Want to turn your cooking skills into a highly profitable Food business in this video.
I'm going to share five steps
for how you can start a food business from the comfort of your own home.
Hi, my name is Mei and I help makers artists
and designers create a consistent income from selling their handmade products online.
I've been selling handmade jewelry
for 14 years and it's been such a dream that I've been able to
turn my hobby into a full-time income.
So today I want to show you how you can do the same with a handmade Food business.
It has gone a little crowded out there,
but the food industry still generates trillions of dollars
and people are always going to need To eat so it's not going anywhere anytime soon.
You'll need to research the market to find some wiggle room.
But once you've honed in on your offer,
you'll be glad to know that brand loyalty is a big deal,
especially when it comes to food,
which means once people have built trust towards your brand.
They're likely to stick with you for a long time.
If not forever also food and drink are consumable products.
So that's built-in repeat sales
for your business and a nice stream of recurring income Running a business can be a
rollercoaster sometimes with some months giving you slow sales
and other months are crazy busy,
but the nature of consumable products businesses is your roller coaster is
much more like a tame one like a kiddie roller coaster.
Once you're established you should be able to experience more consistent
sales relative to other types of businesses out there
and you don't really need to worry about competing with the big Brands out there
because since the internet has been around customer.
Just have become a far more product to we're making a lot more room
for small business owners and their Specialty Products.
So if you've decided you want to start a homemade food business
here is how to get started in 5 simple steps.
Number one, you need to find an angle
when it comes to food and beverage businesses finding an angle to set yourself
apart is especially important if you already have a passion
or hobby for what you want to do.
Do you need to validate your idea by making sure there's even a market for what you're offering.
If you're not too sure yet, you can look into up-and-coming food Trends
and Lifestyles is the market for your product is saturated.
You'll need to find a way you can stand out the easiest way to do
that is by finding an untapped sub audience
for what you're offering.
So that's an audience within an existing audience.
Are there people looking for an organic or local alternative for your kind of product?
Can your product offer an alternative for a certain dietary restrictions like gluten?
Are not allergies and so on.
Can you base your products on a certain lifestyle choice
or religious belief such as veganism
or halal food can your products offer
new and exciting flavors that haven't been done before new
consumer demands come with new opportunities,
but there's so much competition out there which is why tapping into the right
angle or your secret sauce is
so important for your success a perfect example is lacroix's flavored sparkling water
because people are becoming more aware of unhealthy sugary sodas Lacroix
came out with their healthier sugar-free alternative
and they're also doing very well
or check out Bull and Cleavers meet business
and how they've adapted to an entire generation of vegans with their Mushroom Vegan biltong.
There's really no limit to how far you can ditch down
as long as there is a market for what you're selling.
Some final considerations
when coming up with your unique angle are things like the shelf life of your
products the ease of sourcing ingredients all your
round and whether they require certain shipping conditions such as for refrigerated products,
these will all factored into the cost and complexity of running your business.
All right, once you've decided on your product line number two It's Time To Source your ingredients
when it comes to finding suppliers the Internet is an excellent place
to start but don't be afraid of using Word of Mouth either
when you're just starting with small batches.
You may find it more cost effective to shop for ingredients at consumer warehouse stores,
like Costco Zora Sam's Club, or if you need to purchase from wholesale suppliers,
you can actually team up and split the bill with other small batch
producers regardless of how you Source your ingredients.
It's important that you trace them back to their routes carefully
so you can back up any claims your A product makes about being organic
or not free and so on don't be afraid to ask your suppliers about their methods of production
and to see any certifications to back up their claims.
This will allow you to correctly label your products,
which is a very important part of being in a food business
and your customers will definitely appreciate the transparency.
Of course, once you found your suppliers,
you're ready to set up your kitchen
so number 3 set up your production space some types of It's can be
made in and sold directly from your home kitchen,
but you will need to look into the legal requirements
for your specific state or country laws about this in many states in the US.
For example, the Food Drug Administration requires that you prepare label
and package food in a licensed kitchen for other states.
You can just get away with getting just a food permit to work out of your
home kitchen check out Cottage food regulations.
This law allows you to sell your home. Made food made from your kitchen now.
