Getting Your Specialty Food Product Onto Store Shelves: The Ultimate Wholesale How-To Guide For Artisan Food Companies

by Jennifer Lewis

Many small food business owners dream of seeing their products on store shelves, but how to get onto those shelves is a mystery. Focused specifically on specialty food businesses that don’t have millions of marketing dollars at their disposal, this book unravels that mystery for food entrepreneurs, offering tactical tips, insight, and short stories of entrepreneurs who have been in your place and succeeded. Topics • Understanding the wholesale industry and the roles that brokers and distributors play • Pricing products appropriately so that you can grow and make money • In-depth insight into a variety of wholesale food channels, covering what you need to know and how you should approach specialty stores, supermarkets, club stores, and even food service and hospitality • How and why you should support your retailers to ensure you stay on the shelf • Information on labeling regulations and packaging guidelines to ensure your product gets noticed by customers and conforms with FDA requirements • Definitions and explanations of common wholesale and promotional terminology • Creating sales sheets that help your product sell—and samples to help guide you • The role trade shows play and how to make the most of them

Genres: Business

165 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 11, 2014

About the author

A culinary professional who spent years working as a professional pastry chef for a luxury hotel chain, Jennifer Lewis founded her own small food company in 2006. In addition to a culinary degree, Jennifer also holds an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management with a concentration in Entrepreneurship, Marketing, and Finance. A part-time entrepreneur herself, Jennifer splits her time between running her business and working for a nonprofit organization.

Reviews

[Michaell Cavllaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Book for People who want to Market their Food Prducts

The author cuts to the chase and tells you what you need to know in order to sell your food products through various distribution channels. The chapter on how to price your food products to make sure every one involved makes a profit is worth more then the price of the book alone and can be applied to none food products as well.

[Jeremy Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was a really good book! No book will ever teach you everything you need to know about the food industry, but this one is definitely a great learning resource for entrepreneurs who are new to the industry.

[Simon Newstead · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good if somewhat short and simplistic overview of sales and marketing for speciality food products. Would have been better with more case studies and examples.