Loading...
Answers
MenuDo I need a food scientist or baker to commercialize a baked good recipe?
Answers
Ideally yes you would want to work with someone who is a Food Scientist or Chemist who can give appropriate recommendations for preserving the food, multiplying the recipe and etc. Also, depending on your location, there may be differences based on the governing food or agricultural body for requirements to commercialize a recipe or get appropriate licensing. That way you can ensure that you and the baker that you partner with follow necessary protocols and scale the recipe effectively.
I know this sounds over simplified, but I would work with both (assuming your budget allows this) as each has their own expertise. I would start with the food scientist, and then have the baker play around with the ingredients and cooking methods to check taste, texture and quality.
I can connect you with a good food scientist if you like. The fee for this will be a 'thank you' and a smile (you have to do both, otherwise no deal) :-)
food scientist will give your product CREDIBILITY it needs very much. This will make customer believe that your product is true. For more detail call me at 919748219172
In order to comply with your country's regulations on food additives, naming, nutrition labeling, etc, you will likely need a food scientist. It's probably best to work with the baker first, finalize the recipe, then work with the food scientist to review legality and regulatory approvals, naming and labeling issues, claims and communications, and scale-up considerations. I have such experience in the US, and I am happy to chat if you have questions.
I really believe it is the food scientist who be a great help to you in commercialization of your baked good recipe, but that is not all as he comes at step 8 of the process, there are many other steps that must join together in the process of your commercialization of your product. Let us look at the steps one-by-one:
Step #1 Do Your Research: You have an idea for a great new product. Perhaps it is an energy bar, a smoothie, or a new trail mix. It might be something with probiotics or a seasoning blend. You are sure it will be the next big hit but making that happen takes serious research. First, do not assume your idea is original. It is possible the product is out there, but you have not seen it. If it is not on the market, maybe that is because it cannot be manufactured or has no market potential. If you start up a food company based on a whim, you are headed for trouble. Here is what to do before diving in. Attend industry trade shows to discover what is hot on the market. Many start-up companies exhibit at these shows, where you can see the cool ideas that people hope will take off. The shows also often feature seminars where you can learn about food safety, regulations, functional ingredients, food trends and packaging technology.
Step #2 Make Sure You Have Funding: Do you have money? I am not just talking about the money you need to pay a consultant (rates range from $125 -$250 per hour) –but production costs as well. Average food production start-up costs can be anywhere from $10,000 to $150,000 just to bring your first production run to market. You will have to either use your own personal wealth, find an investor who is willing to take a risk, or get a bank loan. Funds will be needed to buy ingredients, pay a co-packer, do microbiology testing, shipping, packaging, warehouse storage, slotting fees, marketing costs and so on.
Step #3 Get An NDA/Confidentiality Agreement in Place: People talk, and the food industry is a small place. Have your lawyer draw you up a simple NDA and have anyone you share your idea with –sign it. The guy you told your story to on the plane, the investor, your consultants- even your mom should sign it- it just promises that they won’t tell anyone your idea, or worse-steal it for themselves.
Step #4 Decide If You Are Going to Be Certified Organic: You cannot scan a supermarket shelf or order from a menu without seeing the term “organic” these days. And if you are like a fair number of start-up food producers, you are probably interested in producing a product that deserves to bear the designation. But what, exactly, does “organic” mean? And who gets to decide what it is, and what it is not? That certification and the qualifications behind it, are spelled out in the National Organic Program (NOP), which falls under the review of USDA. NOP develops national standards that assure consumers that products with the USDA organic seal meet consistent, uniform rules. If you choose to go organic, this will help you narrow down your co-packer and ingredient sourcing options.
Step #5 Find a Co-Packer: Co-packer, co-manufacturer and “co-man” are the terms that refer to a facility that either manufactures your product or receives your finished good in bulk and packages it for you. Depending on the nature of your product, it is crucial that this step take place in the early stages of your development! The co-packer will determine how your product can be made (from a safety and economic standpoint) and they may have processing limitations. They can also inform you of FDA and USDA regulations that may affect how the product should be created! Finding a co-packer online can sometimes be frustrating. Co-manufacturers’ own websites are often designed for people already in the know. Descriptions of their processes may use strange terms like “flexible pouch retort,” “extrusion facility,” or “form and fill sealers.” Nevertheless, with careful research, evaluation, and patience you will usually find what you need.
