Food Biz Blog

The following on-line videos that my be of interest to food entrepreneurs.

StellaCulinary.com has a video series called Food Science 101 which does a nice job of discussing the science behind emulsions, stabilizers and brining. While the video presentations come at these topics from a cooking perspective, they present basic food science relating information explained clearly. Also, some food entrepreneurs could benefit from the kitchen prep series of videos also presented by StellaCulinary.com
https://stellaculinary.com/food-science-101-video-index

The process of professionally developing a food product by Mattson, a food consulting firm in the San Francisco bay area, was featured on the Food Network. The video because it give concise an introduction to science surrounding product ideation, characterizing quality attributes, consumer and sensory feed back and commercialization. 
http://www.foodcom.com/about/mattson-on-the-food-network/

On YouTube, use the search term " 'How it's made' Food " to access an array of videos developed first by British broadcasters and later the Science/Discovery Channel relating to food manufacturing. While the manufacturing activities described are large-scale operations, there are good representations of how manufacturing productivity is increased through the use of specialized equipment. Also, manufacturing operations are depicted in continuous flow operations that can ignite the imagination of beginning entrepreneurs as to what is possible. One specific episode, How It's Made - Heinz Ketchup, shows how a quality assurance program is integral to delivering a quality consistency to support the product brand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP84fiuKfws&feature=youtube_gdata_player

John Henry

Hi all,

I thought I would share my story of where I am in the process of getting my products to market. I started in the Spring of 2009 by going through the Getting Your Recipe to Market class and producing a line of single serving frozen savory pies. The pies were a hit when I made them for friends, but freezing and packaging them presented some issues. After spending time looking at our cost of goods, I realized that they were too expensive to create, and the best thing to do was abandon the products altogether. Lesson learned: always know your costs.

I then went back to an idea I had in 2003 to produce a line of organic chutneys and relishes. I grew up making and eating them, and I knew that they were unique to the Northwest (and delicious!), so I started canning and testing them out at a small farmers market. They were successful, so I kept making more and more every time the main ingredients were in season. I would have liked this process to move along faster, but I'm committed to using local and seasonal produce - you can only produce so much in short time frames (ex: figs may be in season 4-5 weeks out of the year, so you have to capitalize on that time period or wait until the next year).

I'm now learning about how to balance a commitment to local and seasonal vs. cost of goods. We prefer to work directly with small farmers, so they may or may not have the produce you are looking for at the price you want to buy it. Foodhub has helped us connect online with farmers, and the Farmer Chef Connection has become our "not to miss" event in the Spring - I don't know how I lived without this website and event before now. Yet when the cost of ingredients goes up, you have to make some hard decisions. Just this year I had to increase our product price by one dollar.

We now have a decent inventory of product built up and have tested the viability of our products at local markets, so I think the time has come to expand into some larger stores. Our current focus is re-tooling our labels to include UPC codes and more information about expiration dates.

We will see where this takes us - hopefully I can come back in six months to a year and report on sales, distribution, etc.

Best of luck in starting your food business. Add your story to this blog so we can all benefit from it!

Tricia Butler
Sassafras Southern Kitchen
www.sassafrassouthernkitchen.com

Looking to share a space if anyone has one available or is interested in going in on one.  Must be gluten-free for our product. 

Hello!

I am looking to share a commercial kitchen with someone in the Hillsboro/Beaverton area.  I am having a challenge with researching available kitchens in my area.  Anybody have any suggestion?

Howdy,

The title says it all (almost). I'm not looking for a soft serve machine, but rather a commercial kitchen with an ice cream machine & a blast freezer.

If you don't know the difference between a soft serve & a machine designed for producing ice cream to be frozen & consumed later here is an easy way to tell, because you may be using a kitchen with just such a machine & not know it. If it looks like it could/would dispense 2 flavors or 3 for a swirl, then it is a soft serve. Even if it looks like it will dispense one flavor it most likely is a soft serve as well, because when making ice cream to be frozen in pints/quarts/gallons you remove the ice cream in large quantity...sometimes there is a small ramp where the ice cream would come out.

Thanks so much for keeping an eye out or if you already know of one.

K. David Marple
opossum at rocketmail dot com

Weighing out all your ingredients is essential in developing a product formulation.

I checked around this morning and found that the go-to places for scales in the Portland are:

A-1 Scales

Dunay Scales Systems
PO Box 1588, Beaverton, OR 97075
http://www.scalesandweighing.com/scalefinder.html
Phone 503-644-8271

My sense is that you will need to spend between $200-500 for an entry level commercial grade scale. However, there are (or have been in the past) some pretty good kitchen scales from places like Williams-Sonoma and Sur La Table (Sur La Table appears to carry the Terrallion Precision 300 Dietary Scale; other searches of this model indicated that it can measure to 0.1 g)

Another, approach might be to pursue a Jewelry Balance (also called pocket scales/balances) for smaller measurement amount requiring more accuracy (http://pocket-balances.com/acculab/pocket%2Bscales.html) combined with a kitchen scale for larger mass measurements.

A couple of scale and balance websites that I found are:

• http://www.scalesonline.com
• http://www.balances.com

We have the opportunity to place our Garden Green Garbanzos™ in select Costco stores this week.   Check them out on our website:   <http://www.clearwatercountry.com/>  They will be offered in the produce section of Costco's in Seattle, South Center, Kirkland, Issaquah, Everett, Woodinville, Silverdale, Aloha, Eugene, Spokane, Clackamas, Bend, Tigard,Vancouver, & Albany.

It’s pretty exciting, but scarey at the same time.  We really need your help.   Please send this to anyone/ everyone you know in Seattle, Everett,
Portland, Eugene, Bend, and Spokane areas.   If they would please send onto 20 friends and relatives and ask for recipients to do the same.  I know it’s a lot to ask & kind of crazy, but it’s grassroots marketing at it's purest!  Thanks so much.   Doug & Judy
 

I am interested in interviewing a food entrepreneurs for an article series to be published in a regional newspaper.

What is a food entrepreneur? Anyone who makes and sells a homemade or commercially made food product i.e. jams, jellies, pickled veggies, seasoning mix, pasta sauce, sausages etc. I am also interested in home-based bakery owners, cake decorators, pound cake makers who bake from home and sell to the public or to a food distributor.
Thank you!

p.s. A photo of your product(s) is recommended.