Pre-Venture

The business model canvas, the competitor matrix and sales forecast by channel can help visualize key aspects of food businesses as they seek to grow and get profitable, keeping important high-level business opportunities top of mind while allowing things to evolve.

If you can determine that the consultants you are looking at can ask the right questions and challenge you, including about your business model and financial plan, you can form a meaningful partnership with that consultant.

Quantitative measurement of key business drivers brings focus and clarity to what can be a chaotic process of entrepreneurship and provides direction that proves to be a north star during times of trial.

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.

The business model is the sum of all the things that ensures the organization sustainably makes money and delivers on its core products, services and mission. What many food entrepreneurs don't often realize is that innovation comes not just in the form of new products or services, but also in their business model.

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.

Patents, branding, and copyright...  If you want to protect something, or to stop someone from doing the same thing that you’re doing in your food business, the only way to do that in the United States (and abroad) is through IP law. An IP attorney will help you ensure that no one has made it before, branded it in a similar way to yours, or created it before you did.

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) is a complicated sweeping reform of the way food safety is regulated. This video series outlines the history, reasoning and goals behind the legislation and what your business has to do to properly comply.

Sometimes certain products or certain classes of products make more sense in certain markets than others. For example, heavy or perishable food items make less sense to sell online due to the shipping costs and logistics involved. But unconventional markets could make sense if location or customer data suggests it is a good idea.

The Livingston Food Resource Center is a nonprofit food pantry and service provider serving a county of 17,000 people in rural Montana with a food acquisition model to purchase directly from area farmers and ranchers. Kitchen rental, value-added processing, community room rental and catering all provide earned income for their operations.