This morning I spoke to a private label baker. This is a large scale production facility that needs a minimum 1000lb. order to produce our mandel bread. So now, we’re looking at our next phase of Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread production, scaling large. The questions are: what does our product weigh after baking? How many boxes would we have to sell to meet the minimum 1000 lb. order, and, how much would that cost? This week I’ll bring some samples over to the private label baker so he can cost out the production. This should be an interesting week. If we pull it off, we’ll jump from a little mom and pop op, to a large scale manufacturing facility. But is this a reality for us? It means we will need distributors, sales! and money! - Can we pull it off? Who knows, I think Aunt Erma’s has the potential to be big – But I guess we wouldn’t be swinging for the fences if I didn’t.
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Here’s Aunt Erma’s on the shelves at the Whole Foods Market 3rd Street (right across the street from the Farmer’s Market).
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A pre-thanksgiving baking run at the rental kitchen was chaotic. Traffic out of Los Angeles was so bad that it took us over an hour to get to the place (in Pasadena). We arrived at 3:06…and they were closing at 4:45 pm. We managed to bake 4 cases of mandel bread in about 2 hours, but we were in such a rush that we lost 3/4 of a case on burnt ends and broken pieces. Meanwhile, Whole Foods at the Grove has asked us to put in a request to regional to be part of the DVO system, which is Whole Foods system that allows Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread to be available in the entire region. There are 28 stores in Souther California. The tough part is managing the cost analysis, trying to figure out how to expand and remain profitable. This week I’ll be looking at private label bakers who can handle large scale production of Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread. Our friend Chris Clemmons at Food Tools in Santa Barbara gave us our first quote on a piece of equipment that will allow us to automate part of the baking process. A $50,000 contraption that will slice and flip the mandel bread. Casa Bianca Coffee Shop in Pasadena did a test run selling individual sticks of Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread at 99¢ a piece and sold out !! – Stay tuned.
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Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread added its third store to the chain today. Come see us Friday morning at Whole Foods Market on Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood!
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Our 8 year old Eli took this picture of the ceiling of our rental kitchen.
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We spent time baking Aunt Erma’s finest at our rental kitchen in Pasadena today. As we begin to add more stores, we face newer challenges. I always had this idea that I wanted a product that was cheap enough to not put people off. I’ve seen some other boutique types of mandel bread, and I get offended when I see the prices they are asking for this stuff. My sister sent some of the competition’s product back East for us to try and she paid 20 bucks for this overly sweet, dry, crap mandel bread. So how do we scale up and remain profitable? Big cookie manufactures have a small staff drop raw ingredients in to a mixer, and the rest of the process runs automatically through extruders, cutters and tunnel ovens and straight in to automatic packaging equipment. We don’t have that stuff yet. Our profit margin is only maintained if we can produce approximately 2 cases of mandel bread in 1 hour. So, on a day like today, a couple of slip ups and next thing you know we spent 2.5 hours in the kitchen and produced only 2 cases of mandel bread. Ok for now, as we are still growing, and giving out samples, but when things really roll this is a big issue. So this next week I’m concentrating on costs analysis and efficiency. The holidays could be interesting…And if you are at the Farmer’s Market in Los Angeles tomorrow, hop across the street to the Whole Foods Market and pick up a box of Aunt Erma’s!
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11-13-09 BREAKING
Aunt Erma’s Mandel bread just added its second Whole Foods Market. Beginning Tuesday 11/17/09 Aunt Erma’s finest will be on the shelves at Whole Foods Market Fairfax. This is a premium Whole Foods location located directly across the street from the Los Angeles Farmer’s Market and The Grove shopping center. Come see us in the cookie isle!
Thank you Solomon at Whole Foods!
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Today we did a test run at our new rental kitchen in Pasadena, Ca. This is a great place, an actual incubator kitchen – designed for the purpose of renting to food biz start-ups. So here’s a few pix at Mamma’s kitchen! The kitchen has connections to Le Cordon Bleu, as we staff up our employees will likely be students of that prestigious school. We’re looking at hiring patisserie students to bake the mandel bread…crazy. We even had a group of recent grads and some students working along side us today and they sampled Aunt Erma’s finest and gave us their feedback. Two batches cooked, one convection, and one conventional oven. The group was split between the toastier convection, and the classic. Tomorrow Crystal spends the day in a Food Manager Safety Program (a requirement that at least one person in the business have a food safety certificate.) – and I’m off to Whole Foods stores three and four on our mandel quest
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