Joyce Ann McDonald and one of her cakes.
A birthday cake through JoyceAnn Bakery.
Cheyenne Simmons, de Great ExBaketations.
One from ExBaketations.
Starting or maintaining a food business, the pandemic presents a variety of challenges, but what happens when you don’t have a physical location? We talked to the owners of two black-owned bakeries in the domain to see how they run their business without their own storefront and how they spread the word.
Joyce Ann McDonald: Create traditional cakes and search to create an area in your network The days of Joyce Ann McDonald’s begin long before sunrise, around four or five in the morning. He spends his time putting ice on the cakes he made the day before in the bakery business at his JoyceAnn’s Bakery and preparing for the next series of orders. By the time your 3 young men get up for the day; ended about part of a day’s work.
The diversity of cakes, from an Oreo cookie cake to the most ornate, such as a recent cake order adorned with the TikTok social media platform logo and topped with a realistic-looking pair of headphones.
McDonald credits his father, who had spent most of his career as a local baker in retail stores such as the former Carosello bakery and Freihofer, for much of what he knew and encouraged her to do the job. Her husband has signed up and made the business a birthday present, and her kids are eager to have fun.
Business is booming for McDonald’s, who resigned from his task at a local hospital at the start of the pandemic to send his children home and business in June. He attributes the expansion of his company to word of mouth and social media. Facebook has been the main chat channel you’ve used, but it also extends to other channels.
Home food corporations, such as McDonald’s, can sell food products under the New York State Domestic Processor Waiver. According to the State Department of Agriculture and Markets, the exemption to citizens to “prepare food in the kitchen of their home for wholesale or retail sale on farms”. Foods on this list include bread, doughnuts, doughnuts, cakes, muffins, brownies, jams and jellies with very acidic fruits.
This allows McDonald’s to make traditional cakes for its consumers while balancing the care of its 3 children. McDonald’s can sell its bakery products to consumers and paints with restaurants and wholesale consumers, however, this exemption has limits on what it can do. When preparing large occasions or orders, you will hire an advertising space.
All limitations you find related to what you are limited to baking, you communicate them with your customer. She said they were willing to paint with her. “Actually, I haven’t encountered too many disorders where other people, like other people, are willing to paint with you on network paintings because they really need our local black businesses,” McDonald says.
It was recently promoted at Allie B’s Cozy Kitchen bread restaurants in Albany and was distributed on local occasions such as Sip, Shop and Connect at the Colony Center to spread the word. She is very happy to continue making cakes for her customers’ special days and promote them in other restaurants in the area.
While McDonald’s has taken a step forward and expanded its visitor base, it has a long-term purpose of opening a dining area that will give you only one home for your confectionery, but also a bakery/coffee for the calling South End network. Home. “I want to take it to my network because we want something like this here,” McDonald says. “We want anything that gives substance to our communities and shows others that they can bring these things to our network to succeed.”
Cheyenne Simmons: Making alcoholic beverages shipped nationwide
Cheyenne Simmons of Great ExBaketations knew that, to some extent, she was looking for paintings for herself. Four years ago, he began baking as a parallel company, promoting his chocolates to others he knew or by word of mouth. About a year ago, Simmons made the decision to focus on what he wanted his logo to be and made the decision to focus on making alcohol-infused cakes. “Everyone knows the rum pie, but I sought to build on it and do other things, not necessarily things that other people had heard about before as food, but that we know as drink.”
In early February, Simmons abandoned his full-time task to concentrate on the bakery before he realized that the new coronavirus would cause a global pandemic. He made the resolution at a split moment to paint on its own just before it became transparent that the pandemic would be global. ‘It’s a little scary, obviously, but the smart thing is that I’m home when I need it. I usually go to the kitchen at night and cook like it’s night, because it ends up being better. So, when all the schools closed very abruptly, he painted because I didn’t have to worry about how he went to locate the day care center. “
Simmons makes his alcohol-infused cakes in an advertising kitchen in Albany and gets much of them from Albany, the Capital Region or northeastern New York. Sent to the 48 contiguous states. Most of those consumers are found in the Northeast with many consumers in Florida, Washington, California and Colorado.
The most popular cakes in its diversity are aged rum, drunk chocolate cake and Margarita Limón sponge cake. The nearest and most up-to-the-top favorite is the Apple Cake Capital. “For this, I make new apples from New York. There is a honey brandy that is distilled right in downtown Albany, and I also use local Northeast honey. She’s the one who started me on this road,” Simmons said.
She has recently released vegan editions of all her cakes and a diversity of non-alcoholic cakes for the little ones or those who don’t consume alcohol. Simmons is lately in favor of a gluten-free status quo to paint so he can expand a gluten-free edition of his cakes this fall.
Simmons mainly sells its products through its e-commerce in Etsy.com, as well as a normal presence at Lark St.Mercantile and will sell them to the reopened restaurant The Paper Dragon, which recently moved to downtown Albany on Maiden Way. You would like to paint more with the traditional places to eat, traditional cakes and weddings.
Simmons attributes not only the creation of content for social networks, but also the commitment to bloggers and influencers in the region. “Instead of following them and liking their messages, I look to talk to them and build relationships,” Simmons says. “This has generated some collaboration and sales, as well as new subscribers, so it’s been literally helpful.”
Recently, his appearance on the screen of the game “Jeopardy!” Last January, she gave him some additional enthusiasts and customers, although some paintings were needed to locate her bakery’s accurate call. “Obviously, you can’t say the company call that way, however, it wasn’t hard to perceive because they say your call and where you come from, and I said ‘alcohol pastry’, so a lot of other people discovered me right after that. For the next two to three weeks, it was inundated with orders, making and shipping cakes across the country. While this television appearance has helped, she attributes the strength of networked painting to its growth. “I don’t think I’m afraid to manipulate other people and network paintings face-to-face or through social media with other people has been very much for me.”
Stephanie Gravalese is an independent who divided her time between the great capital region and western Massachusetts. You can succeed in it in [email protected]. stephanita.com, @stephanita