A bakery is a factory where all foods made using flour are being made, such as bread, cake, cookies, pastry and others.
Starting up a bakery business in Nigeria will require a lot; but of you’re passionate about baking things and looking to go into something much bigger than where you are; why not?
About 10 million loaves of bread are consumed in Lagos everyday. Got that? Exactly. Bread, as with most other pastries is the most cheapest and quickest food anytime of the day. It is one of the most widely consumed foods, cutting across all continents, different peoples, ethnic and religious groups. So if you’re considering starting up a bakery business in Nigeria; I say cheers!
With sufficient capital and meeting other requirements; starting up a bakery in Nigeria shouldn’t be that hard. So let’s see how.
#1. Get Training
Before you jump in head first into any business, you need to have extensive knowledge and skill in the business, the same applies to a bakery business. To develop baking skills you will need training in bakery and food processing. You could either do this by getting attached to a bakery; so as to learn all the skills of baking from a professional baker. Or you could search for a professional instructor or some sort of baking school for your training. Note that your success in this business largely depends on your depth of knowledge and expertise.
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#2. Write a detailed business plan
Next, you need to draft a well written business plan for your bakery business. As they always say; he who fails to plan, plans to fail. And just like any other business; a bakery business requires strategic planning. A well drafted business plan should define your business goals, highlight sources/source of funding, expenses, your marketing strategy, competition and your customer base. A good business plan will describe your business, where you’re taking the business and your target market and how you plan to reach them.
Find out how to write a business plan; of better yet get some professional assistance to get it done for you
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#3. Register your bakery
Make your business official and legal by getting it registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). Find out how the article on how to register your company with CAC in Nigeria.
Next, have your bakery registered with the Association of Nigerian Bakers; contract a lawyer to process the necessary requirements and paper work for your license and obtain NAFDAC registration so that your potential customers can know that your product is safe for consumption.
#4. Choose a good location
Every business needs to be strategically located for optimum profits, however; a good location is vital for your bakery but not critical. If your product is good, well branded and marketed effectively; it will do well in the market regardless of the location of your bakery. Major cities are however recommended for a startup like yours. So do your homework and ensure that you pick a strategic location for your bakery business.
#5. Build a factory
To build your factory; you have to hire building professionals for the job. Your factory has to be properly planned and executed in order to meet NAFDAC requirements for approval.
How To Start A Bakery Business In Nigeria
#6. Hire labour
Next, you have to hire other people for a smoother running of your bakery business. Regardless of the size of your bakery; it is quite impossible to run it alone. So set out to hire competent and qualified personnel as to form your management team. Ensure that your management team are in sync with your company’s objective. Have a good company culture in place( read the article on how to build a company culture for your business in Nigeria); and you may just be on your way to running a wildly successful bakery in Nigeria.
#7. Marketing strategy
You will need a very good marketing strategy in place to drive optimum sales for your products. You can actually start out by giving free samples to family and friends, and also retail shop owners around your environment to convince and encourage them to buy from you, and if possible enter into working agreement with you. The small network of clients/customers that you have will steadily grow as long as you can consistently provide your customers with sweet – tasting quality products; and can meet the expectations of your customers. The customer they say is king. To this end, your products must be of good quality and the consumer most be well satisfied with the quality and get value for their money.
How To Start A Bakery Business In Nigeria
Materials and equipments needed to start up
As a new startup, you will have to acquire the following materials and equipments to start up your bakery
- Oven
- Milling and lister machine
- Generator
- Slicing machine
- Delivery van
- Wrapper ( nylon)
- Pan
- Ceiling and industrial fan
- Ladder
- Scale
- Apron
- Chopping table
- Slicer and pan cleaner
- Mixing machine
You will have to buy and acquire all these materials and equipments, which is pretty capital intensive if you don’t already have some of them. With this in view, there are two ways to start this business as a beginner. One; you can rent a bakery fully loaded with the required equipments, and Two; you can build and equip your own bakery to the required standard.
