Importico’s Bakery and Café
Importico’s Bakery and Café in Stuart, Florida, was established in 2003 and was taken over by Stephanie Blankenship in 2021.
It operates two retail sites: its original in Stuart and a second in nearby Fort Pierce. The bakery also serves over a hundred wholesale customers.
Outlining how Importico’s Bakery and Café uses Cybake software, Stephanie Blankenship says: “We use Cybake to run our entire production and to allow our wholesale customers primarily to place their orders using the online ordering system. We also use Cybake for our retail store special orders. So, in essence, it’s our entire production that’s run through Cybake, from wholesale to retail to special orders.”
Stephanie describes procedures at the bakery when she first bought it as archaic.
“Orders were coming in via text message,” she explains. “Everything was done on an Excel spreadsheet or by hand. There was no system. It took about 16 hours a day to run production – and the paperwork for production – prior to Cybake.”
Clearly, something had to change, so Stephanie looked for a software solution that could modernize her bakery.
She says: “With the amount of paperwork I had to do every day, I just started scouring the internet talking to other businesses, doing my research and homework. I even looked on the App Store.
“I came across all these apps and programs and just started really digging into them. Cybake was the only one I found that was really geared towards bakeries specifically for the type of online ordering and production that I was looking for.”
Stephanie explains that the effect of adopting Cybake has been transformative: “I can’t even really express how much Cybake has changed my life, personally, because I was the one running all of that. So, it definitely gave me a lot of freedom to work on the business more.”
Wholesale growth
It’s work that has paid off. When Importico’s Bakery and Café first started using Cybake in 2021 it had around twenty wholesale customers, compared to over a hundred today.
Stephanie says that Cybake not only enabled this growth, but that the software’s use added another 30-40% of revenue to her business as well as revolutionizing production for her bakers.
She says: “People were adding on orders at all hours of the day. So, imagine coming into work, and you think you’re going to work an eight-hour shift, and then, all of a sudden, your manager is telling you to make a hundred more products.
“With Cybake, we are able to have a cut-off time for products in the system, so, for the bakers, their day is not getting interrupted. They’re not being asked to add on products. It streamlined the production for the bakers. When they come into work, they know right then and there what they need to make.”
Asked whether Importico’s Bakery and Café would recommend Cybake to other bakers, Stephanie says:
“For any other bakeries or bakers looking for a program like Cybake, I would say there are three main points that were a no-brainer for me.
“The first point would be that it absolutely streamlines your production. You can print it all in one spot, you can get reports, you are able to just have clarity on your exact orders.
“The second point I would make is that it’s extremely user-friendly and great for your wholesalers. It just makes ordering bread easier for them. They can see all your products at once.
“The third point I is that it is easier on your staff and it’s easier to communicate with your staff. It’s better to have not only your retail special orders, but your wholesale orders all in one place.”
Want to find out more or see a demo of how Cybake can cut admin, improve efficiency, and improve sales in your bakery? Contact us here, or use our LiveChat.
Chris James is a communications specialist for Cybake and Cybake USA.
