Starting a Dog Bakery
Love dogs and baking? Maybe this interesting niche business is for you.
A lot of dog bakeries have been sprouting up across country in the last five years. To be successful they almost always need to be in fairly large towns of 75,000 or more, or in towns with significant tourist traffic. If you don't have the tourists or the people, though, there is still a possibility of making your dog bakery work through the internet or mail order, though you'll need a whole additional set of business skills if you want to take that path.
To start a dog bakery you'll need much of the same things you'd need for a people bakery: a great location, a business license, a resellers certificate, all the equipment required to make your dog biscuits and other baked goods, and a serious willingness to work the kinds of hours a bakery requires.
Having a dog bakery is easier than having a people bakery in that you may be able to get around some of the health code requirements that a normal bakery would have to navigate. Of course, that depends on your town -- some are lax with dog bakeries, and some towns just treat them like regular bakeries. Put in a call with your local business registration and licensing office and get an idea what its going to take. Remember that passing a health inspection routinely means having to make changes -- like adding a sink, or rerouting plumbing -- that cost thousands of dollars.
If you want to start small, launching a dog biscuit business is a fantastic way to get into baking for dogs, earn money, and find out whether your business idea really has legs in your community. The benefit here is that you do not need a retail location. You can bake out of your home, so all you'll need are a bunch of great dog cookie recipes, some knowledge of canine nutrition, packaging and marketing materials, and supplies to create some inventory. And, of course, a business license so you can get a checking account and behave like a real business. Your startup costs can be kept as low as $1000 or less if you're frugal and creative about packaging.
Then start taking samples around to dog-related businesses and see if someone will give you a little shelf space. Be prepared to hand out an awful lot of samples. It might be a good idea to get a test pack of dogs to test recipe variations on, too. There are an awful lot of dog cookies around, so to make yours worth the extra money and the extra hassle of another trip to another store, they are going to have to be really delicious.
If you want to go the route of a full retail dog bakery you are going to need considerably more money -- like $20,000 to $50,000. Your location may make or break you, so you'll need to spend a lot of time and research and even money (for a lawyer) to get that right. I have never seen one, but I wonder how a dog bakery cart would work... kind of like the hotdog stand for the dog park.
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Start a Home Bakery
Buying a Bakery
How to Open a Bakery
How to Start a Cupcake Business
Start a Dog Bakery
Cottage Food Laws and Home Bakeries
Write a Bakery Business Plan
Choose a Name for Your Bakery
Bakery Equipment - What You Need to Start Your Bakery
Bakery Management Software: Spend a Little or a Lot
Starting a Catering Business
Startup Costs for a Home Bakery
Startup Costs for a Retail Bakery
Licenses and Permits Required to Start a Bakery
Create a Great Bakery Storefront
Developing a Bakery Brand Identity
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