How To Start A Bakery Business In Nigeria
Baking oven
This is one the most important equipments needed to start up a bakery business. It is with the oven that the product ( in this case; bread) baked. There are different types of oven namely; Matador, Element, Tube, Electric, Mud, and many others. You need to go for the industrial baking oven; an example is the Stream Tube Oven. Tube oven comes in various sizes( e.g 4feet by 8feet, 6feet by 8feet). There are tube ovens that can contain one and a half bag of flour, 2 bags and 4 bags of flour at a time. A unique feature of the Tube Oven is that it can be powered by firewood, and not only electricity; as is found in other types of ovens. This is a cost effective feature because firewood reduces expenses due to high costs of diesel and irregularity of power supply in the country.
Milling and Lister machine
The milling machine is required to mill the dough to the point where it will be ready to be cut into different sizes. The Lister machine on the other hand is used to power the milling machine; which is why the two machines are being connected. NAFDAC requires that bakeries have a stainless milling machine and not ordinary iron.
Power Generator Set
A power generator set will serve as an alternative source of power supply to the entire company. The electric power will be used to slice the bread, and cooling the hot fresh baked bread etc.
Mixing machine
The mixing machine is used to mix all the ingredients, such as flour, sugar, eggs, yeast, butter, flavour, etc together. Mixing of ingredients forms one of the most crucial stages of production. Alternatively you can hire a baker to do the mixing of the dough and there might be no need to purchase a mixing machine.
Packaging
Packaging of bread, cakes and other pastries is usually what will first off attract the consumers, and so for this reason your products must be well packaged in a very attractive and presentable wrapper.
Delivery Van
You will need to acquire a delivery van that will serve the purpose of getting your products to its final consumers. At this stage, you can start with just one delivery van until your customer base expands.
Slicing machine
After the freshly baked bread must have cooled, the bread will then have to be sliced using a slicing machine for the job.
Staffing Bakers.In the production section, you will need bakers whose job description is to turn the raw goods into finished products. Bakers are solely responsible for baking any items that you may want to produce such as bread, cakes, cupcakes, chin chin, doughnuts and many others.
Apprentice/ Pan cleaner. These guys are to assist in the production section; in this case their job description is essentially to assist the bakers during production.
Sales representative. The sales reps function primarily in the marketing department of the company; and together with the driver, they will be in charge of supplying the bread( or whatever products you specialize in) from the bakery to the stores and the final consumers.
Supervisor or manager. A supervisor or a manager will be in charge of overseeing the day to day activities of the bakery, coordinate staff, schedule supplies, monitor company accounts and other logistics involved in the business.
To conclude, note that when making purchases of raw materials, you should do so directly from the producing companies or from wholesale registered distributors who sell in large quantities. This way you can have access to larger quantities of goods at relatively lower prices.
I hope this article was helpful?
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(B.Agric, MBA)
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Serial Entrepreneur - International Business Planning Consultant - Speaker - Trainer - Author - Blogger - Network Marketing professional.
- 2018 SME Business Trainer and Coaching Advisor at GIZ for SME Loop.
- 2018 YALI RLC Online Cohort 9
- 2017 Fellow, Inspire Africa Train-the-Trainer Entrepreneurship programme sponsored by US Consulate Lagos and the Dickey Center, U.S.A.
- 2016 Fellow, Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme
- 2015 Top 50 Innovative Entrepreneurs, BET5 by Diamond Bank and EDC, PAU.
He is an alumnus of Enterprise Development Centre (EDC) of the Lagos Business School (LBS), Pan-Atlantic University (PAU). Through his training, mentoring, speaking and coaching programmes, he has empowered many young people over the years to start and grow their own business, build wealth, create multiple streams of income and achieve financial independence.
- He is a Certified Trainer in Design Thinking by the U.S Consulate, Lagos and the inspire Africa Entrepreneurship Institute.
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