Growing and Scaling

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.

Small diversified farms are ideally suited to agri-entertainment. The chief qualification for the rural landowner who expects to make a living from the land through agri-tourism is the desire and the ability to cater to tourists and meet their expectations of a farm visit.

Events are a wonderful way for farmers to deepen their connection with customers. To meet these goals, farmers must make sure that hosting events does not expose the farmer to greater legal liability. If things go wrong, on-farm events can be create tremendous legal problems.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

These helpful templates help you build your financial projections, including, your sales and distribution forecast; cost of goods sold (COGS) and other expenses forecasts; capital expenditures forecasts; and your accounts receivable (AR), accounts payable (AP) and inventory forecasts. These projections can help inform your proforma financial statements.

Starting with five small cheese factories in 1991, Paul has grown his company into a major producer of ethnic cheeses. Now operating one modern facility in a 700-person town, Specialty Cheese employs 250 people from a wide radius, thanks to its innovative rideshare and childcare programs. This podcast highlights the company’s positive impact on Dodge County and beyond and will inspire other food and ag entrepreneurs to capitalize on the countless business opportunities rural America holds.