Saturday, August 17, 2013

Girton Bakery - Mobile Internet Bakery

DRAFT 
Work in Progress August 17th 2013




Cambridge is served well with home deliveries of food and groceries, etc.  Example of past business success in the UK with fresh bakery delivery is  Domino's Pizza Group.  These companies deliver with an ad hoc service rather than regular daily  rounds. The UK used to have milk floats, but not now as the large grocery companies, e.g. Tesco, have undercut the business. We do not have a mobile bakery however. It would be a very useful service  to have a bread van come around in the mornings and delivery fresh bread - baked on the van.

from Wikipedia 

This service would provide:


  • a basic service to people of supplying bread in residential areas , not business parks as covered by sandwich vans etc
  • bread is freshly baked on van 
  • employment for  local people of all ages and health 
  • profitable business with upmarket loaves
  •  bread baked on the van using the residual heat from the engine and so economical of fuel and Green


Mobile bakeries have been tried in other parts of the world, particularly  the Army,  We would like the system optimised for UK commercial use.   We would  also like bakery to use the energy conversion of waste heat from engine (exhaust) to the onboard oven.



I have been baking bread on and off for more than 40 years, it is a very creative and satisfying process. A basic loaf just requires strong  flour, yeast, salt, sugar and heat.
bread by Lyn



Market Research

TBD - web research

Spreadsheet -  business projection


Communications with customers.

People can order bread and communicate direct to van  via phone, text, web,email,  etc. The position of the van will be shared via GPS to a map, Twitter etc.  No noisy Ice Cream van Chime needed!




The Science - check this

Heat from a car engine: 25% of power used for engine e.g. turning the crankshaft  and the rest is wasted.  Approx 50% of this residual  heat  is lost through the exhaust, the other 50% through the coolant system to the atmosphere.
A 100 Horsepower engine is equivalent to about 73 kWatts.

0.75 * 0.5 *73 = 27.3kW  total for oven - check this.

A rear engine van, e.g. VW would allow easier engineering/heat transfer  to the oven.


1952 VW transporter from Wikipedia



Minimum energy required to bake bread?


Business stages.

Market research,  cashflow spreadsheet  for year 1
 Delivery of bread from existing local bakery and conventional delivery van. Orders placed on web page the night before or while vehicle in transit  but prefer to have regular or daily customers.
 Evaluation of new "Green" oven design.