Starting a Bakery? Don't Forget These Important Containers!

It might seem like there are as many acrylic and plastic containers for holding your bakery’s baked goods as there are baked goods in your bakery! Because of this, choosing the best containers for your bakery might feel a bit overwhelming.

Don’t worry. Below are brief descriptions of some of the most common kinds of containers designed for use in bakeries. Consider the kinds of baked goods your bakery sells to help you choose the best containers for displaying those goods.

Bagel Bins

Bagel bins do exactly what their name suggests. They organize, store, and display your store’s bagels.

However, bagel bins can display much more than just bagels. Depending on the kind of baked goods your bakery sells, you can use bagel bins to hold cupcakes, cookies, pieces of cake, brownies, dinner rolls, and croissants in your bagel bins.

Bread Boxes

Like bagel bins, bread boxes function exactly the way their name implies. They organize, store, and display your store’s breads. You can find acrylic roll top bread boxes with as few as one shelf, or horizontal or vertical acrylic bread boxes with several shelves.

Also like bagel bins, bread boxes are multifunctional. You don’t have to display just bread in a bread box; you might want to showcase bagels, muffins, cupcakes, or cookies in these boxes, too.

Bakery Cabinets

Think of bakery cabinets as the larger, more involved cousins of bagel bins and bread boxes.

Bakery cabinets are generally made of acrylic and large enough to hold either many more baked good items than bagel bins or bread boxes, or larger baked good items like entire loafs of bread. You can find bakery cabinets with as few as one or two cabinets or as many as six or more cabinets.

Pie Cases

If your bakery sells pies, you must have a pie case or two to display them!

Pie cases are generally sturdy acrylic display containers with several shelves for holding the pies. Pie cases have rear hinged doors so you can easily remove the pies your customers want to purchase, and they’re often in hexagon shapes designed to best fit the pies. Countertops are the best places to situate pie cases because they offer you the easiest access when you need to put pies in them – and take them out!

Gravity Bins

Because much of their baked goods consist of breakfast items, bakeries often sell other breakfast items like cereal. If this sounds like your bakery, you must look into containers that will properly organize, store, and display those items.

Cereals, for example, are best contained in gravity bins. These bins are designed to either hang on your wall or mount to your countertop, and they allow your customers to dispense as much cereal as they want while keeping the rest of the product fresh and safe from contamination.

Plexi Displays

Maybe you plan to sell more than just baked goods in your bakery, such as unwrapped candies. Or, perhaps you plan to offer your customers the freedom of choosing their own cupcake toppings and decorations.

Whatever the case, consider plexi displays with enough drawers to hold all the extra items you need to display.

Traditional Plastic Containers

Traditional plastic containers are perfect for every kind of business – bakeries included!

These containers come in a variety of shapes, sizes and styles, and for food cleanliness and customer convenience, you can find handgrip containers, containers with lids, and containers with aluminum and plastic scoops.

Creating Product Displays for Your Hotel

When you think of product displays, such as the ones created using acrylic bins, plastic containers, and display racks, you probably think of them in retail stores where a customer’s main goal is to purchase an item.

However, hotels and motels are also flooding with places where product displays are useful! For example, hotels can use these bins, containers, and racks to:

• Showcase items like candy and other snacks as well as traveling literature in the lobby area.

• Keep food clean and sanitary in the dining area.

• Better organize and display complimentary hygiene items in the hotel’s rooms.

Below are some easy ways to create product displays throughout your hotel and increase convenience for your guests.

Lobby

Traditional convenience store racks (or c-store racks) with built-in shelves are great for organizing and displaying items in your hotel’s lobby. You can use these racks to showcase:

• Local, regional, and national newspapers and magazines.

• Local city and state maps (hotels situated in popular tourist areas often include maps of surrounding cities and states).

• Brochures highlighting area entertainment, recreation, and dining attractions.

Plus, in addition to placing gumball machines in your lobby, you can also think about using acrylic bins and plastic containers to create snack table or countertop displays of candy or other snack items for your guests.

