Sales and Marketing | Edible-Alpha® Learning Center

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

The Chesterhill Produce Auction: A Catalyst For Produce Producers

1 hour of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

The auction focuses on getting smaller producers in the area to the scale to where they can sell and get attention for their products. Last year the auction grossed over $300,000, with the auction taking a 16% commission for all vegetables sold.

Podcast about Sales and Marketing for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

At Evolve Brands, Strategy is Everything

1 hour & 20 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

Since the snack category is crowded, Evolve Brands has focused their efforts on sales and marketing to build and continually support a strong distribution footprint of around 2,500 independent, natural and co-op grocery stores. From there, they can pursue a larger go-to-market strategy.

Podcast about Sales and Marketing for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Peter Robertson of RP’s Pasta On Managing Growth And Changing With The Consumer

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

A trip to Expo West in 2010 validated the demand and uniqueness of RP's gluten-free SKUs, generating demand that spawned rapid growth of the brand on a more national level, which can be challenging to manage the customer relationships and the right equipment setup/space to match production with demand.

Podcast about Operations for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Your Relationships With Your Customers Are Your Food Business’ Biggest Asset

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

In a marketplace with rapidly changing food preferences, restrictions, diets and ethical concerns around food production, one of the biggest challenges is figuring out how to deliver a product that solves enough problems for the right customers while building a strong relationship with them.

Article about Sales and Marketing for businesses that are Pre-Venture | Startups

Where Does My Food Brand Need To “Be”?

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Sometimes the ideal distribution path looks different than the entrepreneur intended when they started the business. The brands that survive today's marketplace will be making decisions about distribution and channels of delivery with customer expectations and preferences at center stage.

Article about Sales and Marketing for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Food Entrepreneurship and Resilience – A Funky Fresh Take With Trueman McGee

1 hour of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

Funky Fresh Spring Rolls is a company that produces uniquely flavored, hand rolled spring rolls that are baked or grilled (not fried) with fresh and local ingredients. The Funky Fresh team began selling at Farmers Markets, which in addition to providing early cash flow have functioned as market research labs, allowing them to talk directly to consumers.

Podcast about Operations for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Building A Defensibly Unique Food Supply Chain

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Building markets and the supply chain relationships necessary to support them requires a long-term vision that aligns consumers, suppliers, funders and their brand. But, if it is properly built and capitalized, it can lead to a defensibly unique business model that allows that food company to be built to last.

Article about Operations 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

Grow Your Food Brand On Amazon, If You Constantly Optimize

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

The Amazon platform provides a means for small and emerging brands to find an audience and generate sales if they dedicate time and resources to ensure discoverability on the platform by constantly optimizing product pages with the right keywords and features once the user is on the page, in addition to paying for keyword-based advertising.

Podcast about Operations 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

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

Build The Brand, Build The Food Business Ecosystem

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Good brand building is built on an understanding of your target customer and what problems you are solving for them. While it is not the only thing that is needed to build a successful business, those consumer relationships are the lifeblood of all food businesses.

Article about Sales and Marketing 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

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

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

Seal The Seasons Blueberries Berry Blend

How Seal The Seasons Matches Mission With Scale

1 hour of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

Seal The Seasons began production in one of the partitions of a shared-use commissary kitchen facility where they installed an Individually Quick Frozen (IQF) production freezer, later partnering with a co-packer in 2017 and almost doubled their gross margin contributions as a result, passing more money to their farmer suppliers.

Podcast about Operations for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

How Top Note Tonic Pivoted Beverage Categories and Understood Their Market

50 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

Top Note has pivoted away from syrups towards niche ready-to-drink, already mixed sparkling tonics, using their foray into syrups to further understand the mixer category and build their brand. Mary reflected that having a good bank as a partner is important and that learning about money has been the most useful thing that she has picked up as an entrepreneur.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

MobCraft Beer’s Creative Sourcing of Recipes and Financing

45 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

MobCraft beer is a brewery and taproom with a unique business model of crowdsourcing ideas for beer recipes from their customers. Knowing how much equity they needed vs. debt to finance their facility build out and equipment needs helped them pitch specific asks to both banks and investors, including for their $2 million tap room and production facility.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

The Customer Is Always Right (Or, At Least They Are The Ones Who Pay...

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Food businesses should align their products and branding with their target consumers and should use market research to understand what the marketplace is asking for. Acquiring and keeping customers is what drives successful businesses and customer preferences must be met in order to have a financially viable business.

Article about Sales and Marketing for businesses that are Pre-Venture | Startups