FSSAI Food License

Setting up a Cake Decorating Business from Home in India?

Setting up a Cake Decorating Business

Cakes these days are style statements. They are an essential and the most decorative part perhaps of all celebrations. Bakers are in great demand nowadays for this very reason – people are not too brand conscious when it comes to buying a cake anymore – they don’t really mind buying beautifully decorated cakes from home-makers at higher prices as long it is done up innovatively and creatively with the best quality ingredients. Additionally, the fact that the cake from the home-baker cum decorator is freshly made and the taste is much better than the cake from a branded shop. After all, it’s all about creating the first impression with taste following close behind. Cake Decorating is becoming a trendy business these days with creative people having a knack for baking excellent cakes trying this entrepreneurial option. However, it is not a cake-walk in the literal sense of the word.

What is Cake Decoration?

Cake Decorating  has more to do with creating artistic pieces or sculpture items that are composed entirely of sugar and sugar derivatives  like using fondant, icing, frosting, ink printing, melting chocolates or using other edible decorative with the sole objective of making the cake look more visually appealing and attractive during birthdays, weddings and national holidays. It also means molding the cake to resemble three-dimensional figures of living beings, places or things.

Steps for Setting up a Cake Decoration Business

Step 1: The idea of initiating this business should only come up when the entrepreneur is a good baker and has the interest in decorating the cake.

Step 2: Decide the Business Type: When working from home, one needs to decide whether to start a cake shop from home or simply tie-up with cake shops nearby and limit oneself to just decorating the cake.

Step 3: Try and identify the target market. Study the demographics that you would want your business to work for.

Step 4: Legalities

• Register the business. Work out a business name before that. Registering a small business in India is voluntary and not mandatory. If registered, the business will get benefits against misuse, maltreat or infringement issues as also other benefits from the Government like ISO 9000 certification reimbursement, credit guarantee scheme, exemptions from taxes, capital subsidy, and priority sector lending. To register your home based cake decorating business you need to approach the State Directorate or Commissioner of Industries or District Industries Center. The provisional certificate is provided first. Once the proposed business comes into existence and after inspection by the local authority, a certificate of permanent registration is issued.
• Get FSSAI Registration certification from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. Since they are responsible for food safety they have set the prescribed standards for sweets and confectionery items as well as dairy products and sweetening agents which needs to be met by the business to be operational.
• Enroll for GST by simply visiting gov.in. Though as per the law, there is a basic exemption on GST if the aggregate turnover of the business in a financial year does not exceed Rs. 20 lakh but even small businesses are supposed to be registering, irrespective of the number of revenues generated. However, if the business is successful in generating earnings up to Rs. 75 lakh annually, there is a presumptive tax which ranges between 0.5 – 2.5 % of the revenue that needs to be paid.

Step 4: Investment

• Buy the equipment. In case it’s a full-fledged bakery, the major investment will be the cake oven that costs around Rs. 2- 3 lakh. For decoration alone, the initial investment is majorly in stocking up raw materials and will be to the tune of about Rs. 20,000 – Rs. 25,000 per month.

Step 5: Marketing

• Use social media handles to promote your services. Also have a website made so that you can receive orders, endorse your services and share feedback from, After all, the home business can grow better only with positive word of mouth publicity.
• Print some flyers and circulate them in the immediate locality
• Sponsor some of your free samples at local events
• Join a home business network
• Contact some good event management companies and hand over your business cards so that they have your contact numbers.

Read our article:Food Safety and Standards Rules in India