Goodbye Wholesale Bakery

For those of you who didn't know, Our Daily Bread Restaurant has been supplying several coffee carts both here in Veneta and in Eugene, with assorted bakery products and, until recently, our breakfast burritos. Well . . . no more! As of March 31st, the only place you will be able to find our popular Pumpkin-Gingerbread Muffins is here at the restaurant. We have been supplying some of these carts for over a year now, so we've committed to meeting the demand in-house with a larger array of pastries in the morning. This, along with the espresso we offer here, might just be enough for the disappointed regulars of our local coffee carts.

BACKGROUND
Like many aspects of the ODB that have come and gone over the last three years, the wholesale bakery idea was one of those that just fell into our laps and we decided to give it a try. We were approached by a local coffee cart about our bakery products. Because of them, we developed a rather extensive wholesale menu and decided to pursue other coffee carts. We even went so far as to hire a salesperson on a commission basis to pursue coffee carts farther abroad in Eugene and Junction City. At its height, we served upwards of 10 different coffee carts several times a week.


NOT SO GOOD NEIGHBORS
The wholesale business is a cut-throat one! Someone is always trying to get THEIR product in over yours. It was a constant haggling process with the coffee carts to get our items at lower prices. Our prices were often under-cut which required us to come back and make a better offer. Both my parents and I, come from 'let's work together' community mentality. We appreciate business relationships and expect them to be honored. We do not operate with a 'dog eat dog' mentality. We were incredibly disappointed by the underhanded actions of fellow business owners to take away our business with the coffee carts. Indeed, our entire breakfast burrito wholesale business was under cut by another local restaurant. While we were disappointed with the restaurant owner (and will never eat at his establishment again), the coffee cart owner is not blameless in this either. The coffee cart owner never communicated what was going on or gave us a chance to make a better offer. She just dropped the burritos. We'd created the wholesale menu and pricing for her and she's just threw away any semblance of a business relationship without notice.

THE DECISION
The decision to discontinue wholesale sales came about quickly based on the above circumstances and a few other reason . . .

1) Profit Margin.
Wholesale is what comes before retail as far as pricing goes. We make significantly less percentage of profit per a bakery item than if we sold it in our own restaurant. In order to make money in the wholesale business, you have to have volume. We don't have the time to grow the business fast enough to accommodate the need for volume.

2) Restaurant Image
From the beginning, we have struggled with the image of being a bakery not a restaurant. Too often, a bakery is all people think of us as. And here we are putting our name out there on a bakery item! It doesn't make much sense and gives potential customers a false impression of who we are. We are much more than a bakery.

3) Labor
The wholesale bakery orders required a delivery driver. Whether it was three items or twenty, the delivery driver (our baker) had to drive the route three times a week. The carts also need their items early so this meant that the baker had to be scheduled at a time that was appropriate for deliveries. This was rarely an efficient use of labor in a time when we were making cuts across the board to accommodate the economic challenge of the day.

All in all, we found the wholesale business to be the wrong fit for us. It took away from the restaurant and gave very little back. Our energies can be spent better elsewhere. We haven't eliminated it entirely. Instead, we set a hire minimum order for wholesale products. This summer will be supplying several local farms with bakery items for resale, but no more of this little stuff.