Operations | Edible-Alpha® Learning Center

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

Great Food Entrepreneurs Are Always Learning

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

The best entrepreneurs are getting constant feedback from their customers, reaching out to potential mentors for advice and attending industry events and tradeshows to network with and learn from their peers and industry veterans. This learning can lead entrepreneurs to radically change directions in their business model, product or packaging.

Article about Operations for businesses that are Pre-Venture | Startups

This Food Hub Leverages A Diverse Food Shed For A Resilient Future

40 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

Dorchesters Farm Food Hub aggregates and tries to ensure consistent supply of seafood and farm products (fruit, produce, livestock) and then redistributes to areas that are historically under-served via direct delivery of fresh and healthy food options, giving its customers lots of choice and flexibility.

Podcast about Operations 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

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

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

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

Growing A Successful Retail Food Co-op By Meeting Your Member’s Needs

1 hour & 5 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

The Great Basin Community Food Co-op first opened to the public in downtown Reno with 500 feet of retail space, eventually hitting $1 million in sales in one year. In 2012 they moved to another 3-story location of about 3,000 square feet (on the main floor) even closer to downtown. In 2017, the store had about $4.5 million in sales after rapid growth.

Podcast about Operations for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Focused Prioritization Helps Good Food And Farm Businesses Reach Break-Even

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Food entrepreneurs will always have lots of goals competing for their attention. Good entrepreneurs know how to prioritize goals and optimize their efforts for the goals they are pursuing as priorities. This allows them to build financially successful companies and, over time, pursue many more big, hairy, audacious goals than they would have otherwise.

Article about Operations for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

The Farmer Education Continuum In The Colorado Mountains

55 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

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.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Should I Manufacture Food In-House Or Use A Co-Packer?

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

The inevitable question food entrepreneurs face when scaling is "should I manufacture food in-house or use a co-packer?" The food entrepreneur's business model, stage of business, financing capacity (i.e. how well they can raise money) and the availability of co-packing capacity for their specific needs all make a difference in deciding how to answer that question.

Article about Operations for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Reality Keeps Your Food Business Grounded

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Being a food entrepreneur is in some ways about balancing empirical reality and a belief in something you cannot see clearly, like where your business will be in 3-5 years. Food entrepreneursshould clearly state their assumptions about the future and test their assumptions constantly, asking the advice of people who they can trust to ground-truth their ideas.

Article about Operations for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Rightsizing The Ship: A Farmer’s Tale of Scaling Down

1 hour & 40 minutes of Free audio by Edible-Alpha®

This hub discovered that the bigger the business got, the more money it lost and that moving aggregation functions off of the owner's farm caused the operation to be less efficient at that level of sales. The owner chose to contract the business to focus on getting profitable and repaying existing suppliers.

Podcast about Business Models for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

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

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

When Is the Right Time For Your Food Business To Pivot?

How You Know It’s The Right Time To Pivot

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Decisions to pivot should be based on a food business' target consumer's preferences, category growth (or decline) and other general market trends. Many traditional food and beverage companies have been slow to respond to changing consumer preferences, loosing market share and profits in the process.

Article about Operations for businesses that are Growing and Scaling

Focus And Discipline Are Key To Food Business Success

10 minute Free read by Edible-Alpha®

Focus is what gives food business owners clarity about their strategy and about the tactics needed to carry it out. Tools like the business model canvascan provide focus and clarity to their business model and the strategic implications of choosing a particular business model path or going after a particular target customer.

Article about Operations for businesses that are Growing and Scaling