Business Models | Edible-Alpha® Learning Center

Amazon’s Acquisition of Whole Foods Disrupts Distribution And Presents Opportunities

20 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

There are many reasons why selling food online is difficult. When cognitive neuroscientist track our brain activity as it relates to food, they find that the pleasure centers of our brains light up when we eat and even when we shop. This acquisition opens the possibility that consumers can benefit without degrading their shopping experience.

Article about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

True “Disruption” of Food Is Difficult

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Consumer tastes, preferences and expectations around food consumption and distribution are changing. People are demanding more healthy food while also sometimes making the foray into purchasing food items online, mostly non-perishable, potentially hollowing out the center of grocery stores.

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

Food Hubs with Tara Roberts-Turner of the Wisconsin Food Hub Cooperative

55 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

Due to its business model, Wisconsin Food Hub Co-op needed to reach at least $3.3 million in sales to break even. To maintain their margins, they built capacity through adequate staffing and have cheap warehouse space close to their farmers which serves only cooling and aggregation/distribution functions, rather than other forms of value-added processing.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

The Three Pillars of Yumbutter’s Brand

5 minutes of Free video by Edible-Alpha®

Matt D'Amour of Yumbutter talks about the importance of having multiple things that distinguish your food brand so you can remain defensibly unique and mitigate the risk of competition. They joined the food scene when their category (nut butters) was not crowded yet and they were positioned well to overcome roadblocks.

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

Working With Grants Like The USDA’s Value-Added Producer Grant

15 minutes of Free video by Edible-Alpha®

The best entrepreneurial candidates for VAPG do their due diligence, looking at all aspects of the business, like financing, marketing, product testing, talking to others and hire a team (like lawyers, accountants, etc.) that can help them before rushing into the process.

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

Underground Food Collective’s Horizontally Integrated Business Model

5 minutes of Free video by Edible-Alpha®

Jonny Hunter of the Underground Food Collective talks about his company's horizontally integrated business model and the efficiencies of sharing a common a common brand, administrative services and marketing across multiple related business entities through shared ownership, experienced management and shared consumer insights.

Video about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Advice From Food Entrepreneurs to Food Entrepreneurs

35 minutes of Free video by Edible-Alpha®

Having your own business is difficult and as a founder, you start out with just you. So many things that are difficult to deal with happen in business and how you adapt is key to business survival. Finding creative revenue streams and maybe even a new business model can be the way your business survives deaths, fires and funding falling through.

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

Financing Your Value-Added Farm or Food Business

Financing Food and Beverage Businesses, An Overview

55 minutes of Free video by Edible-Alpha®

Food, beverage and value-added agriculture businesses need to raise money serially in order to grow. And, they need different kinds of money at different stages of their growth path. And, specific sources of money are often for specific uses, and all of this needs to be documented.

Video about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

New National Brands Drive CPG Innovation, Inspire M&A

5 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Financing food businesses is getting more complicated, with national brands/CPG producers having to raise millions to support their growth. However, large, established food companies are often slow to innovate and this provides an opportunity for those companies to make a strategic investment in up-and coming brands.

Article about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Black Earth Meats Evolves Into Conscious Carnivore

1 hour & 30 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

Conscious Carnivore, a whole animal retail butcher shop in Madison, WI evolved from Black Earth Meats (Black Earth, Wisconsin), a larger scale meat production facility and wholesale brand due to business challenges and some of the advantages of retail.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Biological Farming and Human Scale Meat

1 hour & 35 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

To satisfy demand for local/organic meats, Barlett Durand needed consistent throughput and quality. Rather than scaling up to compete with large-scale industrialized meat processors or launching a direct to consumer farm, he began aggregating meat from existing local farms under the brand Black Earth Meats.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

A Food Business Model Journey with Leanne Cordisco

55 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

Leanne Cordisco started out making a toffee for wholesale via a local distributor. However, she realized that she did not want to raise the capital to cover at least $1 million of upfront costs to support a national brand. She opened Chocolaterian as another revenue stream and more immediate source of cash flow, and now it is her main business model.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Getting All The Way to a Strategic Investment In Your Food Company

50 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

Stephen and Chris McDiarmid of Gorilly Goods, a certified organic raw healthy snack maker in Jackson, Wisconsin talk about how their dehydration process and unique flavor profiles make them defensibly unique from other snack brands and how focusing on pitching their business model led to strategic investment in their company.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Growing An Artisan Cheese Company By Selling Direct to Consumers

30 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

Bill Anderson of Creme de la Coulee is a Wisconsin local artisan cheese maker who uses a CSA model through a cheese of the month club to connect directly with consumers. He talks about what it takes to grow a local artisan cheese company and what you have to consider when thinking about scaling that up.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling