Foodpreneur with Chelsea Ford

Send us Fan Mail We are now two-thirds of the way through the ‘golden quarter’ – typically retail's most profitable period. But from what I’m hearing, it hasn’t been terribly ‘golden’ for many. Weekly I encounter food and beverage entrepreneurs facing challenges in profitably growing and scaling their food and drink businesses. After 30 years of industry experience, the reasons for their stru...

Send us Fan Mail The ‘selling’ aspect of creating a packaged food and drink brand is often an afterthought for food or drink entrepreneurs; when really it should be second only to creating a top-notch product. Why? Beacause your brand story, ingredients or packaging won’t mean a thing if you can’t sell. Someone who knows the importance (and skill) of selling is Paul John Legaz, the founder of VinZ...

Send us Fan Mail Avoiding burnout poses a significant hurdle for food and beverage entrepreneurs. Limited resources often prevent them from hiring, leading to the common issue of stretching themselves too thin. This, in turn, hampers their business's ability to scale. If you’re like my latest podcast guests, who not only enjoy handpicking the fruit that goes into every single bottle of their...

Send us Fan Mail Innovation in the food and beverage industry drives competition over big food flavour rotations and provides consumers with more choice. My guest this week on the podcast is Mark Beattie, a self-proclaimed ‘innovation junkie, that has transformed the humble egg into a successful business catering to the hospitality sector. Mark’s company, Eggzi, produces free range and pasteurised...

Send us Fan Mail Imagine getting your kids off to school, unpacking all the cooking equipment you need to make your next product batch, cooking all day, then packing it all away before the kids get home. It’s an exhausting cycle that can limit the ability for a normal home life, and prevent you from putting more money in your pocket due to not being able to scale. Natalie Harris, the co-founder of...

Send us Fan Mail What if I told you to focus on getting people to say 'no' to your product instead of 'yes’? You might think I’m a few fries short of a Happy Meal, but hear me out. We often stress over getting 'yes's’ but what would happen if we aimed instead for 100 'no's' while passionately promoting our product? I’ll tell you – you’d get a few ‘yes’s’, bu...

Send us Fan Mail The best business leaders in the world know that to scale and take a business to the next level, it requires one key ingredient – people.  And the ‘people’ I’m talking about are not just people who work in your business, it’s also your business network and mentors, your community and your family and friends. The reality is, in these challenging economic times, there's a limit...

Send us Fan Mail Times are tough for many right now. The cost-of-living crisis has people pulling back on spending, which affects many small businesses, Foodpreneurs included. But for those with packaged food and drink products who are wondering “How can I boost sales and profits when households are tightening their belts?", I have a solution for you, and it is simpler than you might expect....

Send us Fan Mail Often in the journey to build a successful packaged food or drink business, Foodpreneurs get tunnel vision on creating a delicious product, securing shelf space, and making sales, but one key aspect that can be the difference between success and failure is often overlooked. It’s the decisions you make.  You can either get out of your comfort zone, decide to have a growth mindset,...

Send us Fan Mail Getting a packaged food and drink  product on a retail shelf…If I had a dollar for every time I heard this topic come up with Foodpreneurs, well, I’d be very wealthy 💰 And predictably so, as securing placement for a product in retail stores is a top priority for Foodpreneurs seeking to expand their business through wholesale channels. Whether you're new to approaching buyers...

Send us Fan Mail Introducing a new product into the market is not easy. There’s a lot to consider, including market research, production, branding, packaging, marketing, distribution, sales, and much more. It's a venture fraught with uncertainty. What adds an extra layer of risk is managing an overseas supplier and launching a product featuring an age-old, traditional seed from overseas that&...

Send us Fan Mail Making your food and drink brand stand out in a crowded market can be challenging. Retail shelves are more competitive than ever, with thousands of new food and drink products launched every year.  But there is a way to cut through the noise and boost your profits (even in these tough economic times with consumers cutting back on spending).  How? By implementing key actions and fo...

