Working on a business plan for a home bakery. County avg income 48,000 for population 129,000. Food service sales 327,000 avg. What information can we gleen from this information to determine if this area could sustain a home bakery? What other information would be helpful to determine? There is not a bakery within 20 miles. I'm hoping Indydebi and others will chime in here! TIA

One thing to take into consideration. You are talking "home" bakery. This is not going to meet the criteria of the sales analysis you have found for Food Service Sales. The home bakery does not have the visual drive of a storefront. You will not have the walk in customers that others have either. I am working on a restaurant business plan right now and have found a lot of data and stats as well. These are useful, but also look for the target audience you will need. Such as families (kids are great cake sellers), Ages 19-25 are a big target as well for weddings. This should help you as far as who is in your county that may call upon you for business.

Did your research break down the population for you? You need to use that as well. Mine did as far as how many families vs total population. You cannot say ok I have 129,000 people to sell to. You do not, you may have 43,000 families. This will make a difference as well. Race will play a part as well. Large hispanic populations are not going to be your target. (at least not mine), we have a lot of hispanic stores and bakeries in the next town (15 miles), this is where they prefer to shop since these are flavors and items they are use to and largely prefer.

Does any of that make sense? lol. I am very new to business plans but what homework I have done has led me in this direction so I thought maybe it will help you as well.

Thanks so much patticakesnc. Your input is very helpful. Its not easy to interpret the data. Hopefully others will help us determine what information to look at to project income.

patticakes, you did a great job!!

She is right, you need to break down the demographics.

Median age: A bunch of young couples with lots of kids who need birthday cakes? Folks in the marrying age (whatever THAT is!)? A senior citizens community?, which indicates the younger crowd is moving away after graduation.

I started to type out a lot of stuff, but I'll just cut-n-paste from the "Market Analysis" of my plan for you, to give you an idea of how you utilize and analyze the numbers. Bear in mind these numbers are a few years old and are presented just as format samples, not as current hard data.
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  Indianapolis is the 12th largest city in the United States, with a population of 818,014.
  Metropolitan Indianapolis includes a nine-county area with a combined population of 1,461,684 and represents approximately 26% of the states total population.
  Marion County proper represents over half of the Metropolitan areas population, with Hamilton county (north of Indianapolis) being over 10% of the metro population.
o  Hamilton County is the fastest growing county in the state, experiencing a 68% population growth between 1990 and 2000, and where the median family income is $80,239.
  Indianapolis has a high average income per household, with 45.6% of the households in the Metropolitan area having an income above $50,000


The target market within this geographical area is the bridal/wedding market.

  With a 2001 marriage rate of 5.7 per 1000, and based on the above population of 1,461,684 for the metro area, this equates to over 8000 weddings in the metropolitan area.
  The national average cost of a wedding is $22,360.
  Depending on the source, one-third to one-half (or more) of the budget is spent on the wedding reception, or approximately $7,000-$12,000.
  This is a potential of $50-90 million to be spent on wedding receptions in the Indianapolis Metropolitan area.

Thanks Bonnie and Indydebi. Since I just started last night looking at how to do a business plan I was really afraid that I was way off target and would have to start over lol. I am glad I do have the correct interpretation on how to do this. I am only looking for a $40,000 start up investor for my restaurant and amazingly this will carry me for approx. 6 months while I get started.

The building I am looking at is fully stocked from equipment to utensils...even the cash register is already there! For only $2750 a month! In Charlotte NC and in one of the busiest areas. Great thing is I am looking to do a homestyle restaurant and there isn't anything in the general vicinity that is the same style. It is all fast food, Japanese, or Mexican. There is a lot of office business as well! The average income there is $48,000 a year and the median age is 30 yrs old and 62.2% of the 43,000 people are families. Now my stats are for only the area code in which I will operate rather than the entire city. Charlotte has 700,000 people in it and 6% of them are in my zip code. This is out of 67 zip codes in the city.

So the demographics are there for me. But there again I will be a store front. I have a home bakery now and although there isn't anything near me I still do not do well due to the lack of the visual effect.

This is a great thread for people who are writing business plans!

I'm going to save me a spot on this thread.
I'm working on mine...still, I keep adding and changing things.

Does anyone have a copy of your business plan you would be willing to share? I am looking for a starting point.

Thank you!!!

SweetsbySuz, google it and you should find a lot of online resources to help you put your plan together. You should also be able to find a lot of demographic information too (check the source is reliable)

Also remember your Risk Analysis when writing your business plan. Lots of people overlook this.