A Yummy Career: Bring Your Food Product to the Mass Market

Are you famous for your chocolate chip cookies, maple syrup, or strawberry preserves? Do you have a can’t-miss idea for baby food, a healthy snack, or a newfangled beverage? Perhaps you’ve sold on a small scale at local fairs or to friends and family, but now you’re considering retail channels such as gourmet food stores or supermarkets. If so, you probably have a lot of questions about how to take your food “invention” to market. While many of the same steps to inventing apply, food products have a special criteria. If you’re starting from scratch with your food business, here are some basic points and resources that will keep you informed.

1. You can’t do it from home. Your home based candy making operation may work on a small scale, but a food product on a retail scale requires a larger facility. You can do this by building your own facility and purchasing equipment (most risky and expensive); by renting an existing facility; or by outsourcing production to an existing food manufacturer, called “co-packing.” The third option is useful for startup companies with a limited number of products. To find potential food manufacturers with various specialties, try this resource: Thomasnet.

2. Be aware of the technical issues. Your food product isn’t just a business, it’s also a science. And while a degree in food science is probably infeasible, consulting experts with this knowledge is essential. Look for books, magazines, or courses to begin your education in food science. Your local university’s food science department may also be a place to turn. These are some of the issues to look into.

Shelf life. Ensuring your product has an adequate shelf life is key, so that consumers won’t buy spoiled food that is at worst, a health risk, and at best, a guarantee they’ll never buy it again. In addition, grocers that carry your product may require your product to have a certain shelf life before carrying it. This means you’ll also need to learn about adding preservatives to your food, which can be accomplished through laboratory testing—something you probably never thought about in your home kitchen.

Food development. Your local warehouse store may be ideal for purchasing the quantities of ingredients you require now, but manufacturing on a larger scale means finding new sources of ingredients. And as you use different ingredients and different methods of processing those ingredients, you may need to modify your original recipe. Again, a food scientist or consultant may help you determine how to mass-produce your food product without compromising the taste or quality. Search your local Yellow Pages or the Internet for Food and Beverage Consultants. Or check with your local university for recommendations.

Safety. We trust that all the food products we buy at the store are safe for consumption because they’re regulated by the government. Companies can and have gone out of business, and people have become seriously ill—after product batches were found to contain pathogens. As an entrepreneur, follow local, state, and federal regulations before launching your product.