Business Models | Edible-Alpha® Learning Center

3 Ways To Visualize (And Improve) Your Food Business

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

The business model canvas, the competitor matrix and sales forecast by channel can help visualize key aspects of food businesses as they seek to grow and get profitable, keeping important high-level business opportunities top of mind while allowing things to evolve.

Article about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling | Pre-Venture | Startups

What Makes A Good Food Business Consultant?

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

If you can determine that the consultants you are looking at can ask the right questions and challenge you, including about your business model and financial plan, you can form a meaningful partnership with that consultant.

Article about Business Models for businesses that are Pre-Venture | Startups

Hospital-Based Farming – A Bridge To Community Health And Wellness

55 minutes of Free audio content by Edible-Alpha®

The farm isn’t just a physical location that grows produce - it is part of a commitment by the hospital system to extend healthcare and wellness beyond the hospital campus and empower the community to lead healthier lives. They operate a CSA, a farmers market, community events and a Product To Patients program.

Podcast about Operations for businesses that are Startups

All Organizations – Food Pantries Included – Can Innovate On Their Business Model

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

The business model is the sum of all the things that ensures the organization sustainably makes money and delivers on its core products, services and mission. What many food entrepreneurs don't often realize is that innovation comes not just in the form of new products or services, but also in their business model.

Article about Business Models for businesses that are Pre-Venture | Startups

Transforming a Food Pantry into an Engine for Rural Prosperity

1 hour & 15 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

The Livingston Food Resource Center is a nonprofit food pantry and service provider serving a county of 17,000 people in rural Montana with a food acquisition model to purchase directly from area farmers and ranchers. Kitchen rental, value-added processing, community room rental and catering all provide earned income for their operations.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Pre-Venture | Growing and Scaling

Your Food Business Needs Multiple Strategies

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Good strategies are ones that reflect current relationships with customers/partners and current market realities, and thus, can shift as those things shift. Without a well-documented strategy, even well-meaning food entrepreneurs can get distracted or fail to execute on their business’ core needs and goals.

Article about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Ownership Differentiates Willy St. Co-op In A Changing Grocery Market

1 hour & 5 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

Willy Street Co-op is a set of cooperatively owned retail grocery stores in Madison, WI with 35,000 member-owners and about 400 employees across three stores. They have found that operating transparently and openly, emphasizing cooperative ownership and owner literacy, has provided a point of differentiation in the current marketplace.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

ReGrained, A Business Model For The Long Term And The Planet

1 hour & 10 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

ReGrained launched their product at scale in January 2018 after multiple iterations of their product (in the crowded bar category) and now are working with other businesses to help them produce/co-brand new products using their production facility and the expertise embedded in their proprietary process.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Food Businesses Need To Pay For Space And Attention, Even on Amazon

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Because the food space is competitive, online and off, emerging food companies have to spend lots of marketing and sales dollars to get consumer attention and trial by paying to have their product in the right place with the right positioning.

Article about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Shifting Farm Business Models

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Median on-farm household income has been negative for the past 20 years, with many farms keeping their cash flow positive by increasing their debt load. Finding new business models that allow farmers to be profitable while meeting changing consumer demand will require high-quality technical assistance and coordinated effort from multiple actors.

Article about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

The Farmer Education Continuum In The Colorado Mountains

55 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

The Old Fort at Hesperus' team sees farming education as a continuum where different people are best served by discreet programs, depending on their interests and stage of development. Their sustainable agriculture program includes an educational garden internship, a farmer-in-training program, and market garden incubator.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Why Private Label Might Be A Great Business Decision

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Grocery stores have introduced their own branded "private label" products on their shelves, offering an opportunity for food producers to increase cash flow, maximize production efficiency and diversify revenue streams without having to do all of the brand building and customer relationship management themselves.

Article about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

How Tribe 9 Foods Balances Economies Of Scale With A Changing Marketplace

55 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

Tribe 9 Foods secured growth capital to bring manufacturing in-house for the three brands that merged into their portfolio, something that has allowed them to have control over batch timing, batch size and product quality. In addition, in-house production allows them the flexibility to try new things and have a co-packing line of business for their core product types.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Angela Mavridis Of TRIBALÍ Foods On Resonating With Your Tribe

45 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

TRIBALÍ's clean, simple packaging communicates their organic, grass-fed and Paleo certifications, stands out on the freezer shelf and helps communicate their brand's promise to that tribe. Angela Mavridis, TRIBALÍ's founder and CEO reflects that the investor pitch process forces you to learn every single aspect of the business.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

How Union Kitchen’s Ecosystem Helps Build Profitable Food Businesses

50 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

Union Kitchen is a shared-use kitchen and food business accelerator in in Washington D.C. While having a shared-use kitchen eliminates the need for capital for kitchen equipment, there are many other things food businesses need to raise capital for, which is why they have distribution and retail outlets as part of their model.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Pre-Venture | Startups

Rightsizing The Ship: A Farmer’s Tale of Scaling Down

1 hour & 40 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

This hub discovered that the bigger the business got, the more money it lost and that moving aggregation functions off of the owner's farm caused the operation to be less efficient at that level of sales. The owner chose to contract the business to focus on getting profitable and repaying existing suppliers.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

When Your Food Business Should Go Online

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Food businesses should know the role that online sales will play in their revenue stream and in their business model. Consumers are starting to become omnichannel in their food shopping expectations. Like most things in food entrepreneurship, it is best to let your customers lead the way, and if they expect to find you online, go online and conquer.

Article about Business Models for businesses that are Pre-Venture | Startups

Scaling Innovative Food Products At The Right Time

40 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

The ideal market for Know Brainer's individual creamer products has been online with Amazon and their own online store while their multi-serve product is more of a conventional grocery item. They only started to scale their product after extensive customer research and testing.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Why and How To Think About Social Impact Investing In Food

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Because food businesses need to be financially sustainable to achieve their goals, including impact goals, they need to understand their business model and align their efforts behind the model.When speaking to investors, they should to clearly communicate how their business will make money and on what time horizon.

Article about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Farmers: Let’s Build A Brand!

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Food consumers have been seeking more "premium" experiences from the food they purchase, including better connections with their food and understanding where it comes from. Developing brands for agricultural products can help farmers produce products that earn them a premium and are meeting a real consumer demand.

Article about Business Models for businesses that are Pre-Venture | Startups