Send us Fan Mail Getting eyeballs on your products and making your brand seen, liked and purchased by consumers can be challenging, time consuming and expensive. However, there is a cost-effective way for time-poor business owners to boost brand awareness and drive product sales through a marketing strategy that is often overlooked. I'm referring to collaborations (or collabs!). In this week&...

Send us Fan Mail Foodpreneur Lisa Steny took a bold leap from a thriving corporate life to carve a niche for herself in the dairy industry.  That’s the simplified version of her story. The truth is, Lisa left a lucrative career in Finance and Banking, with zero experience in the food industry, to move to Bali and start producing luxury dairy products in a country that had no history of dairy produ...

Send us Fan Mail If you’ve never worked with a food and beverage distributor, but are thinking about it, there’s a lot to consider, such as who to work with.  How to work with them? And what margins you have to play with? Regardless of who you decide to approach to distribute your product, and what margins you’ve agreed on, there is one thing that can make a HUGE difference in whether your experie...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever successfully arranged to pitch to a potential buyer but as you were driving to the meeting, allowed your fears to overpower you, resulting in you not showing up and missing out on an opportunity to grow your business? Janessa Rutter has. It's likely many of you can empathise with the fear that Janessa has grappled with. As a Foodpreneur striving to secure shelf...

Send us Fan Mail Transitioning your business focus from DTC to wholesale can be a daunting process at the beginning. It requires reevaluating your business, marketing, and logistics strategies, as well as a careful review of your margins and pricing. Additionally, deciding whether to involve intermediaries further adds to the complexity.  This week on the podcast I chat to Helen Tricarico, brains...

Send us Fan Mail It’s almost a wrap on Q2 - a time when Foodpreneurs should have been taking advantage of the numerous special occasions to sell products, and sell HARD. Did you? If not, there are still opportunities in quarter 3 to hit your sales targets for 2023, despite increased operating costs. It’s how to increase your product profit margins, even with these rising running costs that I go th...

Send us Fan Mail It is widely known that launching, growing, and scaling a packaged food and drink brand is hard which is why I made it a whole lot easier by creating the Foodpreneurs Festival - a years worth of sales, promotion, and networking opportunities for Australian Foodpreneurs. It’s been a few weeks now since the Festival and I’ve been digging into the data to provide even more informatio...

Send us Fan Mail There’s so much more to consider when designing your branding and packaging than just making it look ‘pretty’. Your branding and packaging can be the difference between blending into a sea of similar products and not getting stocked, to standing out from the crowd, landing on more shelves, and getting into more consumer baskets. This week on Foodpreneur with Chelsea Ford podcast,...

Send us Fan Mail Stress, financial woes, burnout and self-doubt. Many if not all Foodpreneurs have suffered these at some point in their business. But did you know there are issues specific to to Indigenous-owned packaged food and drink businesses you may never have thought about.  In celebration of National Reconciliation Week, this week on the podcast I spoke to Sharon Brindley, a Yamatji/Noonga...

Send us Fan Mail Many Foodpreneurs tend to overthink their pitches, whether this is on the phone trying to get a meeting with a buyer, or in-person during an actual pitch. This is understandable; considering the amount of time that has gone into creating a product or brand, and the fact that getting into a retailer is a big step in scaling a packaged food and drink business. "What do I say?&q...

Send us Fan Mail Landing a meeting with a buyer, and impressing them once you do is not easy; if it was, everyone with a packaged food and drink product would be on shelves. You need to nail your sales pitch so you land a meeting, and then get stocked; but what exactly do buyers want and need to hear before they’ll even consider putting your product on their shelf? Here’s a hint, it’s not just how...

Send us Fan Mail Sales. Just the word can have some Foodpreneurs running to find the closest table to hide under. But what if the way you thought about selling your product was based on preconceived ideas, and by reframing how you think and feel about the sales process would instead fill you with confidence and make you feel more empowered and at ease in your next buyer meeting or when calling or...

Send us Fan Mail Imagine starting a food brand without any FMCG experience, manufacturing a product in a saturated market, out of your garage in your local town. Now imagine four years later that brand is a household name, is turning over millions of dollars in revenue, is selling nationally and overseas, and has just purchased their own facility to manufacture their product, and products for othe...