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Retail bakery & wholesale
Baker
Your shift starts when everyone else is asleep.
Typical pay
$30k-$55k
How you get in
On the job or culinary program, 6 months to 2 years
Outlook
Steady; craft and specialty bakeries growing
Bakers produce bread, pastry and desserts, usually starting in the small hours so product is ready at open. It is precise, physical, repetitive craft work on a schedule that reshapes your life.
A day in the life
- 2:00aIn the shop, fire the ovens, pull the overnight dough
- 3:00aShape and proof, first bakes go in
- 5:30aPastry and laminated dough work
- 7:00aProduct out for open, start tomorrow's preferments
- 9:00aClean down, order flour and ingredients
- 10:30aShift ends — your afternoon is your evening
How to get in
Start on the bench
Duration
6-18 months
Cost
$0 — paid from day one
Credential
None — the product is the test
- Get hired as a bakery assistant doing scaling and cleanup
- Learn dough handling, fermentation and timing
- Take on shaping, then the oven
- Move to lead baker as you prove consistency
Baking and pastry program
Duration
6 months to 2 years
Cost
$10,000-$45,000
Credential
Baking and pastry certificate or associate degree
- Complete a baking and pastry program with an externship
- Learn the science behind fermentation and lamination
- Use the externship to enter a bakery you could not otherwise
- Still expect to start near the bottom of the production line
Open a home or micro bakery
Duration
3-12 months
Cost
$2,000-$30,000 depending on cottage food laws
Credential
Food handler permit; cottage food registration where allowed
- Check your state's cottage food laws — many allow home baking for direct sale
- Build a following through farmers markets and preorders
- Reinvest into equipment and a commercial kitchen
- Scale into a storefront only once demand is proven
What people love
- · Real craft you can be proud of
- · Every town has bakeries
- · Home-bakery and farmers-market paths
- · Done by late morning
What wears people down
- · Overnight and pre-dawn hours wreck your social life
- · Low pay for skilled work
- · Hot, heavy, repetitive
- · Holidays are the busiest times