No matter how you slice it, being in business is hard. Fifty percent fail within the first five years. We are in our fifth year now and I'm feeling that pressure in a new and unique way. I guess that's why I've been quiet for a few weeks. Every January, I look at all the numbers, reports and item sales. I evaluate the ideas that were implemented and how they played out. I read through every single customer survey and analyze the patterns.

I have three priorities when making decisions:

1. Continue meeting the market demand; aka making customers happy. (Without you, we wouldn't exist!)

2. Stay true to our mission of making sweets with healthier ingredients you can't find anywhere else.

3. Make sure we are profitable when it's all said and done.

Accomplishing all three of these things simultaneously is no small feat. To be completely transparent, we haven't been able to do it yet. I'm pleased that we seem to have checked off 1 and 2 but we've yet to check box number 3. So as I mentioned in my marketing email, we are going to make a few changes and try hard to hit that target this year.

I care deeply about the opinions and experiences of every single customer so I wanted to take the time to explain how I arrived at these decisions. I will start by stating the changes and for those interested in more of the details, you can keep reading.

• ‍We will no longer be taking cake orders of any kind. We will still have cake slices in both cases and whole cakes you can purchase at our Wolflin location every Thursday/Friday/Saturday (first come, first serve), but we can't take orders to create cakes for your birthdays or other celebrations any longer. I'm sorry.

• That being said, we are bringing back cupcakes! Starting now, they will be in our cases every day (but always order ahead to guarantee it). We are going to be tweaking our GF Vegan recipes so there may be a bit of lag time here, but we're working to make them better. Please be patient, no flour or eggs is hard.

• Customized Products we are still offering: (but now only available for Wolflin pickup)
  • Cookie Cakes - delicious and more affordable cake option and comes in GF Vegan!
  • Iced Cookies - we can do fondant icons in several themes or edible images, such as logos. Available in GF Vegan. ‍
  • Cupcakes with special toppers - same customizable options as our iced cookies, and available in GF Vegan as well.
• We are cutting a couple of our keto options. We currently offer 4-5 options and will be cutting that down to our 2 most popular ones: the Unicorn Brownie and Iced Sugar.
• We will have decorated cookies in our case every Friday starting in February!  This will include GF Vegan. First come, first serve, so be sure and order ahead to guarantee it.

WHY NO MORE CAKES?!😩

We understand changes can be annoying, especially when you grow to love something we offer, but I'm hoping this math helps! 

Of all of our products, cake orders equal about 4% of our total sales, yet they are the most time consuming.

In labor, one cake costs me about 4 hours. There are so many steps, from making the batter to baking it, cooling, trimming, filling with icing, crumb-coating to finally decorating it. My bakers make an average of $15/hour, so that puts us at $60 already. Our better ingredients, which are more expensive, cost approximately $14 for an 8" cake. This brings our cost to $74, if no mistakes are made. $74 is what our standard cakes sell for on average. Meaning, we make zero dollars. We've tried to raise prices before, but the market here clearly tells us they don't want to pay more than $75 for a cake to feed 10-15 people. Even our custom cakes--which people are willing to pay more for--don't pay for themselves with the labor and skill involved. Also, finding skilled decorators is also a challenge in a city where that isn't a typical career people choose, like they do in big cities where culinary arts is more celebrated and lucrative.

Cake orders also require a lot of planning around. We have to constantly shift our priorities based on the ever-changing times and days people need their cakes ready; which means we are unable to establish any set routines for our bakers to make our kitchens run efficiently. I would happily do this if cakes were making us money, but they aren't. So the idea is, potentially lose 4% of our sales, but hopefully decrease our labor and cost of goods by more than that.  Best case scenario is people who wanted cakes will still order one of our other customizable options like a cookie cake or cupcakes.

HOW YOU CAN HELP!

Most of us can think of one of our favorite local businesses who seemingly went out of business all of a sudden. It's always sad and usually those of us on the outside had no idea it was coming. We don't plan on failing, but we would never want it to be because we didn't do our best to let our customers in on our struggles.

If you love our bakery and want to see us continue on, here are a few ways you can supporting us with big impact!

• Large orders of our regular cookies are our bread and butter. Whether it's ordering a dozen for a get-together or recommending us to your boss for those office parties, these are our top-selling, most popular products that have the biggest profit margin for us.
• Order a cookie cake for your next celebration instead of buying a cheaper cake somewhere else. Ours' are absolutely delicious and we can make them in any of our cookie flavors.
• Continue tipping.  I am always amazed at people's generosity. While tipping is never ever expected--no shame if you decline that tip option!--many of you still insist on it and you must know, it supplements our payroll expenses immensely and allows me to keep good staff. I can't thank you enough!
• Rent out our Wolflin space for your next event. We started offering this to supplement our income, so remember that if you ever need a good spot for a party.

No matter what, thank you for showing up again and again and supporting SWEET!  I loved hearing all of your thoughts in our survey and will do my best to continue listening to your feedback. Looking forward to 2025 with you all,

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