COVID-19 has closed shop doors and storefronts across the world with over 100,000 small businesses closing since the pandemic. Main street is losing its lights and Mom and Pop shops are being forced to permanently turn their signs to closed. The pandemic forced the baking community to adapt to these challenges and find new and inventive ways to keep baking. What features of small bakeries will allow them to endure the pandemic? The ten sources that I found highlighted business tactics, federal aid, and community building techniques to not only survive the pandemic but simultaneously build a stronger surrounding community.
Through the hysteria of COVID, shoppers are now skittish to enter stores and have a “buy in bulk” mindset stronger than ever before. Bakeries fall short of the “COVID shopping list” given that pastries are a pleasure item rather than a necessity. The baking community overcame this challenge by shifting their product. Bakeries, such as Panderia Rosetta, are making do-it-yourself baking kits, where, rather than buying a pie or dessert item, the customer is buying an experience. During the height of quarantine, when time was abundant, Panderia Rosetta and many other bakeries began to sell fun family experiences rather than just treats. Bread 41 gave their customers free bread starter kits for their community to be fed and be reminded that their favorite shop is still with them during the lockdown.
Supermoon Bakehouse in New York City began a subscription like service where they sent a “weekend care pack” to customers. The pack had various bread jams and spreads as well as pastry goods. The care packages proved to help business and make it easier on Supermoon because the variety of baked goods was able to be considerably cut down. Sourdough Club is a similar subscription-based service but for recipes rather than the goods themselves. Sourdough Club dropped their membership cost by 75% during the pandemic to allow for more at home bakers to start their hobby. When interviewing Avery Ditcher, an avid baker and employee at Marions Pie Shop in Chatham, MA, she said “sharing recipes and asking family members for their coveted recipe is one of my favorite parts of the baking community.” At home do-it-yourself baking interest rose hand in hand with a global rise in baking interest. During lockdown, families and people around the world took to baking to fill their time. When asked about her introduction to baking Grace Sawka, a former employee of Marion’s Pie Shop and a baking hobbyist, said “It often will look bad but taste great.” Avery then noted how “the shop has luckily remained busy through COVID,” however, many bakeries around the country have not been as fortunate as Marion’s and are being forced to look elsewhere for stability.
The Paycheck Protection Program is the federal relief bill for small businesses during COVID, and bakeries across the country have looked to it for relief. Yet, many bakeries have found difficulty accessing this monetary stimulus. Jackie Victor, the author of the Op-ed “We Had 135 Employees. Now We Have One. No Loan Can fix That,” passionately recounts her bakery’s difficulty with COVID. She also describes the bill’s shortcomings in its favor towards bigger business rather than the small businesses that defines a community. Jesse Inguez in her Op-ed “Small Neighborhood Businesses Need You Now More Than Ever” also discuss the Paycheck Protection Program and comes to a similar conclusion about the difficulty of accessing the allotted funds in the bill. Ms. Inguez demands that congress re-evaluate the bill and questions whether it is reaching the intended audience of truly small business. The article then discusses how the Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection started a $5 million dollar grant for 1,000 micro-businesses throughout the city. The bill aims to accomplish what the Paycheck Protection Program failed to do.
The emphasis on bakeries and communities is highlighted in Discovery TV’s series A Few Great Bakeries. The series offers a glimpse at the baking community pre-COVID and allows one to juxtapose the show's vivacious community engagement and face-to-face mask-less communication, with the COVID baking world of today. The bakery is full of smiles and families coming to grab loafs of bread. “We’re no great if you want to lose weight,” one of the bakers says in the introduction of the series emphasizing the comedic love that surrounds the baking community. The series begins with Columbus Baking Company and shows their dough making process. The company bakes 340 loafs of bread a day. The show then interviews customers as they talk about the importance of the bakery to their community.
COVID has forced small business to embrace delivery apps instead of relying on walk in traffic alone. The delivery app space is proven to be successful. Instacart, Walmart, Grocery, Shipt, and Target all found that on March 15th , the apps saw a 218%, 160%, 124%, and 98% increase respectively, versus the average number of daily downloads (daily downloads from February). These companies are no small business, but they prove the proof of concept of the delivery app space. The “Leave at My Door” feature offered in Instacart's delivery system was used in over 25% off all orders in the first week of March. US consumer interest for going to restaurants has dropped by 69% during COVID, forcing companies to find other ways to make their profit. This statistic reemphasizes consumers shift from in store shopping to contactless delivery, not even wanting to interact with the delivery service. Many in the baking community believe that the online delivery space is essential for bakeries and any food business to survive in the modern day.
What features of small bakeries will allow them to endure the pandemic? The baking community is continuously trying to find new ways to reach customers and establish bonds within their community. The community has been forced to adapt to new means of delivery, becoming involved in national policy, and so many other obstacles. As restrictions ease and the return of in-person shopping is apparent, bakeries will be back in business stronger than ever given their new means of reaching their communities that they developed and strengthened during quarantine.