pay yourself accordingly. You're providing a quality product, you need to charge what it's worth. If people are comparing your product to what they can buy in the store that they believe is "equal" (all bread ISN'T created equal! ) then make sure that they know that there is a difference. Use signs to point out the health benefits, the use of local ingredients, etc. Have information printed on handouts to show that YOUR product is superior.

"Homemade" isn't enough anymore, because much of the "homemade" is really no better than the cheap processed crap people can buy in the grocery for a third the price. Educate your clientele, and they'll keep coming back for more.

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Ignorance is the true enemy.

I've seen the village, and I don't want it raising my children.

www.newcenturyhomestead.com

If the mkt stall has electric maybe toast some slices and have butter margarine as a sales tool. The smell of toasting bread is hard to pass up and it gets to people 50' away.
jim

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Be a leader not a follower

It totally depends on what your market will bare. For me, I had to figure out what my time was worth then find a market where I could make it worth my time (and unfortuneatly, it was not my community one which is what I wanted to support). My girlfriend tried selling naturally leavened bread with organic ingredients and got nasty remarks about $4/loaf. She couldn't go elsewhere so ended up making what the local market-goers wanted - white bread.

The bread my family likes is $4.50 a loaf and that is a commercially made bread. That's the one my family likes, though, so that's what we pay.

A sweet bread costs some serious money to make, if you are baking a good loaf of sweet bread. I don't think anyone would bat an eye at $5 a loaf, especially if you hand out little slivers for people to taste.

At $5 a loaf, you'd better be darn sure you are actually making a profit. Nuts and dried fruit are through the roof expensive and sugar is getting way up there in price. Cinnamon and spices are going wacko with price increases.

I bake and I know what it costs me to bake up something really nice. It ain't cheap. You shouldn't be baking to sell if you aren't covering your costs for ingredients and cooking, plus something for your time.

By the way, it doesn't matter what the people on HT would pay. We pride ourselves on being a bunch of cheapskates.

Just because we won't pay $5 a loaf for good bread doesn't mean that a lot of people wouldn't be thrilled to get good home made bread for $5, or even more than that.

You have to present value, but also an eyecatching product. I love the idea of the samples; that'll be the hook that brings them in.

I've found that around here, many people will pay that for loaves of homemade sweet breads. Few people bake like this anymore, and what it now represents at the farmer's market is a connection to kitchens of mothers and grandmothers in their past. As Terrence Mann said, "For it's money they have, and peace they lack.... It'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces.... "

Sell the bread by selling the flavor and the nostalgia.

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