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The Pressure to Expand Everyone will tell you that your food business needs to get bigger. They’ll say you should sell in more stores, make more products, and hire more people. If there’s no growth, people might think you’re doing something wrong. The Hidden Cost of Rapid Growth But here’s the truth: staying small can…
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Is It Time? You’ve been juggling your food business with everything else—work, life, sleep (when you can). It’s exciting, but it’s exhausting. Maybe the orders are piling up, or you’re daydreaming about what your business could become if you had more time. But is now the right moment to go full-time? Follow the Numbers This…
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After being laid off from my job in financial services, I seriously considered starting a food business. Although I had several products I wanted to make and sell, my research around LA led to a sobering realization: I was going to fail. Not because my ideas weren’t good enough, but because I couldn’t find a…
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food business owner, entrepreneur or technician. Are you Stuck in the Kitchen? Let’s get real – your killer recipe launched your food business. Whether you craft artisan jam, smoke premium jerky, or blend gourmet granola, that talent got you started. But now you chain yourself to the kitchen day after day, cranking out product after…
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The real cost of throwing away food Let’s be honest – throwing away food is literally throwing away money. Moreover, as a small food business owner, you’ve probably watched perfectly good ingredients head straight to the dumpster, and inevitably, food waste hurts your bottom line every time. Turning waste into revenue However, what if that…
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Helping Your Food Business Connect with the Local Community If you’re a small food business owner, you know how much every connection counts. Moreover, when it comes to loyal customers, there’s no one better than your local community. People love to support small businesses, especially those that feel like a natural part of their area’s…
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If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably making something delicious in your home kitchen. It’s so good, people often tell you that you should start a business. You might be thinking that you really do make great dog treats (as an illustration), and you might be wondering if you should start a food business. Could…
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You have your product idea and a plan to produce it. Let’s use hot sauce as an example. Your product is on the shelf with many other brands and different varieties within those brands. To illustrate, as a consumer, there are so many different hot sauces to choose from. You need sales. How are you…
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What’s the difference between margins and mark-ups? Which do you use, and when? Simply stated if you’re a packaged food/taxable grocery brand, you should use margin, not mark up. Why? Because that’s what stores, and distributors and brokers and wholesale buyers use. You need to be speaking their language, because when a business analyzes their…
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Over and over, when approaching new wholesale buyers, new food businesses (and existing!) make easily correctable tactical errors. Here are the top 6 sales pitfalls: As the founder, you’re excited to get a new account. That’s understandable. Saying “yes” to accounts that are outside your region, not aligned with your known target customer, beyond your…
