How can you be successful in running your bakery business? When a hundred things are happening all at once, do you stay focused on your product, or compete on price?

In this humble interview with the President of Middleby Processing Group, Mark Salman shares his bakery business journey. As a $3B corporation, being entrepreneurial, allowing mistakes to happen and fast failures encouraged, these traits are what sets Middleby apart from their competition. Prior to joining Middleby, Mark ran a successful bakery wholesale business that he successfully exited.

But let’s not talk just about successes, because we don’t really learn from successes.

Here, we go in deep on what he saw was his biggest failure in one of his bakery businesses. Sharing his heartfelt bakery journey, Mark advises bakers to stay focused and passionate on their businesses.

In the spirit of starting a bakery, we also interviewed Jeff Dearduff from The Austin Company, a supplier to the baking industry that works with their clients on project to build out bakeries. He shares 10 tips on building a bakery from the ground up, from looking at site selection to maximizing the location’s resources and using concrete finishes for best GMP practices.

In conclusion, Jeff suggests when purchasing equipment, to make sure that your vendors are up to date with their sanitation design standards and don’t be afraid to impart your thoughts on the design of your systems because it will affect your regulatory compliances. Contact Jeff at Jeff.Dearduff@TheAustin.com