I think it's also important to consider the cost of accepting cash, as it is a real expense and it grows especially with multiple stores, and high cash volumes. These include transporting cash deposits to the bank, the cost of internal and external theft, banking fee's (at least here, it's common practice to charge fee's for monthly cash deposits exceeding $10,000).
From the consumer standpoint I'd pick your option A.
I'm hoping to get some advice on what equipment I should get to increase my caramel production.
I'm leaning toward the tabletop Savage FireMixer or the ElectroStove candy kettle.
Any thoughts? Better suggestions?
It's time for me to start looking in to caramel wrapping equipment.
I need something with a small footprint and something under $5,000 used
Is there anything like this out there? I saw Package Machinery's tabletop wrapper, but at almost $20,000 it's way out of budget.
Even something just semi-automatic would be great.
Any suggestions or ideas would be appreciated!
Krista, Glerup-Revere has a decent selection of cups available, they're located in Seattle but ship anywhere. glerup.com
I use a bread proofing cabinet and just don't turn on the humidity. Works great!
While probably a discussion for it's own post I can tell you what we've found.
You need to offer a 50% discount on your retail price, and your total cost of production should be 50% of your wholesale price.
Unless you're a well known brand this tends to be the kind of mark-up retail stores need to sell your product.
BBFDirect.com is great for buyers, you can see wholesale pricing and recommended retail from a HUGE number of chocolatiers and bean to bar products.
If it were me, I'd offer 200 pieces and at most 4 flavors. My very first order was for 100 pieces and I did 6 flavors. It's a huge waste of time, and way too much of a hassle. If you have any upcoming shows or markets you could always freeze the extras and save them for then. Just make sure you use the right freezing technique.
For an order of 100 I would probably stay very close to my retail price. I wouldn't discount until the order was over $500, but that's up to you.
There are two types of bloom, sugar bloom and fat bloom. It sounds like it's sugar bloom. Chocolate should NEVER be in the fridge.
We're opening our first shop this fall and I will be using the granite top display with glass barriers. I think it makes the display classier, that along with the crazy cost of refrigerated cases just made the decision easy.
I have a Pavoni double guitar I purchased from ChefRubber.com I don't think the cart is necessary. I would recommend getting a steel one and not one of the cheaper plastic ones.
You're not making chocolate, your making some sort of frosting at best, but it sounds more like chocolate flavored butter.
Chocolate contains CACAO butter, not milk butter
You're using butter which is soft and has a lower melting point, cacao butter is solid, so when it's room temperature it is naturally hard. You'll never get butter to turn hard.
No you don't need to add extra cocoa butter to a couverture.
Also, that's not cocoa butter in your photo, it's white chocolate.
I'm trying to find sources for POS displays, something small that I can give to retail shops to display and merchandise my chocolate bars. I'd prefer something more permanent/non disposable as opposed to a printed paper box that can be used as a merchandising tool.
Ideally, I'm looking for a manufacturer that will do small runs at a reasonable cost.
Any leads?
Thanks!
Has anyone here had a chance to use one? Thoughts?
I have tried it, and it didn't work for me. It didn't work for melting either. I left it overnight on the lowest setting and by morning the chocolate and cocoa butter had completely separated (way too hot)
That's for the webrestaurantstore.com melter, not the dessertshouse.com one.
Does anyone have any experience with these melters? They seem to be a great price at less than $500 for an 18kg chocolate melter.
I just want to make sure I'm not throwing money at a melter that won't hold a stable temp.
Thanks!
Richard, I'm also interested in your wheel machine. If you could tell me a little more about the brand, size and how much you're asking. Thank you. george@georgepaulchocolates.com
For a good stock packaging selection I'd recommend Glerup.com
Mod-Pac has a good selection also.
The issue with Mycryo is it is 100% cocoa butter, so as you add more you inevitably change the viscosity of the chocolate. While you may not notice the first or second time, as you go on you will notice.
However, if you 100% follow the Mycryo directions to the letter, you shouldn't have an issue. As you go in to commercial production though the added cost of Mycryo is outweighed by other tempering options.
The first book I bought was Making Artisan Chocolates by Andrew Shotts. I recommend it for beginners, it has an adequate amount of information with a broad range of recipe types.
As you gain more experience, or if you just want an overload of information I recommend Chocolates & Confections by Peter Greweliing.
As far as your melting chocolate, without going into the practice of tempering, your problem most likely is your chocolate was too hot to dip, it should be about 89, which brings me to investment #1 a good thermometer is absolutely necessary, infared is what I think is best.
I've used a few different brands of molds, my favorite by far are Chocolate World molds. They are available from Tomric by special order, or chocolat-chocolat.com which has a good number in stock.
My least favorite are the Tomric molds that they make themselves, which I think is everything that isn't labeled as a "european mold" in their catalog. These are just awful in my opinion.
