Crust Vegan Bakery halves admin time and boosts accuracy with Cybake
Crust Vegan Bakery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was founded in 2015 as a small wholesale and catering business with just two employees.
Situated in the neighborhood of Manayunk to the north west of the city, it now has a commercial kitchen, a storefront, 16 staff members, and around 50 wholesale customers.
Co-owner Meagan Benz explains: “We mostly sell to cafes and grocery store co-ops, and we serve the Philadelphia region and beyond. It changes a little during the summer because we do sell to some local universities.”
Before adopting Cybake software, Crust Vegan Bakery’s order management process was manual and time-consuming.
Meagan says: “Prior to using Cybake, it was a lot of work by hand for me and the other manager who was managing the wholesale accounts. We had to make sure that once orders closed every day, we were there to check the inbox and put all of those orders onto a production sheet for our staff for the next day.”
The team often had to work under pressure, which led to mistakes.
“There were times when we’d be doing that math and we’d be tired,” she says. “And it would mean that the next day, we’d go to bake everything, and, at the end of the day, we’d be short a dozen or two dozen of something just from doing poor, sleepy math.”
Wholesale operation
Switching to Cybake made a significant difference to the bakery’s wholesale operation.
“Now that we have Cybake, we’re able to put a custom cut-off time every day of the week for customers,” says Meagan. “Then all we have to do is generate the production list and print it out for our staff for the next day of baking.”
“We’re guaranteed that we’re delivering to our staff exactly what they need to do their job.”
Cybake has also improved communication with customers.
“Now our customers are able to go on and they can see everything there is available to order online on their platform, rather than having to reach out to us, wondering if something is in season or not, wondering if something’s available or not.”
“If we’re short on something or have to cut it from the menu, we are able to just turn it off in Cybake, so it’s a communication-less way for us to make sure everything is accurate and up to date for our customers at all times.”
In addition to wholesale, Crust Vegan Bakery uses Cybake to manage stock between its commercial kitchen and its storefront, which are currently located separately.
“We use Cybake for our storefront to order products that they need us to deliver down to them from the kitchen, where we make most of the product,” says Meagan.
“At some point, we’re all going to be in one building, but I know that Cybake will still be what we’ll use for our storefront staff to let us know what the back of house needs to make for them.”
Expansion
While her business mainly uses Cybake for ordering and invoicing, Meagan sees potential to expand its use further.
“I would highly recommend Cybake to other bakeries,” she says. “I think it even has a lot more to offer than we’re even using.”
“It’s been monumentally helpful to us and to our customers in making sure that we’re delivering a quality product to them and consistency in our communications and what we offer.”
Want to reduce mistakes and streamline operations in your bakery? Book a Cybake demo today!
Catherine Thomas is the digital marketing executive at Cybake.
