Scorecard · Toronto, ON
Retail bakery with a small counter
37/100
How much does it cost to open a bakery in Toronto? $120,000–$225,000 in Toronto, ON, on the figures below.
- Profit
- C
- A Toronto counter bakery takes $1,300–$2,600 a day at a $9 average basket. Ingredient cost is low at 18–24%, but labour starts at 3am and runs 34% of sales.
- Difficulty
- D
- Toronto Public Health food premises inspection, a certified food handler on every shift, and a deck or convection oven install that needs an ESA electrical permit.
- Capital
- E$120,000–$225,000
- Ovens, mixer, proofer and retarder are $55,000–$95,000, the fit-out $40,000–$80,000, and Toronto retail rent needs a $24,000 deposit at $55 a square foot.
Break-even
- The number that has to be true
- 172 baskets a day at $9
- Fixed costs a month
- $26,500
- The assumption
- A wholesale account or two absorbing 30% of production before 9am.
Opening for less
All three together take $183,000 off: $225,000 becomes $42,000.
Bake in a rented commissary and sell at farmers' markets for the first year
−$95,000
Costs you: No walk-in trade and no street presence, so the brand starts from nothing again at the storefront
Take over a bakery or restaurant space with ovens and ventilation in place
−$60,000
Costs you: The layout is theirs and the equipment is at the end of its life
Buy a used deck oven and mixer through a Toronto restaurant liquidator
−$28,000
Costs you: No service contract, and a dead oven is a closed day
How you’d do it
What you need
- Toronto Public Health food premises approval and a certified food handler per shift
- A space zoned for baking with three-phase power or the budget to bring it in
- $26,500 a month covered for six months of thin mornings
- One wholesale buyer signed before the doors open
First 3 moves
- 1Sell at three Toronto markets for eight weeks and measure what actually sells out.
- 2Ask two cafés what they pay per croissant wholesale, and whether they would switch.
- 3Get quotes on a used versus new deck oven, then recount break-even on each.
The hardest part
The 3am shift, every day, with a product that is worthless by evening.
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