Safeguard your baking business from load-shedding

Load-shedding has been a huge blow for all kinds of businesses, but baking seems to be hard hit. Not many batteries or solar systems can run an oven. Below are 5 ways to start safeguarding your business from loadshedding and ensuring you can continue operating in a prosperous manner.

1. Safeguard your sanity! First and foremost, realise that trying to control loadshedding is like trying to control the weather. There isn’t much you can do when these things happen and we are all doing the best we can with what we have.
2. Be mindful of cold storage. Normally I am the first to suggest stocking up your freezer with butter if you find a good sale. However, if there are long spells without power you run the risk of cold goods spoiling. Minimise what you have stored in your fridge and freezer. Fill up any empty space in your freezer with containers of water (to help it stay cold for a longer). Purchase long-life products where possible, look for the furthest possible best-befores and make sure you work on a FIFO (first in, first out) system.
3. Bake when you can – know your schedule. Download a reliable app for checking your schedule and make sure you know what your times are before you start baking. Usually problems arise when they switch between stages as you might get caught out with a cake in the oven (in which case do not open the oven and *pray*). Make a careful prep list so that when you DO have power you are ready to make as much and as quickly as possible. Pre-prepare anything you can ahead of time (eg mix up your icings well in advance). Prepare yourself to bake at weird hours. Red Bull anyone?
4. Pivot to less energy intensive designs. An example of this is decorated cookies. Cookies can be baked well ahead of time and decorating does not require power. Freezing cakes to use at a later stage is also a good idea. Fondant, piping etc do not require power.
5. Protect your income. Create a T’s and C’s on your invoices that will cover you if there is a loadshedding crisis. Obviously you can’t take their money and not give them their cake, but in case of a wedding or other large event it is wise to protect yourself against a law suit for not providing the cake due to circumstances beyond your control. If (heaven-forbid) the whole grid goes down and you aren’t able to supply the wedding cake you don’t want them suing you. Make sure you have saved your deposits separately so you ARE able to refund them if necessary.