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Mom, can you bring me enough of your bread for a year ahead? Or why won't my production bake anything else?
Mom, can you get some bread for next year? Or why doesn't my work bake anything anymore?
The production of Nikitin-khleb bread ceased exactly nine years later, from October 8, 2015 to October 8, 2024.
In 2015, my partner and I opened a bakery.
In 2018, with the bread selling like hotcakes, the workshop expanded to 350 square meters.
During the 2020 pandemic, the company grew by leaps and bounds, to the point of having 25 of its own kiosks throughout Voronezh.
They bought new equipment, opened a new store, and baked 1,700 loaves of bread a day, but by 2024 sales had plummeted and costs had risen sharply.
The bread was stored for a long time, cut well, did not crumble and had a pleasant aroma thanks to the yeast. The idea was to make bread according to the recipe "like in the good old days".
I write this while the numbers and details of what it means to own and run a bakery business for nine years are still fresh in my mind.
Disclaimer: This article was written by the author of the blog "Fell, Got Up" based on an interview with Victoria Nikitina, who until recently was a co-owner of a bakery in Voronezh.
<Rikbez> is not taken from the main character of the article. Thanks to the Food Business Podcast, we have laid the scientific foundations.>
Recently (2,000 years ago) people realized that if you rub wheat grains between heavy stones, you get flour.
Wheat did not always survive in Russia and the Slavic brothers had the idea to do the same with rye.
Now I have to give my children flour so they can eat Darnitsky's crust on the way back from the store.
If we look at the world from the point of view of yeast, we can conclude that it is closer to their planet than to ours. Yeast lives in air, water and flour (1 gram of flour contains from 10 to 5 yeast cells).
Yeast is a single-celled fungus that feeds on sugar and releases carbon dioxide and alcohol. That is why sourdough should be revered not only by those with a sweet tooth, but also by alcoholics.
The carbon dioxide bubbles stick to the dough and detach it, creating a porous structure. Visually, this translates into a rise in the dough. Artificially cultured baker's yeast is commonly used for baking bread.
Bread can only be made with yeast, and rye bread cannot be made without acidifying the dough and souring it with sourdough.
Lactic acid bacteria, like yeast, loosen and raise the dough. Sourdough is made by injecting lactic acid bacteria and natural yeast.
Lactic acid bacteria are not as hardy as yeast and produce less gas. Therefore, the rising of bread is caused more by yeast entering the starter from flour or air.
Sourdough bread is often called yeast-free bread to follow the trend of healthy lifestyles. But strictly speaking, bread does not rise only thanks to lactic acid bacteria. The important thing in sourdough is not the baker's yeast, but the yeast contained in the flour or in the air.
Large bakeries use regular yeast, as it is produced artificially in yeast factories.
And experts call wild sourdough, dominated by air or flour yeast. Indeed, instead of a single distinct yeast strain, up to 20 different species can live in a single jar of sourdough.
Yeast-free bread as a whole is purely marketing. However, sourdough bread still has its own taste and aroma, so from the point of view of benefits, there is no scientific information, but from the point of view of taste, sourdough bread may actually be more aromatic and delicious than bread with yeast. is. It is more accurate to say bread without baker's yeast on the packaging/panel than unleavened bread.
And while the yeast itself dies at temperatures above 45 degrees, the middle of the bread also warms up to 90 degrees. This means that the entire bread is made without yeast.
And even if the yeast had survived in the bread, science would not have found any problems. Today, you can buy yeast in pharmacies that acts as a probiotic.
We used a hop starter: honey, water, flour and hops. The process for making this mixture once and then using the sourdough is as follows: The daughter sourdough is separated from the mother sourdough and introduced into the batch of bread, which is then fed with the mother sourdough. Usually honey or flour. Wild yeasts and lactic acid bacteria grow in it.
The men worked as dough handlers (3,600 RUB/shift), as they had to lift 50-litre pots.
The technician was my partner, at first also my husband, and I trained the production manager (50,000 rubles), who already controlled all production processes.
2. Knead the dough
Now you need to mix some of the sourdough with flour and water to make the dough. With yeast the bread rises very quickly, with sourdough this process takes longer and is less predictable. 1 batch of sourdough bread – 10 hours, 1 batch of sourdough bread – 3 hours. Leave it for 2 hours.
The dough should stretch like an eraser. Otherwise, it could puff up and break. This is the reason for the big holes that sometimes appear in bread.
3. Shape the dough
Everything seems simple. The dough needs to be put into molds (5,000 ₽ for any shape), but not everything is so simple.
The dough must be pressed well to avoid lumps.
Chemical processes continue while the dough is being molded, and it hardens if it is molded for a long time, so it must be molded quickly. 200 kg of dough was poured into the mold in 20 minutes. It is a difficult task.
Later we bought a dough divider (300,000 ₽). Dividing the dough into pieces according to weight made the task a little easier.
