Home bakery software for home, shed and micro bakeries
bakerykeeper is back-office software for bakers who work from a home kitchen, a garden shed or a small unit. It keeps what each bake costs, what's in it, who ordered it and the food safety records your council expects to see in one place.
Who it's for
- Home bakers selling at the door, through Instagram or to friends of friends.
- Shed and garden-room bakeries, where the oven is twenty steps from the back door.
- Micro bakeries running a weekly bread club or subscription.
- Cake makers taking custom orders with deposits.
- Market and craft-fair bakers: see selling bakes on a market stall.
- Small shops and cafés that bake, and bakeries with more than one site.
What you need before you sell from home in the UK
Selling food you bake at home makes you a food business, even if it's one cake a week. These are the usual steps in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland:
- Register with your local council at least 28 days before you start selling. It's free, and registering isn't the same as being approved: you can trade while you wait for an inspection. Starting a food business from home (Food Standards Agency).
- Train in food hygiene. The law asks that food handlers are trained; a Level 2 food hygiene course is the usual way to show it.
- Write down how you keep food safe. Most small bakeries use a ready-made pack such as Safer Food, Better Business, then keep a daily diary. See food safety records for home bakers.
- Know the allergens in every bake. If you wrap bakes before customers choose them, Natasha's Law needs a full ingredients label. See allergen labels for home bakers.
- Sort insurance. Public and product liability insurance is the norm, and markets often ask for it. Tell your home insurer, and check your mortgage or tenancy allows a home business.
- Tell HMRC when it's a business. If you take more than £1,000 in a tax year from baking (the trading allowance), you'll usually need to register for Self Assessment. Trading allowance (GOV.UK).
General guidance, not legal advice. Your council's environmental health team has the final say on your premises, and they'd rather hear from you early.
Baking from a garden shed or garden room
A shed bakery is registered like any other food business, and it's inspected against the same hygiene rules as a kitchen. In practice that means surfaces you can clean properly, a floor and walls without gaps for pests, good light and air, a supply of safe drinking water, and somewhere to wash your hands that isn't the sink you wash equipment in. If you're putting up a new building or the bakery will change how the property is used, ask your council's planning team too.
It's how bakerykeeper started: a baker in a shed, a notebook of costings that never quite added up, and a fridge log on a clipboard by the door.
What bakerykeeper does
| The job | How bakerykeeper helps |
|---|---|
| Costing | What every loaf and cake costs from what you paid for the ingredients, plus packaging, oven time and overheads. How to cost a recipe. |
| Allergen labels | Worked out from your recipes, never typed by hand, with the 14 allergens in bold and a best-before date. |
| Orders | Your own order page where customers choose a collection time and pay a deposit by card, and a list of today's collections. |
| Bake plan | What to bake this morning to fill today's orders and your stall. |
| Food safety diary | Opening and closing checks, fridge temperatures and cleaning. Records can't be deleted; a correction keeps the original and says who changed it and why. |
| Takings | What you took by day and by week, and what sold. |
| No signal | The web app works on any phone, tablet or PC. A Windows app that keeps working offline and syncs later is on the way. |
Why not just use a spreadsheet?
Plenty of bakers start with a spreadsheet, and it's free. The trouble starts when flour goes up 20p: every costing sheet, allergen list and price label needs changing by hand, and the one you forget is the one a customer asks about. In bakerykeeper the recipe is the single source: change an ingredient's price or supplier once, and the cost, the price check and the label follow. There's a side-by-side comparison in the costing guide.
Questions bakers ask
Do I need to register a home bakery?
Yes. Anyone who sells food regularly, from home included, registers with their local council at least 28 days before they start. It's free.
Can I run a bakery from a shed?
Yes, if the shed meets the same hygiene rules as a kitchen: cleanable surfaces, pest-proofing, light, safe water and somewhere to wash your hands. Register it as your food premises and ask the council's planning team if you're building or changing how the property is used.
Do I need a food hygiene certificate?
The law asks that you're trained in food hygiene rather than for a particular certificate, but a Level 2 food hygiene course is the usual way to show your inspector you are.
How much does bakerykeeper cost?
It's free for the 8-week beta. Monthly plans come after that, and we'll publish the prices well before anyone is asked to pay.
Is it only for bread?
No. It works the same for cakes, cookies, pastries and celebration cakes made to order, and for shops and cafés that bake.