Raising Capital | Edible-Alpha® Learning Center

How The Fair Food Fund’s Patient Capital Yields Great Impact

50 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

Seeded with a 2012 challenge grant of $3.75 million, the Fair Food Fund, the impact investing arm of Fair Food Network, has attracted a total of $6.4+ million in grants and program related investments from more than 20 funders. Since then, the Fund has provided more than $3.6 million in financing and business assistance to over 80 enterprises across 9 states.

Podcast about Raising Capital for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Food Entrepreneurs: Investor Due Diligence is Good For You

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Because food businesses tend to grow in a stairstep function rather than incrementally, most food businesses need to raise outside funding to be viable and profitable. Investor due diligence can help entrepreneurs to mature their businesses into viable enterprises because the process forces them to get clear and articulate about how they make money.

Article about Raising Capital for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Tim Keane On Golden Angels Investors’ Funding Philosophy

50 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

Golden Angels Investors advise entrepreneurs to focus on building their sales and getting as much customer feedback as they can before they risk too much with the business. This, as well as the identification of competitors, helps validate that the business has some traction in the marketplace in the eyes of investors.

Podcast about Raising Capital for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Your Food Business’ Capital Needs Change Over Time

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Getting proper financing for growing food businesses is one of the most challenging obstacles food business owners face, due in large part to the high bar for fundraising and financial communication when growing a food business. And, there are often many sources of capital that need to be brought together to adequately fund the growth of these food businesses.

Article about Raising Capital for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Demystifying Funding Terminology

5 minute Free read by New Hope Network

Most entrepreneurs start out with friends and family funding (essentially people they know who will take a risk with them) or else they "bootstrap" their company, self-financing from the owner(s) and free cash flow. However, in food, this doesn't get you very far - food businesses need outside capital, usually from a variety of sources, to compete.

Books or Guide about Raising Capital for businesses that are Pre-Venture | Startups

Joel Solomon On How Food Businesses Can Be Part Of The Clean Money Revolution

50 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

There is a disconnect between perceptions of available money for food business and the sheer volume of individuals/funds looking to invest at various stages. And, natural food investors are starting to look at even earlier stage companies now that there is so much competition at the product, retail and investment levels of the food business ecosystem.

Podcast about Raising Capital for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Gary Hirshberg Stonyfield Organic On Taste Radio

Growing Organically With Stonyfield Farm Co-Founder Gary Hirshberg (Taste Radio Podcast)

1 hour & 20 minutes of Free audio by Taste Radio Podcast

The founders of Stonyfield were running a nonprofit organic farming school on a small New Hampshire farm when they began what became Stoneyfield farms. After starting with seven cows, now Stoneyfield sells hundreds of millions of dollars per year in dairy and other products in supermarkets, natural food stores and colleges across the country.

Podcast about Raising Capital 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

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

How A Bank Can Strengthen Farming Communities Through Innovative Lending

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

Ephrata National Bank in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania is a $1 billion community bank with 25% of their portfolio funding agricultural entrepreneurs. Lending to support new business models or premium offerings (like value-added processing) can help farmers deal with high land prices and avoid commodity agriculture's low return on assets.

Podcast about Raising Capital for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Food Companies Grow In Stair Steps, Not Incrementally

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

While established food companies can grow slowly and still be profitable, this is much harder, if not impossible, for emerging food companies. Food companies, because they deal in physical products often produced from a long and complex supply chain, grow in stair steps, not incrementally, in order to reach the right scale to be profitable.

Article about Raising Capital for businesses that are Pre-Venture | Startups

How This Hard Cider Business Is Learning From “The Struggle”

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

Brix Cider began producing in small batches and self-distributing throughout southern Wisconsin. Their ultimate goal is to open a cider tasting room (increasing margins and cash flow); however, through the struggle to find the right space, they have learned business problem solving skills and financial literacy.

Podcast about Raising Capital 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

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

Economic Gardening As Part Of An Ecosystem

Grants, Loans, Investments…Welcome To The Food Funding Ecosystem!

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

To come up with a realistic strategy for action and growth, food entrepreneurs should make efforts to understand this entrepreneurial ecosystem and whether grants, loans, investments or a combination of capital sources makes sense to fund their growth. Only then can food entrepreneurs plant the seeds for a profitable and sustainable food business.

Article about Raising Capital for businesses that are Pre-Venture | Startups

Value-Added Producer Grants With Jim Gage

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

While the VAPG grant can be complicated (for example, a 75 page application plus Business Plan and third-party Feasibility Study), it requires applicants to critically consider expansion of the customer base and the marketplace for products as well as demonstrate how they will have sufficient business structures, profit and cash flow to operate in the long-term.

Podcast about Raising Capital 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

Cogent Consulting Impact Investing Ecosystem

Impact Investing In Regenerative Agriculture

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

There are investable opportunities in companies that provide support for regenerative agriculture systems and smaller, donation-supported loan funds combined with technical assistance in the $15,000-$50,000 range fill a market gap for small entrepreneurs as they scale up and seek larger sources of financing later.

Podcast about Raising Capital for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Creativity Is Essential To Food Entrepreneurship

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Figuring out the best way to finance food businesses by optimizing their capital structure to reach minimum efficient scale is an undervalued creative exercise. But the myriad of challenges that confront entrepreneurs, from finding the right suppliers, co-packers, distributors, brokers or even the right target customer also demand creativity.

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