Despite the awkward working hours and the threat to your waistline when surrounded by freshly baked goods on a daily basis, the job of a baker is surely an ideal one. And why wouldn’t it be?
You get to be productive, you have the freedom to be as creative as you want, coming up with recipes of your own with your favourite ingredients, you contribute to other people’s happiness which in turn contributes to your own happiness also and allows you to work on your social skills, meeting new people.
Let’s not forget it’s also among the better-paid jobs, because bread was and still is one of the staple foods throughout the world. Likewise, apart from good old white bread, artisanal bread (e.g. organic, gluten free) is becoming more and more popular in Australia now that we’re living in times of higher health-consciousness. If you’re dreaming of opening up your boutique bakery, take this as a hint and start working on making your dream come true.
How to Get Started
Sure, there are lots of things to consider and calculations to make, but as long as you create a plan, decide what you’re going to specialise in and set a budget you don’t have to be afraid to move forward. While there are many aspects to go through, such as the location, surrounding competition and furnishings, there’s no bakery without buying one of the commercial bakery ovens for sale, so make that your priority.
Luckily, there are a vast variety of options when it comes to ovens, so you won’t have trouble finding the right one for your baking needs that would fit well within your budget too.
Along with the oven, it’s important to focus on the rest of the necessary equipment such as the dough mixers, sheeters and proofing cabinet as they’re designed to help you out and investing in them would result in a boost in capacity and productivity and consequentially bring to an increase in profits.
This is especially the case with bakery equipment that’s designed according to the latest technology standards, the kind of innovation that positively affects the efficiency of your business due to the improvement in the baking practice altogether.
Buying an Oven
As mentioned, it’s one of the most important pieces of equipment, and as such deserves more attention knowing how great of a role it has in the quality of the bread you bake.
Since there are plenty of options of commercial bakery ovens for sale, price isn’t the only aspect you’re going to have to focus on. First things first, think about what it is you’re going to be baking; bread and products alike aren’t the same as confections, so the first would do well with deck ovens while the latter would be better with the convection alternative.
In case you’d be baking both, it’s best to invest in mixed-use complex ovens with independent modules instead. Don’t forget to consider the size of your baked goods either because it’s an aspect that’s related to the size of the oven and on the side note, it’s also important spatially for your bakery.
The last thing you need is buying an oven that’s going to cram up your space. Furthermore, you have to include the doorways and entryway into the equation as they also have a say in the size.
Depending on how much you’re planning to bake in a day, for larger volumes you’d find the conveyor ovens more useful along with some features, in the example of automatic humidifier, proofer, programmable motorised draft and more than one control zones, so before you set out to buy the ideal oven, make sure you have calculated this, plus the future plans (would you ever expand or not?) and customer demand.
In terms of costs, specifically when it comes to utility, you’d have to make the choice between gas and electric ovens. Things are changing in the sense that gas was always the cheaper option though not so much as of late since the prices are somewhat near, so ask yourself what it is that you prefer most.
Given the fire hazard as well as health risks due to the heat and grease the commercial bakery ovens for sale bring about, one of the crucial features that would certainly come in handy is the rapid cooling cycle. Still, to be on the safe side, it’s best to invest in the adequate HVAC system as well as take care of ventilation.
This is essential so that you don’t spend as much energy on cooling with the HVAC and put too much strain on it. On the plus side, you’d be adding to energy efficiency which is always beneficial, even more if you opt for an oven with parameters like automatic powering off and operation below nominal power.
