A Bakery Business Tip
If you are a baker who keeps track of a lot of cake orders, this trick is for you. I learned this while working as a decorator at a bakery that had a fairly busy wedding cake department therefore conducted cake tastings & design consultations quite regularly. They had a staff of three cake sales people who performed the tastings while there were three of us who build and decorated the cakes. In order to keep all the colors straight between staff, we used a color fan deck (commission earned).
The color fan deck (commission earned), normally used in paint and hardware stores, is a bunch of paint swatches all pinned together and numbered. It’s a great item to have on hand when you meet with clients to discuss their wedding or specialty cake order. Since most weddings and many parties involve a specific color theme that’s used throughout the decor and the names of some colors are not always familiar, it helps to have an efficient way of documenting such colors, especially since oftentimes, these consultations take place months before the event is scheduled to take place.
During a cake design meeting, when a client talks about a specific set of wedding colors like “ivory and sage” and you want to be sure you agree on exactly what sage means, you can ask her to locate the color within the color fan deck (commission earned). Once the client has chosen it, make note of the name and number of that color on the order sheet. Months or weeks later, when it comes time to actually make that cake, you will be able to reference exactly which color/s were chosen without having to rely on memory.
The bakery where I learned this trick also cut tiny squares from the swatches and taped them onto the order forms for the chefs to see. They probably did that to prevent us from taking the fan deck as well as to have a record in case it ever got lost. If you work in a busy bakery, I would suggest doing the same.
You may be able to get it cheaper from your local paint or hardware store but I would call about that before making the trip. Here is an Amazon link to a big color fan deck (commission earned),.
125 Building Blocks for Your Bakery Business
