Foodpreneur with Chelsea Ford

Send us Fan Mail Did you start your foodpreneur journey in foodservice before landing on retail shelves?  Do you find it easier to approach foodservice accounts and build relationships with those stockists in comparison to retail buyers?  What happened when you started to win retail stockists? Did your foodservice buyer, the same one that gave you your big break, not like it when they saw that you...

Send us Fan Mail Have you had that experience when you think a ‘brand’ is made just for you? It’s your thing. You couldn’t have created it better yourself. Getting into the minds of your consumers is what you want for your food and drink product, so they pick it up and put it in their basket. But how do you do that? In this week's episode I speak to Tessa Stuart, English Market Researcher and...

Send us Fan Mail Think about some of the products you purchase when you visit the grocery store. Do you tend to buy the same brands repeatedly? Well, you’re not alone; most consumers do. This is usually because of an emotional connection to them, whether it’s their eye-catching packaging, what the brand stands for, or because of their ability to elicit childhood memories. This can be tough for pro...

Send us Fan Mail Whole Foods Market, Planet Organic, Ocado UK, Marks and Spencer, Tesco, Costco… these are some of the big names that Kathryn Bricken has won listings in for her incredible cookie dough products. Pretty impressive, don't you think? Kathryn chatted to me about how she's scaled her dough product from her London based factory in just a few short years and right now is about...

Send us Fan Mail Want to tell your brand story to more buyers but don't get the opportunity? Thought about digitising your wholesale strategy so you reach more stockists? Since Covid-19, options to digitise your go-to market strategy have become easier to tap into and a less expensive way, than traditional marketing, to scale. Digital business-to-business platforms, like TradeSquare and Faire...

Send us Fan Mail That’s a wrap quarter 3, thank you for the past twelve weeks, it’s now time for foodpreneurs to bring home their full year revenue in quarter 4. It’s this quarter that 75% of foodpreneurs make most of their revenue that carries them through the full year. If this is you, focus on making your money by doing two things really well; selling to new stockists (yes, it is not too late,...

Send us Fan Mail Starting a business because you love your product, and the product development process, is commonplace amongst foodpreneurs, but how do you scale once you’ve proven other people think your product is as delicious as you do but you know you need help to go to the next level? That’s precisely what Lucy Bennetto of Bennetto Natural Foods has been planning for the past couple of years...

Send us Fan Mail Why would a wholesale buyer buy if they don't see the value your product brings to their business? If you're not a confident sales person, hope won't work. Instead use trade shows to help you build rapport with your buyers and close more opportunities.  Trade shows are not just for developing new opportunities. Buyers and producers alike know they'll be sold to...

Send us Fan Mail I spoke to Food Futurist, Tony Hunter, about how foodpreneurs should use technology to carve out a competitive advantage. Foodpreneurs often develop products that don't fly. I asked Tony about his New Product Development (NPD) process, including a product matrix, to help ascertain a product's viability. In our chat you'll hear how to keep up with industry trends, su...

Send us Fan Mail Have you mastered Instagram? According to Yolanda Nagy, a farmers market and social media consultant, there's no need to be overwhelmed but you do need to put yourself in your consumers' shoes in order to make Instagram work for your business. 👟👡👠 When you put yourself in your consumers' shoes, you will land more accounts and get more of your products into more c...

Send us Fan Mail Ever had a retail buyer, distributor or wholesaler say to you "We have lines we already stock like yours that we want to sell through before considering bringing on a new supplier."?  Argghhh…. How do you come back from that? You’ve had the courage to call and then it’s a thanks but no. So how do you get ranged and be good different? How do you get the buyer to say yes?...

Send us Fan Mail Veronica Blue sells creamy keto hot cereal on Amazon. In her third month, her revenue was $10,000. She was off to a great start. Now, less than one year after launching DTC, she wants to sell through wholesale channels and has set her sight on Wholefoods (can’t blame her, their stores are fab). But, what Veronica wanted to know was, HOW? How was she going to make that transition t...