Step # 6 Understand Your Product Regulations: Meat products (like beef jerky) are regulated by the USDA and canned vegetables are regulated by the FDA—All food products are regulated by some sort of federal, state and/or local agency and you don’t want to break any of the rules! Your co-packer in step #5 will have explained some of these regulations to you, but you can access all that information on the USDA or FDA website.
Step #7 Audit The Co-Packer: Once you decide who is going to make your product, you want to do a final sweep and make sure the place is clean and fit to make food for human consumption. Don’t just take the co-packers word or even a 3 party’s word- that their facility is clean and GMP compliant. Pay your own auditor and make sure the co-packer follows all state and federal regulations. While the co-packer is ultimately responsible for anything that leaves their facility, it’s still and always will be-your good name on the line.
Step #8 Find a Food Science Consultant: We are the few and the proud and we are called “Food Scientists” and if you don’t have any experience making or manufacturing products, you definitely need to hire one. There are big consulting firms and independent specialists-the key is finding the one that knows how to make your type of product. Making yogurt? Find someone with a dairy background. What about beef jerky? Find someone who is an expert at making dried meat- because beef jerky is a combination of art and science! Not all food scientists can make all food products and you want someone who can breeze through it, not troubleshoot around too much. Interview several consultants and make sure you “connect” with them. Creating food gets personal and you need to find someone you can trust.
Step #9 Find A Testing Laboratory: Find a local certified laboratory that specializes in food testing and develop a relationship with them. Let them know what you are planning to do (after they sign an NDA!) and get a general idea of what types of tests will be needed to measure the quality and safety of your product.
Step #10 Create A Prototype: With a co-man in your back pocket, your newly hired food scientist on hand- and a good understanding of how much your production costs will ultimately be- you can now proceed with creating a prototype. Keep in mind everything you learned from your co-packer—what type of equipment do they have in their plant? Are there any forbidden allergens? Peanuts, an allergen in the food industry are sometimes not allowed in certain facilities- and it is important to remember this when formulating your product. Your food scientist should have good understanding of how the co-packer will manufacture your product and should be able to formulate accordingly.
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath
Related Questions
-
I'm looking for a great full service app design firm to build my app and help with all design, branding, development, etc. Anyone know any good ones?
Yes. Who I would recommend would depend on what you'd like to see happen. Are you building only for iOS, or only for Android, or both? Will you have a bunch of content/stuff in your app or just a little? Are you thinking game or non-game app? Do you already have a big fanbase or would you be trying to build one while building the app? It's easy to save a bunch of money on mobile development if you know how, and even easier to overspend. Making an app can be a ton of fun or a major headache. I'd recommend the fun. So if you want an outside perspective, give me a ring.AC
-
Taking a ridesharing idea from concept to market
here is my simple advice which should save you a lot of time and money. your journey should start identifying whether or not you have a problem worth solving. Most of your issues, assumptions, solution you put forward is irrelevant until you have done this. Don't get me wrong, your idea is sound and it often starts from a vision or an intuition that your idea is great. You now need to take a step back and do a coue of things: - what problems does cabsharing solve? Share the cost? Meet new people? Etc. - how would you rate the pain i.e. have people been dying for someone to co.e up with such a concept or is it simply a nice to have You have to come up with a porblem statement, good understanding of the problem and start testing this first. Get out there and interview people. Measure. Learn. If you have not heard of it yet just follow the lean startup approach (i recommend ash maurya's blog that will give you plenty to start with - his book running lean is also a great and practical resource). If you need help structuring it all or formalising your initial lean canvas I am happy to help. The most important thing is to test and validate key assumptions before you embark on something bigger. Many ways nowadays to do this, give me a shout in less than am hour we can get you up and running. Hope that helps, good luck the exciting part is just starting now: making it happen!ES
-
What is the process of productizing a service? Also what are some good examples of productized services that have scaled?
2 different categories come to mind. H&R Block or other tax preparation services. The second is restaurants. This may seem like a product more than a service but I think it truly falls into the category of service, especially if you look at the national chains. Think Applebee's, TGI Fridays etc. The reason people go to these places is because of the experience they receive. The franchisors have created a system that generates nearly identical results nationwide. The first thing you need to do is figure out what makes your service superior to others out there, then you need to figure out how and why this is the case. From there you need to document it and make sure that you have a mechanism in place to ensure compliance. Granted that is a huge amount of work, but the basic premise is quite simple. You want all of the people you hire to do things more or less the way you would do them.MF
-
What is the best method for presenting minimum viable products to potential customers?
