Manufacturing and Processing

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.

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.

The heart of Kitchen Table Consultants' work is one-on-one coaching with food and farm clients, but as their work has grown they have started helping other organizations provide better technical assistance. Rather than just make plans or recommendations for clients, it is critically important to their firm’s mission and values that they “roll up their sleeves” alongside the clients to help them implement their recommendations.

Tera interviews Rod Ofte, co-founder of Nordik Meats, about launching local meat processing during COVID-19, building the business smartly and addressing the gaps in small-scale processing.

Food contamination can happen at any stage from farm to fork, which means no food business can afford to slack on security measures. Learn how regulations and tech advances are ensuring a safer food supply.

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.

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.

Kitchen Sync gets different people at the table – including the private sector – using the right language to invite everyone in to a problem solving and solutions-based session that meets their values and needs, rather than trying to change minds about those fundamental concepts. In bringing those people to the table, they are also better able to visualize and communicate the multitude of actors it will take to improve the food system for the long term.

America’s meat industry is a lot like how beer was in the 1980s, with a handful of giant corporations controlling the lion’s share of...

Ron Henningfeld, owner and cheesemaker at Hill Valley Dairy, drops by to discuss putting his own spin on a family farm business and expanding into new opportunities.