Cookie Mania Business Plan
Cookie Mania Business Plan
Cookie Mania Business Plan Overview
This is a Cookie Mania Business Plan to the standard Cookie Mania Business.
This overview looks at the possibilities, opportunities and pitfalls of starting a specialist only Cookie Mania Business in Nairobi targeting the mid income level mass market. It could also apply to other major center. What becomes clears is that there is a good opportunity to start a well branded cookies only bakery shops in the estates or high traffic areas. There is still room to innovate in terms of distribution, packaging, flavors and branding so as to reach a bigger market.
The cookies Mania business in Kenya is characterized by a handful of midsized companies, supermarkets and tens of small bakeries running from homes or small production units.
None of the players can be said to be dominating the market though obviously there are those controlling a significant share of the market. It is instructive though that not a single of the bigger players is a cookies only player rather they tend to have cookies as part of a wider variety of related products like cakes, biscuits or buns.
Generally players in the cookies business can be grouped into:
1)Formal Mid Sized Companies
We counted 31 of these.They are of various sizes but still by turnover and market share can’t really be described as large companies .This despite some having turnovers of millions.
These include: Gal Baking Services – Gal operates the Krumble brand of cookies,shops and baked products. They started by distributing products to supermarkets and shops before opening a number of shops in downtown Nairobi.
Presently they operate six shops within Nairobi CBD. They plan to increase these to 15 in the near future Significantly in 2014 Fusion Capital bought a 45 % stake in the bakery for Kshs. 245 million, valuing the company at nearly 500 million.
Other significant midsized companies are Mill Bakers, Jolly Smart, Masculino , Mibisco, Namada bakers Cake House, Treasure Bakers , East Africa Star Bakery, Joy super bakers.
2) Smaller Semi Formal Bakers
These operate from home or relatively small cake shops. Some bake within the premises while others bake at home and supply to the shops. Still some cake shops buy in wholesale from bigger bakeries and stock. In Nairobi estates there are an average of at least three cake shops in every estate, these not counting the home based bakers who don’t have a shop.
None of the small and home based home based bakeries that we observed specialized in cookies. Cakes were the main products cookies were made as extras. For most home based bakeries cookies, just like cakes were made on order. However a few of these small bakeries supply to shops not really based on capacity or even higher quality but business acumen. The reasons that the small bakeries have not seized cookies in a big way will become clear in Cookie Mania Business Plan.
3) Supermarkets
It has become fashionable for mid sized and large supermarkets to have a kitchen section which in addition to fresh food has a bakery. Some of the supermarkets prepare and sell cookies though not in a revolutionary way. Some will pack and place on the shelves while others sell in more of the counter method. None of the supermarkets has laid emphasis on cookies with most efforts going to bread, cakes and ready to eat food.
Outside Nairobi the pattern is to have the leading Nairobi bakeries supplying most of the cookies on the shelf space and some local bakers filling in the gaps. There could be one or two major over the counter bakeries
For instance in Nakuru local bakeries supplying supermarkets and a few retail shops include Racera Bakers, Riva Mini Bakers, Serian Premium Bakers and Rift Valley bakers while suppliers located in Nairobi include: Mill bakers, Mibisco and Gal Baking Services. Mibisco has the highest supplies in all supermarkets. Retail shops are mainly stocked with Mibisco cookies which they obtain from supermarkets (Gilani’s Supermarket) in bulky.
Major over the counter bakeries within the town include Rift Valley Bakers and Nakuru Patisserie Bakery. Cookies as noted are largely found in bakery shops or supermarkets. Supermarkets have a wider variety of cookies and flavors from their own kitchens and different companies and thus are more popular.
Where there are no enough or established bakery shops with the kind of cookies a customer wants then supermarket are the first stop. Still where there are ‘good ‘bakeries the cookie lover could opt for the shop because of the freshness, price and sometimes the one to one interaction with the baker. Often because of the extra cost of packaging, taxes and margin pressure cookies prices in supermarkets could be higher than in shops.
Retail shops are the other distribution channel. Yet it is common to find only 2 in 15 shops stocking cookies compared to related items like bread, mandazi and queen cakes. A number of reasons were given by both shops and bakeries:
Download Cookie Mania Business Plan / guide here