4. Let the dough rest while it ferments.
The dough distributed into the molds should now be at the required humidity and temperature (+38) in the fermentation chamber (200,000 ₽) for fermentation.
The dough inside the cabinet is placed on a trolley that resembles a cafeteria tray structure. This operation is carried out by the baker (3,600 RUB/shift).
The same baker carries the cart from the fermentation station to the oven (300,000 ₽).
We baked in a diesel oven, many people used electric ovens. You could press a button and the oven would do everything itself, saving electricity but making it harder to run. Halfway through the baker would add water to give the bread a slight sheen.
6. Remove the bread from the pan.
All that remains is to unmold the bread, place it on a workbench and leave it to cool.
7. Pain Pasuem
The picker (RUB 2,900/shift) places the bread in bags and places the order so that the driver (RUB 2,500/shift) is not confused.
Now your child can do this when they come home from the store.
The workshop and molds are cleaned and the cycle repeats the next day.
We started our business as a franchise. So, in addition to the equipment, we made a one-time payment of about 800,000 rubles to the founders of the Diveevsky Bread company. In return, we received a hop starter recipe, a proofer, a list of equipment and an unpacking estimate for twice as much as we received.
Making bread is only half the problem. The main problem is selling the bread. I explained the revenue collection using the example of an average good month.
At one of the exhibitions, the director of a large retail chain tasted our bread. That's how we met the network.
Each network has its own eight-page Talmud, according to its rules of operation, and you will pay for anything you have not read or understood. The network is run by a legal department as banal as bread. Even when we argued, I asked:
There was often a problem when decisions were made in Moscow and local managers only helped to communicate with Moscow. One large network has a 15% quota for local producers, so in Voronezh it negotiated directly with decision-makers.
We didn't go to AromatVill. There was a strange logistics system at that time. To get to the AromatVill store in Voronezh, bread had to be sent from Voronezh to a warehouse in St. Petersburg, and from there it had to be sent back to Voronezh, which was especially troublesome for products where freshness was important.
1. VAT – minus 110,000 ₽
Since our entity is not subject to VAT, the network pays VAT directly and adds it to the price. Later, one of these stores closed and we had to sign a contract with a VAT trading company and sell through them.
2. Commercialisation – 50 000 ₽
Pay 2-10% to access network magazines that no one reads. You might also wonder what happens if you don't have to go to the magazine.
It's just a fancy name for payments accepted for sales.
4. Discount – 100,000 ₽
The marketing department of the network you sponsor helps you sell your shares, which also reduces your profits.
5. Fine – 20,000 ₽
I received a fine only once - it was 200,000 rubles at a time, and I distributed it approximately.
And any unsold bread from the chain will be returned to you.
Recently, a law was passed stating that chain stores cannot return unsold bread to the manufacturer, but a way out has been found. The network understands the sale of this or that bread remotely, so it simply returns in money what it previously returned in the form of bread.
It is not difficult to hide a "refundable tax" because the number of payments is different. That is, the law is theoretically respected, but in reality the manufacturer still pays the return shipping costs. Well, what can you do? Everyone has their own bread.
To ensure that the network covers all these costs, you will also have to pay a one-time entry fee (about 25%). For example, if you plan to sell 1 million pieces, you cannot pay 250,000 rubles at once and cancel it. In case of a 15-day delay, you will be paid for the sale. That is, we supplied bread for 15 days, and these 15 deliveries were still not paid.
After eating all that, I tried to get in without getting caught in the net. I was offered points at the checkout of a large Carusel supermarket.
A transport capacity is promised for 1,000 people, next to a hyper cash register, rent of 10 m2 – 80,000 ₽, deposit 80,000 ₽. We spent two months doing repairs, and another two months working at a loss until closing. Easter was in April and Easter sales were usually 3-4 times higher than usual, but this was also negative. And if you don't make money for Easter, things will really go bad.
To recover the rent of 80,000 rubles, it was necessary to earn at least 10,000 rubles of profit per day, in which case I had 5-6 thousand rubles.
Faced with the problem described, we quickly thought of street bread vendors.
Since I rented the kiosk, I have paid, among other things, a deposit. I paid 100% of one month's rent in advance. For example, if you burn down the stables.
But for people like us, renting a stand doesn't seem to be a very simple matter. Somehow, the stand owner couldn't reach an agreement with the landowner and our stand was simply evacuated.
On average, a good kiosk earns about 10,000 rubles a day (about 300,000 rubles a month). Of these, 75,000 rubles must be paid immediately - the seller's salary and rent.
In addition to the kiosk, we opened a point on the market with a rental price of 50,000 rubles.
They set up tables at events, organized tastings and sometimes the administration offered free places to producers. And since bread was not the only thing we saw at the festival, we had:
Usually we tried and bought everything. It turns out that it is sold for 5-6 thousand rubles at an event.
