Emily Vanlandingham lives in New Orleans, LA and owns The School Bakery, a cottage food business that specifically focuses on school celebrations.

She caters to busy parents by delivering cupcakes, cookie cakes, and other baked treats to their children’s class parties.

It’s certainly a unique business model, and although she only started it a year and a half ago, she’s already in the process of franchising it to a second city!

However, Emily already had tons of food business experience before starting her bakery. She’s been through culinary school twice, built a large canned preserves business, helped start restaurants, been a caterer, a food TV producer, and a cooking instructor, and she currently runs a separate food entertainment business called Farmstand Entertainment.

Given her prior experience, it’s no surprise that Emily built a successful home bakery, but what is surprising is that she did it as a single mom!

In this episode, Emily’s open and transparent nature reveals both the successes and the challenges she’s experienced while embarking on such a unique business journey.

What You’ll Learn

• Why Emily decided to build a bakery that focuses on school celebrations
• What to consider when creating an effective brand for your business
• Ideas for generating sales in your off-season
• The challenges with delivering products directly to schools, and how to overcome them
• The importance of listening to customer feedback and adapting when needed
• How to give your products an edge when competing with larger businesses
• The surprising simple solution for accommodating students with diet-specific needs
• Why you might be able to franchise your business sooner than you think
• What is the value of establishing a new revenue stream for your business
• How Emily built Locally Preserved, a canned preserves business that she ran for about a decade
• The first thing you should do when starting a cottage food business
• How to avoid business burnout and find work-life balance

Resources

The School Bakery website (Instagram | Facebook)

Farmstand Entertainment website

Emily’s Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn

New Orleans Mom

Louisiana Cottage Food Law

Home-based Food Entrepreneur Conference 2023

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The conference costs only $35, and includes access to all of the recordings as well.

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Get full show notes and transcript here: https://forrager.com/podcast/86