Send us Fan Mail Gym Bod’s target market for their high protein, low sugar, ice cream is anyone in activewear who has a sweet tooth! I spoke to Cian Dawson, one half of Gym Bod, who co-founded the brand with partner, Courtney Brown, about selling through a major supermarket chain and gaining market share in a competitive category.  Gym Bod has been developed for the mass market, but it wasn’t init...

Send us Fan Mail Do you want to get your food and drink product on more grocery shelves?    What about getting your product off the shelf and into more consumer baskets?    If you said yes to either of those questions, this episode is for you!   Today’s guest is Christina Basile, owner operator of Panetta Mercato, a collection of five family run grocery stores sourcing high quality food and drink...

Send us Fan Mail I’m in the UK and last week chaired a number of sessions at the Bread and Jam Festival with extraordinary challenger brand owners scaling their products. I am also spending a lot of time in market developing insights to share with you and a media outlet I'm writing for. In this episode I outline the biggest FMCG trends in the UK right now to inspire you, your NPD pipeline and...

Send us Fan Mail Are you scared of picking up the phone to make sales calls? Do you struggle to get sales momentum? How about the follow up calls… so you have a consistent routine?  According to Julie Morris, there’s nothing to be scared of when making calls, just find common ground. Julie is a natural rapport builder and in my chat with her, she talks to me about how she does it to build her seas...

Send us Fan Mail It’s tough to create a food product and ensure it’s profitable. It is. That’s not a scare tactic, it’s truth. And I absolutely make it easier for you. That's my 'why'. I talk to Anthony Harb, a former FMCG buyer and supplier who built a packaged goods business to $100M… and then supply chain issues, due to Covid, brought his business unstuck. Anthony and I talked ab...

Send us Fan Mail In the past 27 months, many consumers have discovered new small-batch food and drink products. Which is great. And many foodpreneurs have found new consumers. Also great. But, despite these new push and pull opportunities, many foodpreneurs have found it hard to make money and tough to stay in business right now. This episode, the first in Season 3, has been dedicated to providing...

Send us Fan Mail Did you land more sales in quarter 2? How prepared are you to put more money in your pocket in quarter 3, despite the increasing costs and supply chain interruptions? As we bounce out of quarter two and into three, we’re also at the mid-way point of the calendar year. For us Aussie businesses, that means the end of the financial year. These past 12 weeks of quarter 2, your job was...

Send us Fan Mail Lucy is a farmer of chickens and has developed value added products such as bone broth. Selling currently at farmers markets, Lucy wants to see her bone broth product on the shelves of grocery stores within 12 months. Listen to my coaching session with Lucy and the advice I give her on how to scale a speciality product. There’s three things I suggest Lucy focuses on in order to su...

Send us Fan Mail It’s hard making profitable packaged products. There’s a lot to consider and many actions to take. Most (80%) of food and drink businesses fail within five years - how do you avoid going out of business backwards? How do you scale a business with food and drink packaged products that put more money in your pocket? In this episode you’ll hear communications expert, Luisa Ford (aka...

Send us Fan Mail Using distributors to sell means foodpreneurs often compromise on margin.  You don't have to, you just need to be prepared by knowing that if you use a distributor to sell to a retailer, you need enough margin in your pricing to pay for everyone along the way. Everyone needs to be paid and I suggest you start by 'pricing backwards.' Often foodpreneurs figure out the...

Send us Fan Mail Making more revenue, especially predictable recurring revenue, while you sleep, would be amazing, right? Imagine not having to set up your market stall or pitching to a wholesale buyer, week in week out? You’d save a lot of time.  Or could you imagine the dollars cha-cha-chinging over and over again and you’ve changed nothing with your online store. Well this is all possible with...

Send us Fan Mail Natalie Alibrandi, a food scientist who gets products ready for market, outlines what you need to hone to take your food and drink product idea to full commercialisation, including executing a formula that’s ready for a retail launch and a formulation that will continue to serve your needs as your demand grows and your business scales up. In this episode you’ll learn: Getting the...

Send us Fan Mail You’ve got to love your product and be the biggest advocate for your brand because it can take a while to make money with any food and drink packaged good. In my conversation with Ben Whyatt, founder Doggylicious, he told me he wished he would've gone in knowing an RRP that he should have had because initially he made 0% margin. When the retailer wants 40%, your distributor w...