There were also resellers. The entrepreneur opened a point under our brand, we helped to educate the seller and he took the goods at the purchase price. In fact, he was suddenly closed and underpaid.
Overall, the average turnover of a company has been maintained at 4 million rubles per month for a long time.
And the total turnover per period is:
Production costs are based on a monthly turnover of 4 million rubles and are rounded for clarity.
In 2022, prices skyrocketed, and while I was figuring out how this suddenly happened, I bought cranberries in the USA, and instead of 250 rubles, the price of berries began to be 1,000 rubles, so I started using cherries in fruit bread.
With over 200% off bread and 194% off cookies, it seems like we could go crazy and vacation in the Maldives twice a year.
We tried to rent a workshop on the outskirts, but we couldn't find anyone. So we need to find a central space if we don't want problems with staff.
You can think of anything, but the hardest part is finding people who will do it with their hands, put it into practice and work hard every day.
The work was tough and the clients who called us told us so after a woman got drunk and fell asleep under the counter. If there was a drinking session, we would split up. Little by little, I learned to look at that during interviews.
I didn't see any theft, but it was said that the seller was using his own to cover the shortfall.
If the store or chain doesn't sell the bread within 3 days, it will be returned to us. We made a lot of crackers and worked mainly with charities that provided bread to people who needed it. There was a set schedule for who would come and when.
For the homeless, things are not so simple. An acquaintance of mine, a bread delivery girl, told me this.
And in total, with a turnover of 2 million rubles, the bakery spent about 2 million rubles.
But they didn't leave much money in their pockets because they were always unlocking new points or buying more equipment/dishes. So on average, there was 150,000 rubles per person. Not bad for Voronezh.
We paid back our initial investment, which was a loan, in about five years.
By the summer and fall of 2024, companies were operating at zero or less.
And profitability became rental poverty, the owner's salary was deducted from the profits, and sometimes no profit was allowed.
It’s great to be an entrepreneur. If I wanted to work on weekends, I would work; if I wanted to work at night, I would work on Lunar New Year’s Day, March 8;
I wake up at 5am and I don't know if production will go well today.
2. A business can only start if there is enough money for the manager.
We couldn't afford it, so all these stressful and important questions came back to me in droves. The salesman got sick, the electricity went out, the test supply drank, the cash register broke down, the purchase prices went up, 1C died.
It was only towards the end of the business that I hired an assistant and she made my life much easier.
3. If we had made and sold twice as much bread with our current range, we would not have closed.
The biggest problem is the sharp drop in demand and rising costs. When water and bread started to be rationed in my business revenue, I closed my doors.
4. The more expensive the equipment, the less work you have to do.
This is obviously why large-scale production always trumps small workshops. If you have machines that do most of the work, your costs will be much lower and you will be able to find employees more quickly.
5. Artisan bread is a recipe for trouble.
Adding baker's yeast allowed the dough to rise and the results were highly reproducible. But when working with sourdough, the process takes longer and the results are more unpredictable.
In other words, it is important that this bread is prepared by a person with extensive experience. The experience of eating bread is not included in the baking experience.
6. You don't like pigeons anymore
Pigeons love bread. They are in the shops and on the streets, and the bread is literally covered with these creations of God. We have tried scarecrows, noisy devices and puffer fish, but they always fly and eat everything in sight.
As soon as you leave bread uncovered in the machine and go to get a new container, they immediately cling around and peck at the bread with ferocious greed.
7. The country has not given businesses nightmares
For 9 years I have not had any problems with the tax office, Rospotrebnadzor or the administration. On the contrary, my company helped me, I paid for billboards and subsidized equipment at a good price, but I no longer needed it. We invited people to our business forums and organized meetings with our network.
8. Don't expect a return on investment
Closing a business is always difficult. You try until the last moment, believing that everything will soon be better, here is another advertising strategy, here is another promising point, and business is negative and debt increases as you talk.
So I had accumulated as much debt as all my equipment. In other words, when they decided to close the company, they sold all their assets to a competitor, but they still had a certain amount of debt left.
9. Don't make bread
It's better to sit down and write articles or stories and film reels.
When he's not cooking, he's not dealing with serial lawyers, treating female alcoholism, returning evacuated stands or even sleeping at night.
You may be glad it's over, or it may make no sense, but if you're cooking, stop right now. And don't worry. Someone will make the bread for you (but not for sure).
Disclaimer: This article was written by the author of the blog "Fell, Got Up" based on an interview with Victoria Nikitina, who until recently was a co-owner of a bakery in Voronezh.
For over a year, I've been interviewing entrepreneurs once a week about their real businesses, and it's not just about your success.
“Fell, Got Up” may sound like a funny story about how to fry seeds, dry leaves and glue cardboard to make millions in the market. But in fact, the blog already contains more than 50 articles from different niches with detailed calculations based on numbers.
– Entrepreneurs and managers try to tell hero stories to find a way out of crisis situations.
– Employees want to know how much money they earn.