Head pastry chefs: booking trade tastings for restaurants

If you supply desserts, viennoiserie or cakes to restaurants, hotels and cafés, let trade buyers book a tasting slot online instead of arranging each visit by phone. Offer a one-to-one tasting for a single buyer and, if you like, a group tasting session with a few places for several buyers at once. Ask before the tasting what the buyer serves, their volumes and their price range, prepare samples to match, and end each tasting with a clear next step: a quote, a trial order or an order meeting.

A one-to-one tasting lets you tailor samples to one menu and talk prices openly. A group session, such as a seasonal range presentation, lets you show new products to several buyers in one go. On Book, each service has a name, a price and an optional description shown on your public page, and each slot belongs to one service, sits within one day and has its own capacity.

Lengths and places are examples: set your own. Leave the price empty for trade tastings, or set one and say whether it's deducted from a first order.

The booking form takes first name, last name, email and phone, plus an optional note that reaches you in the new booking email and appears in the buyer's calendar file. Ask in the description for:

The note tells you what to bake. Prepare a small selection that fits the buyer's menu rather than your whole range, with portion sizes, shelf life and storage instructions written down. For a group session, prepare by the number of places booked: when the session is full, it leaves your page, so you know exactly how many plates to plate.

Trade buyers need allergen information and storage details before they can put a product on a menu. Bring a sheet for each sample with ingredients, allergens, portion weight, shelf life and how it arrives: frozen, chilled or ambient. It answers the questions the buyer's team will ask later, and makes the order meeting faster.

Send your booking link in prospecting emails, add it to your trade price list and your email signature, and give it to buyers you meet at trade fairs. A buyer who can pick a tasting time in one click doesn't have to wait for a call back.

Restaurant buyers are busy around service. Mid-morning and mid-afternoon on weekdays can suit kitchens between services, and keep your own production mornings clear. Slots repeat each week on the weekdays you choose until an end date, so two tasting windows a week take a few minutes to set up. Open the seasonal presentation once per season, a few weeks before menus change.

At the end of the tasting, agree what happens next and book it yourself from your calendar: an order meeting, a trial delivery date or a second tasting with the head chef. First and last name are required, email and phone optional; enter the buyer's email so they receive a confirmation with a calendar file. Send prices and minimum orders by email the same day, while the tasting is fresh.

Regular clients deserve a review too: a short tasting each season to present new items and drop what isn't selling. Book these yourself a few weeks ahead in the order meeting service, so your production plan for the next season is based on real orders.

Buyers can't move bookings online: they contact you, and you move the tasting from your bookings list and confirm it yourself, since Book doesn't email clients about changes. Your bookings sync with Google, iPhone or Mac calendars, so tastings sit beside your production schedule. Book costs €5/month, everything included: unlimited services and bookings, no commission, no contract.