Whoa, start by reading the Lean book again; you're questions suggest you are making a classical mistake made by too many entrepreneurs who live and breath Lean Startup. An MVP is not the least you can show someone to evaluate whether or not building it is a good idea; an MVP is, by it's very definition, the Minimum Viable Product - not less than that. What is the minimum viable version of a professional collaboration network in which users create a professional profile visible to others? A website on which users can register, have a profile, and in some way collaborate with others: via QA, chat, content, etc. No? A minimum viable product is used not to validate if something is a good idea but that you can make it work; that you can acquire users through the means you think viable, you can monetize the business, and that you can learn from the users' experience and optimize that experience by improving the MVP. Now, that doesn't mean you just go build your MVP. I get the point of your question, but we should distinguish where you're at in the business and if you're ready for an MVP or you need to have more conversations with potential users. Worth noting, MOST entrepreneurs are ready to go right to an MVP. It's a bit of a misleading convention to think that entrepreneurs don't have a clue about the industry in which they work and what customers want; that is to say, you shouldn't be an entrepreneur trying to create this professional collaboration network if you don't know the market, have done some homework, talked to peers and friends, have some experience, etc. and already know that people DO want such a thing. Presuming you've done that, what would you present to potential users BEFORE actually building the MVP? For what do you need nothing more than some slides? It's not a trick question, you should show potential users slides and validate that what you intend to build is the best it can be. I call it "coffee shop testing" - build a slide of the homepage and the main screen used by registered users; sit in a coffee shop, and buy coffee for anyone who will give you 15 minutes. Show them the two slides and listen; don't explain, ONLY ask.... - For what is this a website? - Would you sign up for it? Why? - Would you tell your friends? Why? - What would you pay for it? Don't explain ANYTHING. If you have to explain something, verbally, you aren't ready to build your MVP - potential customers don't get it. Keep working with that slide alone until you get enough people who say they will sign up and know, roughly, what people will pay. THEN build your MVP and introduce it first to friends, family, peers, etc. to get your earliest adopters. At some point you're going to explore investors. There is no "ready" as the reaction from investors will entirely depend on who you're talking to, why, how much you need, etc. If you want to talk to investors with only the slides as you need capital to build the MVP, your investors are going to be banks, grants, crowdfunding, incubators, and MAYBE angels (banks are investors?! of course they are, don't think that startups only get money from people with cash to give you for equity). Know that it's VERY hard to raise money at this stage; why would I invest in your idea when all you've done is validate that people probably want it - you haven't built anything. A bank will give you a loan to do that, not many investors will take the risk. Still, know not that your MVP is "ready" but that at THAT stage, you have certain sources of capital with which you could have a conversation. When you build the MVP, those choices change. Now that you have something, don't talk to a bank, but a grant might still be viable. Certainly: angels, crowdfunding, accelerators, and maybe even VCs become interested. The extent to which they are depends on the traction you have relative to THEIR expectations - VCs are likely to want some significant adoption or revenue whereas Angels should be excited for your early adoption and validation and interested in helping you scale.PO
-
For a once-off price point of $2,500, what would you expect from an agency-grade marketing package? Consulting, design, digital asset, tool, campaign?
Consider instead where a $2500 price point puts you. I use a selling technique called Monetizing The Problem, and in that process I get the prospect to calculate the size of their problem. Then I charge 5-10% of that figure. There's never any resistance, because they see where the number comes from, how it's based on reality--and a number THEY came up with (not me). So here you are at $2500. Let's be conservative and say that's 5% of the size of the problem. Meaning you are trying to help them make $50K in sales over the next year. What kind of a business has a revenue goal of $50K? A sole proprietor who's just trying to get by? Is that your target customer? Really think about this. A serious SME won't play at the $2500 price point, because it's too low. They know the vendor can't commit enough resources to do the job they really need done. For instance a business with only four high-value employees plus the owner needs to bill at least $60K A MONTH to survive!! Why would they let you touch their marketing collateral (that's their website) for a mere $2500?! Stay at $2500 and you're attracting a really low level of client. If you have the horsepower to achieve more with the skills you have, then I highly recommend going after a better class of customer.JK
the startups.com platform
Copyright © 2025 Startups.com. All rights reserved.