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How much is the cake decorating market segment worth in the bakery industry?
Hi! Thanks for asking Wonder to look into the market size of the cake decorating industry.
The short answer is despite thorough, deep dive research, I was unable to come up with an exact value of the cake decorating segment. However, I did find that "decorated cakes" are worth around $5 billion, and wedding cakes are worth $2 billion. Below you will find a deep dive of my findings.
METHODOLOGY
I began by searching for the value of decorated, custom-made cakes. As no geographical region was specified, I also focused on the United States geographically, as it seemed the most relevant locale.
Unfortunately, most market research for this segment is behind paywalls, such as Global Data's "Baking Ingredients (Bakery & Cereals) Market in the United States - Outlook to 2020: Market Size, Growth and Forecast Analytics" report and Market Research's "The Future of the Bakery & Cereals Market in United States to 2018". Neither given any relevant information in the free sample portion of the reports.
HELPFUL FINDINGS
Given the above, I then expanded my search to see if I could gather enough data to triangulate some figures regarding the value of the cake decorating industry.
The free sample from Mordor Intelligence's market research on cakes give us a little insight. The total market size of the American cake industry was $20 billion in 2014, of which "decorated cake" was 25%. Cupcakes, which are also decorated, are 18%. This is from a total of around $50 billion for the entire baking industry. I have stuck to just "decorated cakes" with a value of $5 billion, as while cupcakes could be relevant, they are often cited as their own category within the baked goods industry.
Reportlinker gives us some related data that is still useful. In 2016, 886,100 "unpackaged/artisanal" cakes were sold, of which many of these are going to be custom-decorated. This represents a market value of $8.897 billion. Since Mordor Intelligence said that decorated cakes were worth around $5 billion, this figure sits in nicely with the data from other sources
Since wedding cakes are a significant portion of the cake decorating industry, I also look for some insights there. According to Forbes, the wedding cake industry is worth $2 billion, and the average American couple spends $555 on a wedding cake.
Only after very extensive searching did I turn up an old industry report from IBIS World, stating that its predictions for cake decorating stores in 2016 was $1.1 billion. However, the data used was from 2011, it is difficult to take that figure absolutely for 2017 values.
POSSIBLE CONTINUED RESEARCH
In understanding what types of information are and are not publicly available on this topic, I’ve suggested a few other routes you may be interested in researching:
- Are small, retail bakeries that offer cake decorating services on the rise or in decline in the US?
- What are the major trends in cake decorating supplies?
- How big is the cake decorating supplies industry in the US?
- How big is the hobbycraft segment of people that would use cake decorating supplies?
CONCLUSION
To wrap up, I have found that decorated cakes in the US are worth around $5 billion, of which around $2 billion are wedding cakes, the largest segment. While some of the $5 billion will be factory-decorated cakes, IBIS World also predicted that "cake decorating stores" would be worth around $1.1 billion in 2016.
I hope this is helpful. Please feel free to ask Wonder if you have any more questions!