How much would you charge for your bread?

For my friends I charge the price of the ingredients.

That is what I charge those who wish to buy my bread. I know that seems a little pricey, however, I don't have the time to bake enough bread for my family, and my time is valuable. 

Now, I have given loaves away to friends, family and on perfect stranger.  But, that is only done when I know I have enough bread for myself.

Plus, I am seriously considering quitting the practice of law to sell bread. However, the only way that this can actually happen is if my bread is priced properly and I feel that $1,200 a loaf would do it.  That is considerably less than what people pay for my time.  Unfortunately, I am having trouble convincing anybody that this is a good deal.

They charge almost $5 for a loaf of white bread at the patisserie up the road.  Ridiculous.

Depends on whether you're known.

If you're unknown you can't charge that much until you addict a client base and that depends on a lot of variables - they may have become addicted but they never come back. Doesn't sound right but it does happen. People are total strangers to good bread for the most part and will have fond memories eating sourdough on Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco but their trips back are rather limited.

Just letting them know you're local, available and there for the long haul is the larger part of the battle.

Selling a loaf is not as lucrative as selling a melted cheese sandwich made from it. Making a most remarkable melted cheese will haul them back especially if you have support in the half-sour pickle and potato salad category. Of course you could move up-scale with lightly smoked Dungeness Crab to make sandwiches served with Anchor Steam beer. I could go on but it would only make you extremely famished - that's what you have to do to your clientele, making them totally famished for "your" food based on bread.

Oh yeah, I forgot - you need to know how to make the perfect Ceasar Salad with perfect croutons and lightly smoked chicken chunks (smoked salmon or ahi also works). Serve with a light white wine.

Or you could go Panini's like so many others - this has gotten a bit tired but it does satisfy the basic hunger needs of the untrained palette.

So now you have to add wine & beer liquor license annual fees and maintenance fees on all the additional equipment necessary to hauling them in.  

Ok, we were trying to price a loaf of bread but what's happened is there's this basic need to stay in business - meaning that the menu will expand to fit the opportunity. It's best not to forget that the reason you're in business in the first place is to fulfill peoples basic nutrition needs - the trick is becoming "that place" in their minds (and hopefully their stomachs).

There's other setups but this is the basic idea - to become a clients reliable destination for good solid food based on bread. If you're good they'll even bring their friends...,

Wild-Yeast 

I charged $3 a loaf, because it was sourdough, and it was a friend to whom I sold it.  I would probably charge a little more for someone else.

Why not try letting your friends put their own price on your breads/friendship? - See what happens and take it from there if you wish to continue baking bread for them (Or indeed continuing the friendship)

There is a whole lot of difference between baking commercially and doing favours for loved ones!

Happy baking

Brian 

...that would include ingredients and some extra to cover baking costs. It depends on what kinds of breads you're baking, but you should be able to estimate these.

Another alternative is to charge the cost of similar breads from a bakery or farmer's market.

Even though you're baking for a friend, you're going the extra mile to help with his party. I think it's perfectly reasonable to at least ask enough to cover your costs.

This week's Ancient and Rare Grain Ploetiade bake is a very expensive one - but not the most expensive.  The flour costs from $3.33 up to $6.66 a pound.  Just for the 1,045 g of flour, the cost was $11.50 for the two loaves or $5.75 each - just for flour.  They also have 200 g each of either scald or sprouts using the same grain or $2.20 each.  So just the grain cost $7.95 - pretty steep.

They don't but they could have easily had a bottle of Trappist beer for some of the liquid each too or another $7.95 for the liquid putting the price up to $15.90.  And that is before the possible cost of one of lucy's master pieces that have dried fruits, nuts, aromatic and other seeds and the cost of electricity.  You won't be able to buy this bread anywhere.  Lucy is the only one making it and it isn't for sale mainly because none of my friends is going to pay $20 -$25 for a loaf of bread - they be way more high on the IQ scale than that plus, they are not rich enough either.  They might get a taste though especially if Lucy gives me 2 slices to taste.

On the other hand, Lucy can bake a loaf of 20-30% whole grain white SD bread all in for 99 cents baking them 1 at a time in Big Old Betsy - Chad sells them for $9 but we all make them, no worries at all, for way less.   Better to make them both at home and only pay an average cost of $8.50 a loaf and at least have one bread no one else will ever have the pleasure of tasting - every day for a week, every now and again:-) 

The cost of most of our loaves come in at less than $2.50, so selling them for $5 wouldn't be out of bounds.  We would only have to sell 192 a week to equal my SS monthly income !  A tough business if you aren't selling sandwiches too like Wild Yeast says.  But I always thought a real bakery has to sell breakfast and lunch, pizza for dinner, alcohol, candy, ice cream,  cookies, cakes, pies and every other kind of dessert - with the fresh fruits, cheese and salad.  A lot easier to make money if you call your bakery a restaurant but restaurants are a tough business and fail more often than any other business it seems :-)

I would never want to own a bakery, but bakeries buy flour in bulk and wholesale as they do with other ingredients.  Yes, they have overhead that we home bakers do not have, like staff, and machinery that uses up more electricity than our home ovens would.  I think it all comes down to how much you love baking (at home) and how much you love your friends.  I would happily give away bread to friends and neighbours, but these people seem to be embarrassed NOT to be paying, so I shrug and ask them what they think it's worth.  Warm, homemade bread delivered to your door?  Can't find that every day.

I look at it like this, if I had you over for a meal would I charge for it.  Never done it in the past and don't think it will happen in the future, if a guest brings a bottle of wine or something it is appreciated but never expected.

Gerhard

Are you invited to this party?  If this was me and I was invited I would either do it for free or not at all.  If it is such a burden that I feel I need to be paid I would politely decline.  I'm sure a friend would understand.  On the other hand, baking a few loaves (something I enjoy doing anyway) for friends is a welcome opportunity to, well, be a friend. 

If you're not invited... charge 'em an arm and a leg ;)

Marc

Just sayin'

;)

If I were invited and it's a few breads, I would consider it equal to a gift of wine or flowers.

If it is a whole batch of breads, and not my nearest and dearest friend, I would charge 3 times my cost of goods (= 1 third costs of ingredients,1 third for my time and 1 third as profit). That will still be less than what you would have to pay for an artisan bread of the same quality.

Karin

I'd check the prices at your local baker/store for a similar loaf.  Adjust your price up or down a bit from there based on how good a friend and how your product compares.   

I know this is an old thread but when I make and sell challah bread I sell the regular loaves for $10 and speciality ones for $12. Huge dinner rolls for $7 a dozen or $12 for 2 doz. They sell like hot cakes.