Check the Checklist!!!!!
Yesterday was my first production day for my upcoming opening day at the Farmer's Market, Saturday May 23rd.
It was both exhilarating and stressful to be producing food for my own business for the first in my life. It definitely gave me a liberating feeling, no one looking over my shoulder, except for the good old "perfectionist" self.
The commercial kitchen I am renting is great and I had the pleasure to meet a lovely lady that has a a story similar to mine. She too changed from a long and successful career in corporate life to start her own business doing what she loves. Among many products, she makes dog cookies, which are so yummy and made with great ingredients (whole grains, herbs, honey, olive oil) that humans eat them all the time. So she is venturing in the "human food" business too. I have to say, they cookies are great and both my dogs and I loved them! If you want to learn more about her, check her out at http://www.napafarmhouse1885.com/index.html.
Now back to my production day..... ORGANIZATION is the key to success. I know you all probably heard that already, but without organization and good time management skills, you are most likely to drown. So if any of you are thinking about making food for living, do not focus on the cooking part only, but brush up on these very important organization skills.
Not that I am proficient at them, trust me, but all that corporate training did help. I made a great checklist of all items I needed to take along with me to the kitchen, including equipment, ingredients, generic items (like paper towel, gloves, etc...) and guess what? I forgot a few items behind (that were on the checklist, by the way). Hence today's title: CHECK THE CHECKLIST, no point in making one if you're not going to use it :-) Thank heavens the kitchen is only 3 miles away from home.
So after 9 hours on my feet, and a few mistakes along the way, I had a good productive day: 627 cheese bread rolls, all hand made and weighed individually. Nothing to sneer about but at the same time that equals 38 packages. So as you can see, a lot of work goes into it.
Friday I will go again to produce another big batch so I am ready for my opening day and hopefully next week, I can start making the other products.
My booth arrived too and it is pretty neat. It has a blue top and white screen walls. I will have a big Brazilian flag on the side too, so very colorful. We (Jos and I) assembled it on our backyard and it was quite a project. The dogs did not understand much hehehe. Lady did not want to come near it and Shooter was just hanging out. Here are some picture of the try out assembly.
It is not finished yet; we will have a huge banner on the back wall and the table on the front has a forest green table cloth with yellow place mats. I will publish the pictures of our assembly at the market, do not worry. Including the food, I promise.
Well, this is it for today. Several little details still to be dealt with before Saturday and I am sort of freaking out a little bit, but all will go well :-) Keep all your fingers and toes crossed and wish me good luck!
Oh, and here is Shooter, managing the process :-)
It was both exhilarating and stressful to be producing food for my own business for the first in my life. It definitely gave me a liberating feeling, no one looking over my shoulder, except for the good old "perfectionist" self.
The commercial kitchen I am renting is great and I had the pleasure to meet a lovely lady that has a a story similar to mine. She too changed from a long and successful career in corporate life to start her own business doing what she loves. Among many products, she makes dog cookies, which are so yummy and made with great ingredients (whole grains, herbs, honey, olive oil) that humans eat them all the time. So she is venturing in the "human food" business too. I have to say, they cookies are great and both my dogs and I loved them! If you want to learn more about her, check her out at http://www.napafarmhouse1885.com/index.html.
Now back to my production day..... ORGANIZATION is the key to success. I know you all probably heard that already, but without organization and good time management skills, you are most likely to drown. So if any of you are thinking about making food for living, do not focus on the cooking part only, but brush up on these very important organization skills.
Not that I am proficient at them, trust me, but all that corporate training did help. I made a great checklist of all items I needed to take along with me to the kitchen, including equipment, ingredients, generic items (like paper towel, gloves, etc...) and guess what? I forgot a few items behind (that were on the checklist, by the way). Hence today's title: CHECK THE CHECKLIST, no point in making one if you're not going to use it :-) Thank heavens the kitchen is only 3 miles away from home.
So after 9 hours on my feet, and a few mistakes along the way, I had a good productive day: 627 cheese bread rolls, all hand made and weighed individually. Nothing to sneer about but at the same time that equals 38 packages. So as you can see, a lot of work goes into it.
Friday I will go again to produce another big batch so I am ready for my opening day and hopefully next week, I can start making the other products.
My booth arrived too and it is pretty neat. It has a blue top and white screen walls. I will have a big Brazilian flag on the side too, so very colorful. We (Jos and I) assembled it on our backyard and it was quite a project. The dogs did not understand much hehehe. Lady did not want to come near it and Shooter was just hanging out. Here are some picture of the try out assembly.
It is not finished yet; we will have a huge banner on the back wall and the table on the front has a forest green table cloth with yellow place mats. I will publish the pictures of our assembly at the market, do not worry. Including the food, I promise.
Well, this is it for today. Several little details still to be dealt with before Saturday and I am sort of freaking out a little bit, but all will go well :-) Keep all your fingers and toes crossed and wish me good luck!
Oh, and here is Shooter, managing the process :-)
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ReplyDeleteyou're such an engineer, witl all the freaking check lists!! It's adorable... :-)
ReplyDeleteLove ya!
beijos
Oh, you have no idea. For the farmer's market I have a checklist, a sales sheet, a customer feedback form and a temperature check form (mandatory). It is never ending :-)....
ReplyDelete