I have one question regarding bakery shops. I am seeing they used to keep many cakes and pastries in their shop. Well, I don't think they are selling all of them on daily basis. So what they are doing with remaining one? It is not kind of thing which they can keep for more days and sell it. Because if products are not fresh then they are going to lose customers for sure. So what they are doing with remaining product? Are they baring lose or something?
I don't know what people do at bakeries, but here in our neighborhood, we have Marukai Wholesale Mart a membership store. They have at Marukai fresh foods daily. Everyday they mark down all fresh foods made, sushi, roast pork, fried fish, bento (Japanese plate lunch), roasted sweet potatoes, freshly made chicken or pork cutlet like dish, oyako domburi, and other freshly made foods is all marked down 15-20% for fast sale. Sometimes they have nothing to markdown, and other times you can find many markdown items freshly made at markdown prices. Many come in for take home ready made dinners of bentos. I go to Safeway and they have freshly made baked goods. I don't see any mark downs, but they do have $5 Fridays on their baked goods that are left the same price until sold. I love Safeway's mini sour dough bread just 1.69 a loaf that I get cut into slices at their bread cutting machine. I guess they sell out all their fresh made products or have sales on the baked goods. We have a bread thrift shop that has day old breads, for lower prices too.Log Inhas very good prices where they sell freshly made baked goods too, for the bakery is right on Oahu too. We have another bakery near by, Dee Lite Bakery, but I'm not a regular so I don't know about them. I visit their shop at Ala Moana and grab a quick ham and cheese bread to treat myself and see no day old, stuff at all. I've never ventured to ask too, lol, about it at their counter when I go shopping too.
This is a good question. I am pondering this over too for lately I have bought a cake for the 13th birthday of my granddaughter. I bought it from my well trusted food store. I noticed that those cakes offered for sale is placed in well-sealed glass display cabinet. They are only a limited stocks. I know that store has already anticipated by experience to limit the stock of their cakes or they are only displaying some cakes for order but not in bulk. What would happen, of course, if those cakes are not bought and would stay for several days? So that's it. They have only a limited stock for display and in case it won't be sold, they have only lost a little. And it couldn't be avoided.
That depends on the store. Some of them sell what they display as you can even see them slicing the baked goods. Then there are stores that makes some cakes officially used for display. Those cakes usually ends up in the trash bin because it is only used as a display.
I consider myself pretty lucky in that I have never had much of a sweet tooth. This just means that I am able to easily avoid having to ever buy dessert or spend money on the things though, but I will from time to time.
@Krissttina Isobe You mean they cut of the price so that they get the fast sell. Right? Well, in that case sell will be fast. But they may found some odd days too. I mean they don't able to generate that much sell. Then what they do to all those foods? Is it kind of total lose.
@naruto100 I really don't know about off days when even the discounted foods didn't all sell out. I know though that you can get discounted foods when the afternoon crowd didn't buy it all. There are days when there are just a few like 3 packaged foods left and others when there is a lot more left over. When I am there when they got the discounted foods if there is something I want I'll buy it and enjoy it! I save money and get good almost homemade food to eat getting the discounted foods. There are days when I want go just open a package and eat so I don't have to cook.
This question has been on my mind too and I guess I will ask them outright one of these days. I see so many pretty cakes displayed and believe its just not possible to get them all sold. Unless of course people order them first, they make and put it on display till the buyers come by. I feel that there could be a lot of loss in that manner.
I don't know but those cakes and pastries that they make for display purposes often end up in bins. So sad. Usually, if it is a big and famous bakery they will sell almost all the cakes and other savories. It is those small local shops that suffer from wastage.
@Decentlady Yes even I thinks that. Not all cakes were made by order. I mean they having them normally too. I wonder what they can do it with them if they don't get sell. It is not kind of thing where they send it to the people from where they have purchased by telling unsold thing..lol. I guess they should be baring this loss.
I know French Baker marks down the price of their products around 8 PM, just an hour before closing time. They now sell the products at 20% off. As for the smaller bakeries, I have bought bread that are already old, they were quite hard and less tasty than the freshly cooked ones. I guess they just resell them until they look too old to be sold.
@moneymania Well, I don't think people would go to that place more if food is not fresh. So they should maintain the quality for sure otherwise people will avoid it. Yes decreasing price at evening may work. But still it is not possible that they can sell it all day via that too. So it is kind of loss if they have to throw it remaining stuff.
I have a few ideas about what happens to cakes that are left unsold in bakeshops or bakeries. Some bakeshops sell them to their employees or relatives at discounted prices. Some reprocess the cakes and other breads and turn them into a new bread product - a bread pudding. Some offer them at discounted prices 30 minutes before closing time. I've read a story about a bakery owner who put up a piggery business and used leftover bread as feeds. If there are too many of them, he also sold them to other piggery owners. I've also read stories about bakery owners giving some of them away to homeless people at closing time. Some bakeshops simply write off the unsold cake as part of their overhead and consider the average spoilage per day for a given period in the pricing of their products. Remember that we, as customers, value the cake based on their selling prices. The actual cost may just be a fraction of that so the bakeshops are probably not losing that much if a few cakes/breads are left unsold.
@naruto100, True, people would really avoid buying from bakeries that sell old bread, but that's what smaller bakeries do, unfortunately. At the most, they sell 1 day old bread . I also have heard of old bread being given or sold to piggeries, so that's a good way to recycle old bread. I also see pudding being sold in small bakeshops, they're the cheapest ones there in the bakery. They taste ok.
@Jamille Thanks.. That's really good information on this topic. I didn't know it that they can even reprocess to make another product. Yes like that way they can surely manage that left over items. Yes I have heard that they used to sell items in discounted price. But this is new that they also used to sell items at piggery owners. In short they have many things to sort out their unsold items. Good information.
@naruto100 I think they make them on order what you see in bakeries waiting to be delivered because most of these items have an expiry date so they cannot just keep them and sell them as and when a customer comes. Besides most of these bakeries have a fixed clientele so they know how much to bake for the day. If they still have some unsold items either they sell it on discounted price or donate it to needy ones.
@Ray1 Not all of them are made by order. As every time I go there I get the ready made cake. You are right on that they should know their daily limit and they must be making that much only. Yes in the end there is no other thing to do than selling in discount and do other thing.
I have no idea about this as well, though I know some shops do have a 30% - 50% discount after 6 or 8pm for the items, so they can get rid of the items faster and not to waste them. I don't see all bakery shops do that too, so I am not sure what those shops do with the cakes or pastries. I also heard that some shops prefer to donate these to the people in need.
@kaka135 Exactly. Even here I haven't seen bakeries are offering any discount even I went there at late evening or night, specially for cakes. I have paid full payment for cake each time I went there. I don't know about other places but here I haven't seen anything like this. Yup donating is the last option they have.
@naruto100 Bakeries know what they will sell for the week and they make the products according to that. They also know the shelf life of each product so there is very little waste. This is the way that it is in any food establishment. They have to think ahead. They keep a record of what they have sold and the quantity. This helps them to know how much to make on a daily basis. If you go into a bakery on an afternoon you will probably see that they have sold out of bread and fresh cream cakes already. The rest of the items they are selling are sold in a rotation. Fresh products are made daily and rotated so customers are always getting fresh.