I'm not going to go into all these legalities
because I'm not a lawyer but also every state has different rules about it.
So do your research and reach out to your local Health Department or work with a lawyer?
If you need to save your progress choirs any special equipment,
you will definitely need to factor that into your startup costs as well.
However, if you don't have the money to buy expensive Machinery,
or if you want to sell your products online
and ship them across the country you can look into renting.
A shared licensed commercial kitchen.
These are shared kitchen spaces that you can rent anywhere from our lead to monthly.
This will help reduce your upfront costs
and it's also less paperwork
because these facilities are already registered as license basis next setting up your shop.
There's a lot of ways you can go about selling your food both online
and offline and the more you diversify the better.
You can hold sell your products to local stores.
You can participate at fairs and farmers.
It's and then there's online selling which is exactly where I
suggest you get started Marketplace sites like Etsy
and Amazon are great places to sell food products,
but I actually suggest you start by setting up your very own shop over on Shopify.
First Shopify is a reliable e-commerce platform that's
already been used by thousands of food businesses
because it has really powerful marketing tools unlike
Etsy and Amazon where you'll need to compete for space with other sellers shop.
Fight lets you build your own shop with your own branding which is
important to help stand out from the crowd
and be more memorable another reason.
I recommend your shop be the core of your business is that it allows
you to do things like build an email list.
We target site visitors with your own paid ads
and just so much more but all of this means you get to build a more loyal following
and a returning customer base,
which is in part the recipe
for long-term success when you're selling on Etsy
or Amazon your customers never really belong to you.
You don't get to build an email list of their email addresses to keep in touch with them
and if Etsy or Amazon makes a sudden change in their policies
or their algorithm you could be out of business and no time or just struggle to make sales.
That's why having your own shop
and growing your own email list is
so important that email list is your most important asset in your business
and it's an asset that no one can take away from Now this doesn't mean you
should never be selling on powerful marketplaces.
Like it's your Amazon. It just means you shouldn't rely on them for your whole business number 5,
once you've set up shop it is time to get your products in front of the right people.
But where do you start right? There is so many ways to do marketing out there,
but I don't want you to feel overwhelmed getting good at just one
or two of them can sustain your entire business.
You've got both physical and digital marketing. The opportunities here,
but I suggest you use maybe a combination of both to get the best results.
For example, you could Market your products at local farmers markets
or fairs and maybe throw in a coupon
for your online store with every sale you make depending on your product.
You may also want to pitch it to local restaurants like
and maybe supermarkets and coffee shops pitching your products to businesses who
already serve your perfect customers is a great way to secure yourself.
Alpha Pete sales on a monthly basis another great way to promote
your product is through online video people.
Love to learn how their products were
made and where they came from it helps them build a connection to the food
and it's one of the big reasons they buy from him me businesses when it comes to online marketing.
I suggest you reach out to influencers blogs and magazines.
You can reach out to Lifestyle influencers celebrity chefs food bloggers
and food editors of magazines to Then feature your products on their platforms for free.
For example, Oprah Magazine makes lists of her favorite food gifts that
usually feature independent specialty food products,
and I know for a fact that if you got on Oprah Magazine,
you will be making tens of thousands of dollars in sales.
If not hundreds of thousands of dollars. You could reach out to editors
and bloggers by email send them a package and if they like your product they will talk about you.
Media outreach can generate tons of traffic and sales to your site.
If you do it, right if you need a complete step-by-step tutorial on how to do media outreach.
I have a video here that can help you.
Another fun way to Market. Your products is to participate in a subscription box take Fuego box.
For example, these guys deliver a new handcrafted hot sauce to their customers every month.
And if you're in the chili business these guys already have your perfect customers.
So why not reach out and ask them to feature you in one of their monthly boxes?
Or let's say you make vegan yogurt.
You can send it out to a vegan lifestyle influencer
or Chef to try it out for free in exchange for featuring you in front of their audience.
These influencers already have a huge following of your ideal
customers that will probably love your product.
So, why are we invent the wheel
and spend all of your time building up your own social media following which will take you years
when you could be putting your energy into hacking that growth and excessing.
Thousands of people with just the act of sending a simple email you could
build up an entire business on influencer marketing
and media outreach alone.