Packaging for Profit
How do you compete with the cookie lady down the street who is selling her products for far too little? This can be a very tricky thing to run into because if you want to compete with her prices, you’re not doing anything but racing each other to $0! And you’re a business! You want to make money! Instead of lowering your prices you need to add value to what you are providing to your customers with each and every order. One of the many ways you can do that is through leveling up your packaging.
Quality packaging is an investment that is well worth it to set your bakery apart from other bakeries in the area. Good packaging can take a 2 cookie set from looking like $2-4 to having a customer gladly spend $5-10+ on those two cookies, simply because of the presentation. Don’t get me wrong, I know how much work went into those 2 cookies but our customers do not. The majority of people shop with their eyes, so if you can dress your baked goods up a bit, it will appeal to customers and you are more likely to get more sales!
Your packaging can also be an excellent way to brand your baked goods so they are recognizable. Think of the pink boxes from Crumbl Cookies, the white and green cups from Starbucks, or the Tiffany blue boxes from Tiffany & Co. Each of these brands has adopted a color that sets them apart and they do it so well that even if you are not inside of a Crumbl, Starbucks or Tiffany and Co, the color itself may make you think of that business or brand! Tiffany has even gotten a shade of blue named after them! Crazy!
Packaging Your Standard Dozen Cookies
You don’t necessarily have to go get custom boxes made but there are ways you can dress up your regular packaging so it shines and promotes your business. After you make your menu for your business you will want to go down item by item and come up with a plan of how you are going to package your products to send home with customers. Since Clayton and I have a cookie business, I will use cookies in my examples - but these concepts can be applied to all baked goods. And as always, if you have questions about how to best package a specific type of good, jump on over to our Facebook group where there’s lots of support and community to help you with your business!
Individual Cookie Bags - In MOST states, cookies are required to be individually wrapped. Sugar cookies keep longer and are softer/fresher if they are individually wrapped and heat sealed anyway - so this is something we recommend you do! Most bakers use cello bags and we buy this brand from Amazon. Usually we keep the 4”x6” bags on hand but also have some 5”x7” bags for the occasional larger cookies. We also have had this heat sealer for the past 4 years and have never had any issues with it! We would suggest you heat seal your cello bags rather than use the adhesive tab that most cello bags come with. This will give a more professional look as well as ensure that your bag is air tight.
Bakery Boxes - Next you will want to think about how you want your cookies boxed. It would be beneficial to have an option to hold 1 dozen cookies and 2 dozen cookies. That way you have options when you are packaging your orders. A lot of bakers use a pie box for their single dozen orders. We have used this brand of pie boxes from Amazon for the past 4 years and they have been great for us! We usually stack cookies in 4 “piles” of 3 cookies each - which works great since our customs are allowed up to 4 designs. We also have a slightly larger square box that we use for 2 dozens. You will want to stick with a square box because of an amazing hack we are going to share with you!
Crinkle Paper - For the sake of presentation and also to keep your cookies from sliding all around, most bakers put a handful of crinkle paper in the bottoms of their bakery boxes. Remember that most crinkle paper is NOT food safe. You will want to make sure that you are placing cookies that are already individually wrapped in their cello bags on the crinkle paper. We would recommend buying 1 neutral color in bulk and using that, rather than having multiple colors on hand as crinkle paper can get expensive. Our favorite place to buy crinkle paper from is Mrs. Frizz. They have excellent options, very springy crinkle paper, and their customer service is wonderful. We also have yet to find anywhere where you can get as much crinkle paper in bulk for the same price!
Stickers - Excellent! You have wrapped your cookies, put crinkle paper in the bottom of the box, stacked or lined up your cookies and closed the box! Now you will want to add something to the box that helps folks identify that the cookies are from you. You will also want to stick on your ingredients label per your state’s cottage garden laws. If you are just getting started we recommend buying Avery Labels and printing them yourself! We have used these oval labels to print a sticker with our logo on it for the front corner of the box. We use the same size label to print out our ingredients per Kansas’s cottage garden laws.
Printables - You will want to consider what kind of paper goods you are going to throw in the bag with your bakery boxes. Will you put in some business cards for referrals? Will you include a Cookie Care Card so that your customers know not to place your cookies in the fridge before their event? Will you print out their invoice as a receipt or include some kind of a contract? All of these things can help you achieve that 1% edge above your competition for marginal costs - thus allowing you to charge more for your product.
Shopping Bag - One of our favorite hacks that we have discovered is how we hand off our cookies to our clients. Originally we wanted to go with brown paper bags, however the bottom of a brown paper bag needs to be a certain width so that the cookies do not tip on their side and ruin the presentation. Buying custom brown paper bags with a gusset of at least 9” turned out to be very expensive. As we brainstormed, we realized that Chinese restaurants - and any restaurant that does carry out with a clam shell to-go box - must have bags that keep the boxes level so food does not tip out. After doing some research we learned that Amazon carries a plain white plastic bag that holds 3 square 9” bakery boxes level! The best part is that they are sold in lots of 500 for less than $60! You can find those bags here. Of course you can just hand your cookie boxes to your customers, but we have found that customers really appreciate having a bag to hold everything. It also allows you to have a safe place to include a care card, receipt, contract, business card and whatever other printables you want the customer to walk away with!
Dressing Up Cookie Sets
So that covers our packaging for our standard customs, but what about for holidays and events? You might be wondering how should I package my smaller sets? The best and most cost effective way to dress up a single cookie is by using some kind of a cookie card or backer that you have printed yourself. Etsy has many options for this that you attach by folding the paper over the top of your cello bag and adhering it to the bag with glue dots. There are also many small boxes that fit just 2 cookies perfectly. A exercise as you are planning cookie sets for a vendor event or for presales is to pretend you are gifting it to someone. What kind of a box would it look good in? How could I add color to this? Would I tie a bow around it? Would I use a tag? While your clients may be buying to enjoy for themselves, customers enjoy the presentation of getting something that is eye catching.
