Personally, I’m a baker. I bake, I cook, I consider myself a chef. This is a self-determined title, but I consider myself a chef.
I make a four-layer cream cheese icing, all fresh ingredient carrot cake. It takes me a little while to do it because I shred the carrots, I cut up the pineapple, I put raisins in it, I do it all.
I do all this, and when I buy all the ingredients, including the fresh ingredients, I probably spend about $10.00, not counting my time, right? About $10.00 it costs me to make a four-layer ginormous cake with cream cheese icing, butter, everything.
These bakeries get a discount because they’re buying wholesale. They’re buying the flour wholesale, their sugar wholesale, everything. All their ingredients are wholesale. I would venture to guess that each cake they make might cost them $3.00 tops. Insane right?
If they’re putting some kind of ingredient on top of it like fresh strawberries, or some kind of high-quality chocolate ganache, that might add .25c. So, it’s costing them $3.00, they’re making $72.00 on average. That is an insane amount of profit, right?
Now you have to factor in operating costs, employee wages, etc. But, they make 20 different cakes, they sell cupcakes and cookies as well. They’re open, slinging cakes, cupcakes, cookies, petit fours, all day long—excellent customer service, great setup, beautiful shop, all of that.
So they’re doing it, they’re doing it big. They are making a mad profit.