Dining Area

You already know your hotel needs food grade acrylic containers in its kitchen, but have you given any thought to the dining area?

For example, if your hotel offers a continental breakfast, you can use containers such as bagel bins to keep breakfast items like bagels, donuts, muffins, and biscuits fresh and safe from debris. Acrylic dry food dispensers, such as the models designed to mount to a wall or on a snack countertop, are great space savers and keep clean such foods as dry cereal.

Don’t forget that you can use many of these same containers during other meals your hotel might offer. Dinner extras like rolls and baked deserts like brownies and cupcakes all need somewhere safe and clean to wait for your guests, after all!

Plastic containers are also great tools for storing and displaying nonfood items your customers will need during meals, such as:

• Packets of seasonings and condiments.

• Drinking cups, lids, and straws.

• Packets of plastic utensils or napkins rolled with metal silverware.

You can use small square plastic containers for organizing and displaying condiments and seasonings, and acrylic cup displays work best for holding utensils.

Rooms

Hotels offer their guests a wide variety of complimentary convenience items, and it should come as no surprise that small, clear plastic containers are great for organizing and offering these items to your guests.

Convenience items you can display in your hotel rooms include:

• Mini bars of face and body soap.

• Small bottles of shampoo, conditioner, body wash, shaving cream, and lotion.

• Disposable toothbrushes and small tubes of toothpaste.

• Grooming tools like disposable razors and small plastic combs.

Using Food Grade Plastic Containers In Your Restaurant

Whether you already own a restaurant or you’re thinking of getting into the restaurant business, you’re probably already well aware of how useful food grade plastic containers are in any restaurant’s commercial kitchen. However, you also need to think about the wealth of possibilities these plastic containers offer once you step away from the kitchen and our into the restaurant’s actual dining and checkout areas. If you’re considering how clear plastic containers, such as food grade plastic containers, can help your restaurant, take the following three steps:

Step 1: Take a Look at Your Restaurant

Every kind of restaurant can use food grade plastic containers. Consider these possibilities:

• Fast Food Restaurants: Even if the majority of your customers use the drive-thru or simply order their meals and leave, food grade plastic containers are great for holding and storing sandwich dressings, condiment packets, napkins, straws, and coffee stir sticks.
• Buffet Restaurants: Food grade plastic containers are essential for holding and storing the food you set out along your buffet.
• Formal Restaurants: Even if your restaurant has a formal dining environment, you can still use plastic containers to hold items like silverware settings and extra napkins or clothes.
• Specialty Restaurants: Many restaurants specialize in a certain kind of food item. Yogurt shops, for example, can use food grade plastic containers as yogurt topping dispensers, while ice cream shops can use them as ice cream topping dispensers. Even bagel shops can use clear plastic containers to organize, display, and store their various types of bagels.

Note that some specialty shops, like those that offer yogurt and bagels, sometimes also offer additional breakfast items like cereal. For these restaurants, cereal dispensers are extremely useful. They hold and display the available cereals, as well as allow restaurant owners to conveniently store them when the restaurant is closed.

Step 2: Consider the Additional Food Items You Offer

Depending on the kind of restaurant you run and its layout, additional food items might include:

• Extra meal add-on items like bags of chips and candy bars.
• Seasonings and spices like salt, pepper, sugar, and sweetener.
• Packets of condiments like ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise.

Of course, your restaurant might also offer additional nonfood items that require plastic containers, such as:

• Plastic or metal utensils.
• Napkins or hand wipes.
• Straws or coffee stirs.
• Styrofoam, paper, or plastic drinking cups and lids.

Step 3: Don’t Forget Extras On the Way Out

If your restaurant is designed for customers to pay on their way out, plastic containers set on counter tops near your register are perfect for offering customers items like chewing gum, breath mints, toothpicks, and packets of hand wipes. Some restaurants, like those located in popular tourist areas, even sell additional nonfood items like souvenirs, maps, and small toys bearing the restaurant’s name or logo. Additionally, there are restaurants that act as distributors for national product lines and these restaurants can use clear plastic containers to display these items near their checkout areas.

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