That tip about asking for stale pastries for your freezer was a game changer

Was chatting with a baker downtown last Wednesday and he mentioned he gives away day-old croissants to a few local cafe owners for like $10 a box. I tried it with my spot on Sunset and now I offer a discounted "yesterday's fresh" basket that people actually love. Saved me about $80 a week on waste and the customers think it's a fun secret menu thing. Anyone else doing something similar with bakery leftovers?

2 comments

2 Comments

hannahs451mo ago

Oh man, yes! My bakery on 3rd Street does the exact same thing with our leftover sourdough rolls. We bag them up in these cute little brown paper bags with a handwritten "bargain batch" sticker and they sell out by 10am every Saturday. It actually started because I felt bad throwing away so much bread after my farmers market booth. Now I just set aside a shelf near the register with the discounted stuff - cinnamon rolls from yesterday, slightly squished cookies, that sort of thing. Customers get such a kick out of hunting for the deals and I save like $60 a week on ingredients that would have been trashed.

drewsullivan1mo ago

Oh wait hold on I gotta fix something real quick. @hannahs45 you said you save $60 a week on ingredients but that math doesn't quite work out in my head. If you're selling the day-olds instead of trashing them you're not saving on ingredients you're making extra profit off stuff you already paid for. Like I pay $30 for a case of croissant dough and if I sold all of them fresh I'd make $120 but with the day-olds I still make like $85 off that same case. So it's more like $55 extra in my pocket versus $60 in savings. Not trying to be a jerk just the difference between cost and revenue matters when you're tracking margins.