Bakeries and patisseries10 October 2026, 12 min read
Bakery: how to get bread pre-ordered in the evening and throw less away
How much bread is left over each month and how to cut it: pre-orders the evening before, morning collection slots, repeat orders and cakes with notice. A practical guide for bakeries and patisseries.
Every bakery knows the problem: at 19:00 there are loaves, focaccia and grissini left on the shelves that can't be sold at the same price tomorrow. You try to guess production from experience, but one rainy day or a local festival is enough to get it wrong.
Pre-orders don't eliminate the problem, but they move part of your production from estimate to certainty. Let's see how to make them really work.
What unsold bread costs you
For a week, weigh the bread left at the end of the day. Then multiply by the average price and by the days you're open.
Do the maths
The bread left over in a month
- Unsold bread at the end of the day4 kg
- Average price per kilo£ 4,20
- Days open per month26
Example calculation at selling price. Weigh your unsold bread for a week and redo the sum with your own figures.
Recovering even part of it, with pre-orders and more precise production, means a few hundred pounds a month that today ends up in the stale-bread bag.
1. Get bread ordered the evening before
Many customers buy the same bread every day. If they can order it in the evening, from the sofa, you know in the morning how much is needed. Set a closing time for pre-orders, for example 20:00, and when it's time to make the dough you already have the list.
For the customer the advantage is just as clear: the bread they want is put aside, even if they come by at 9:30 when the shelf is half empty.
2. Split collection into slots
Mornings in a bakery have two peaks: people coming by before work and people coming by after the school run. Collection slots let you prepare the bags in order of time, with the name written on them.
Collection tomorrow morning
3. Write the price per kilo and the approximate weight
Online, the customer can't look at the loaf. Next to the price per kilo, give the approximate weight of one item: "loaf, about 500 g". That way they know what they'll spend and you avoid questions and surprises at the till.
Forno San Guido
Order by 20:00 for tomorrow morning
- Semolina breadLoaf, about 500 g£4.20 / kg
- Hand-stretched grissiniBag, about 250 g£12.00 / kg
- Hazelnut cakeTo order, 2 days' notice£24.00 / kg
4. Offer a repeat order
Someone who buys a kilo of bread every day doesn't want to order it every evening. Offer a standing order, for example "Monday to Saturday, 1 kg of semolina bread at 7:30", which they can pause when they're on holiday. For you it's the base of each day's production, already certain.
5. Cakes to order with minimum notice
Cakes to order are an excellent source of income, but also a source of stress if they arrive on Friday afternoon for Saturday morning. Set a minimum notice for each product, for example two days, and ask for everything you need in one go: weight or number of people, flavour, message, any allergies.
🛍️ Takeaway order
- 1 × Hazelnut cake, 1.5 kg
- 12 people
- 1 kg × Semolina bread
Message: Happy birthday Grandma Rina
Total £40.20
🕒 Collection Saturday 10:30
18:42 ✓✓
6. Prepare the calendar of seasonal products
Easter colomba, panettone, Carnival fritters, All Souls' biscuits, cakes for first communions: every year they come round at the same times. Mark on the calendar when to open orders, at least three weeks ahead, and let your regulars know with a message. Knowing the quantities in advance lets you organise shifts and ingredients.
7. End-of-day offers, done properly
Some unsold bread will always remain, even with pre-orders. The difference lies in what you do with it in the last hour and a half of opening. An end-of-day offer works if it's always at the same time, always with the same rules and announced beforehand: that way it becomes a habit for some of your customers, instead of an improvised discount.
A few practical rules:
- Don't start too early. If the discount starts at 17:00, customers who would pay full price learn to wait. Between 18:00 and 19:30 the buyers are mostly people leaving work who wouldn't otherwise have come by.
- A simple discount. "30% off today's bread and focaccia" is understood at a glance. Avoid complicated rules like "the second one half price, on half-kilo items only".
- The surprise bag. In the last half hour, a bag of mixed products at a fixed price, for example about 2 kg for £5, empties the shelves and introduces products the customer wouldn't have tried.
- Exclude cakes and products made to order. The offer only covers what would otherwise be lost.
- Show the shelf. At 17:45 a photo of the shelf in your WhatsApp status and Instagram stories, with the time of the offer, brings in people who live nearby.
🥖 From 18:00 to 19:30, today's bread and focaccia at 30% off. From 19:00 there's also the surprise bag: about 2 kg of mixed products for £5. See you there!
With a timed online menu, the "End of day" section appears by itself at 18:00 and disappears at closing time: the customer who opens it at 18:10 sees exactly what they'll find.
8. Turn yesterday's bread into a new product
What's left after the evening offer doesn't have to become waste. Many bakeries have a small corner of "rescued" products that sell well:
- Breadcrumbs, also flavoured with herbs and lemon zest, in 250 g bags.
- Croutons and bread for bruschetta, toasted and packaged.
- Bread cake or bread pudding, sold by the slice.
- Panzanella kits in summer: stale bread, a printed recipe and a few ingredients.
Put them in a separate category in the catalogue, priced per item: they mustn't be confused with fresh bread.
9. Donate what you can't sell
For the bread that really is left over, consider working with a local charity or soup kitchen. In Italy, Law 166 of 2016, known as the Gadda law, simplified donations of surplus food by businesses. For details on paperwork and tax, ask your trade association or your accountant.
A typical week, organised
| When | What you do |
|---|---|
| Every evening at 20:00 | Bread pre-orders for the next day close |
| Every morning | You make the pre-ordered dough plus a margin for the counter |
| Every day at 17:45 | Photo of the shelf and announcement of the end-of-day offer |
| Every day 18:00 to 19:30 | End-of-day offer, then the surprise bag |
| Every Monday | You look at the week's unsold bread and adjust the margin |
Mistakes to avoid
- Accepting pre-orders until midnight: if you make the dough at 3:00, close pre-orders at a time that lets you get organised.
- Not giving the weight: "1 loaf" is clear to you, not to the customer.
- Discounting different products every day: the customer doesn't know what to expect and stops coming by.
- Forgetting who has pre-ordered: pre-ordered bags must be kept aside with the name clearly visible, until closing time.
Where to start
Begin with evening pre-orders and a clearly visible price per kilo. After a month, look at the data: how many orders arrive, at what time, which products. Then add repeat orders and the seasonal calendar.
How to do it with NovaMenu
With NovaMenu you get a catalogue with prices per kilo and allergens, pre-orders with a collection slot that arrive on WhatsApp, and orders closing at the time you decide. See how it works on the page for bakeries and patisseries.