A choose-your-own-path guide to launching and sustaining a successful food or beverage business
The specialty food and beverage business is a thriving industry, and the barriers to entry are low- all you need is a recipe and a kitchen. It sounds simple, but launching a food or beverage company is a maze of choices and consequences. (Will you taste test your product with friends and family for free, or commission a costly market feasibility study? Will you enter a large and popular category, or offer something totally new? Will you cook in your home, rent space in a shared kitchen, or build your own facility?)
Douglas Raggio has been there- both as a food founder and as a consultant to other successful startups, and he's come to learn that every choice a food founder makes has a fairly predictable outcome. In So You Wanna- Start a Food or Beverage Business, he'll help you think through the many decisions you'll make along the road from an idea to a successful company-whether you see yourself building a following at your farmer's market, partnering with a local restaurant, or launching the next Pepsi.
But this is not a traditional how-to book, instructional manual, or personal story of entrepreneurial success. Don't even expect to read it straight through from beginning to end! Raggio's book follows four archetypal food startups that cover a range of business ideas and founders. Every few pages, you must make crucial decisions about the next step to take in growing the business, and flip to another section that will help you understand how that choice is likely to play out.
In these pages, you'll learn the ins and outs of-
. Coming up with an exciting, profitable new product
. Funding your startup
. Conducting market research
. Pricing and producing to scale
. Partnerships, promotions, and branding
. Deciding when to keep going--and when to fold
So You Wanna- Start a Food or Beverage Business will help you to navigate the pathways that lead to success, and avoid the roads that lead to frustration (or worse). By understanding the perils and pleasures of this fast-growing industry you will be able to approach your own business with confidence, make the decisions that feel right to you . . . and learn to have a lot of fun along the way!
Industry Reviews
"""Mandatory reading before starting a CPG company. It will save you hundreds of thousands of dollars in mistakes. It is real and researched through the eyes of people that have been there and done that.""
—Nick Saltarelli, Co-founder, Mid-Day Squares
""This is far from your typical business book and will undoubtedly keep readers engaged and inspired as they choose their own unique path to starting a business. Like life itself, nothing is linear, and Douglas does a fantastic job at giving readers a tangible road map of how to find success and persevere as an entrepreneur.""
—Sara Brooks, Founder, Covet PR
""Douglas Raggio has written a book that is uniquely packed with practical and no-nonsense advice for aspiring entrepreneurs . . . So You Wanna: Start a Food or Beverage Business is not only instructive but highly entertaining.""
—Chris L. Shimojima, Founder and President, C5 Advisory
""I can't think of anyone better to lay out a path for food and beverage start-up success . . . Absorb the lessons in this book, apply them, and watch your business succeed!""
—Robert U. Craven, Managing Partner, Findaway Adventures
""A lot of folks wonder about starting a food or beverage company. While it can be incredibly rewarding, it can also be a treacherous, circuitous path fraught with peril. Douglas Raggio shares hard-won lessons and practical nuts-and-bolts advice that improve your odds and can help make your dream a reality.""
—Bob Burke, 25-Year Consultant, Natural Products Consulting, LLC
""Read this book if you want an exhilarating, adrenaline rush, filled with decisions that only you can make. Adventures await!""
—Jessica Ann, author of Humanize your Brand
""Douglas knows what he's talking about. He's been through the ups and downs of the industry and seen all the major consumer shifts.""
—Matt Matros, Founder of Protein Bar, Limitless, and Shopflix Studios
""Douglas speaks the truth, like it or not. The consumer packaged goods industry is a seven-days-a-week business. It is where the tough get knocked down and the tougher never get up. Success in this game is part luck, part timing, and part ride or die. Douglas captures this like the pirates before him.""
—Thad Benshoof , CPG Investor and Cofounder of Homegrown Meats
""If you've ever thought about launching your own food or beverage business, this book's for you. It offers readers an interactive journey through the unforgiving trenches of the start-up world.""
—Brittany Callahan, food and beverage start-up curious"
