Nothing Was Fishy…The Case(s) Of The Would-Be Food Business Owners

Why yes, a garlic scape does make a decorative hat band!

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been privy to a couple of diametrically different conversations about starting and running a food business, both unsolicited. I’m always willing to proffer an opinion or point people in a direction when I’m able to. (Note to those seeking advice - while I’m happy to help, please email prior to picking up the phone and calling especially on weekends, some of us aren’t up at the crack of dawn on Saturday mornings (or Sunday for that matter)).

The recap below shows that everyone approaches solutions and what motivates them differently (esp. in different stages of business). Do you think one of these has a better chance?

Business One: Owner is just in the getting off the ground stage, with a business idea that  is a take off from something they’re currently doing for an employer. They’re in the research and planning stage, where the owner has investigated the market viability (which looks positive) and is looking at costs for getting the project off the ground. This person (the owner) wanted a little guidance as to where to begin figuring out what they’d need for infrastructure and permits for getting to the next stage (which includes perhaps building our their own production space). I was left with the impression that this person was motivated enough to do whatever it took to get their idea to fruition (and had the support of their loved ones to do it). I think they were also burnt out from their current gig.

Business Two: Owner has been in business for about three years with a ready to eat product, and has had some big ups and downs with their product in the marketplace (including a café which opened and shuttered quickly). Owner is at a loss as to how to keep going and seemed somewhat unwilling to accept that they are the one that needs to keep their company moving forward. At this point, putting the company up for sale would probably not be feasible (they’re renting a facility, and the market value of the customers might not garner much). I’m not sure what they had in terms of a support network of friends and family. I told this person that they might want to look for a partner who was more sales oriented to foster some growth. There is no easy answer to keeping a business going without the willingness to put in the effort.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers (mostly opinions), and part of being willing to talk to people seeking advice is to gain my own perspective on issues and ideas. The post I wrote about renting commercial kitchen space is still the top visited post here. Wonder if that’ll change when I post about our newest fruit tart flavor…. 

Let’s All Grow This Year… Support for OR HB 2336

I’ve been reading a lot of back and forth about OR HB 2336, the state bill that would allow farmers (growers) to do a small amount of processing to ingredients they grow for sale direct to the consumer (you, at farmers markets).

Since we’re all starting to think about the markets, CSAs and what could be sprouting in our own backyard, it’s a good time to throw in some support.

One of the biggest supporters of this bill is Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farms. You can read about his position, and why it makes sense from a farmer’s perspective over at our friends at Culinate. 

As some one who’s business is food processing (or, I’m not a farmer, I just work with them to procure ingredients for our own products), I think it’s a smart idea to give farmers some leeway in what they can sell.

1. Not every crop is either 100% saleable or sells out (I’m not talking about strawberries which seem to disappear in minutes after the market bell rings). Produce (or ingredients) do not grow uniformly. Not in your garden, not on acres of land. Also, what a lot shoppers don’t realize is, there’s no guarantee what a farmer brings to market is going to sell out (or at all). Giving farmers an opportunity to extend their crop by utilizing rejects, and/or unsold produce is a win for the shopper in buying something truly artisanal while allowing the farmer to recap (or extend) their profits.

2. Shoppers don’t always know what to do with ingredients. No, I am not calling you a bad or unadventurous home cook. However, I’ve spent a few market seasons next to Anthony & Ayers Creek (as well as Springwater Farms and Creative Growers) and when ever there’s an item that’s unusual - borage,  sun chokes, or an heirloom currants, more often than not I hear the question “How would you cook or prepare it?” Which many times leads to an ingredient being passed over (with the second comment being “I don’t know if my family will like it”). If these farms were able to produce small amounts of a finished product (borage chips? currant spread? Sun choke pesto?), besides landing a sale, it would provide the opportunity to expand a shopper’s horizon into a new ingredient.

3. Innovation. Perhaps there’s another great product out there. In a time where shoppers are (thankfully) becoming more aware of what’s in their food (and companies like mine strive to continue to create clean products by purchasing from farms like these), there could be larger market out there for something one of the farmers produces.

While this is my view (I don’t get to vote on the bill), I am in support of items like this that enable our local agri-economy to grow and thrive. I’m already a fan of Ayers Creek Polenta and if Springwater Farms were able to produce a wild-mushroom demi-glace… I can only imagine the dinner possibilities!

Been Caught Stealing... The Past Few Weeks Digested in List

I’m stealing, erm, borrowing the format of this post from another blog post I read recently (maybe even today). It’s well published enough the interwebs will show it to you if you hunt around.

Instead of rolling with a quiet January (and into Feb) while you all were on diets and budgets, we’ve been embracing it by doing some new product development. I’m not ready to talk about what it is yet because 1) I want them to be in production for a few weeks first and 2) I’m working on perhaps having the local press actually give it some, um, press.

However, here’s a list of how my weeks have gone:

1. Sample commercially produced versions of like products. Hmmm…
2. Source some sample ingredients. Tour of Trader Joes, Fred Meyer, New Seasons. Try not to buy other ingredients not related to project (like Candy Cane Jo Joe’s)
3. Create sample recipes
4. Taste with staff. Hmmm… Refine.
5. Create next batch of sample recipes
6. Taste. Taste with staff. Too much acid pucker… Refine.
7. Create next batch of samples recipes.
8. Taste. Taste with staff. Wooo… we like those.
9. Source more sample ingredients. Tour of Trader Joes, Fred Meyer, New Seasons. Try not to buy other ingredients not related to project (like Pirate’s Booty which is on sale)
10. Recreate batches of recipes to be production candidates. How much of what did I put in that again?
11. Write down better recipes, notes, tips and tricks. Scale to larger batch sizes.
12. Make batches of production candidates again. 
13. Taste. Yup. Got it.
14. Email clients, talk about pitch and set-up dates and times to present samples.
15. Create production candidate samples to give out at said dates and times.
16. Think about where to store new ingredients. Rearrange one of the freezers. Harvest out ghosts of projects past.
17. Look at paperwork that goes with product launch. Think about marketing materials.
18. Ignore paperwork, eat extra samples.
19. Remember I owe accountant some forms for how-grateful-am-I-2010-is-ovah filings.
20. Eat more samples.

Enjoy the pic of the building across the street from us. I shot it with an iPod camera which is marginally better than my current cellphone. Still working on it… but perhaps more another bite?

The Recipe Outgrew the Apron. Reflections from the Past 5 Years.

Our first recipe book.

When I launched Little Pots & Pans Co. 5 years ago, I started small, dipping our toes into the product development side of the grocery business. Testing out assumptions I had made about tart product varieties and pricing, and watching our (then clients their customers reactions to us.

I began working by myself in a rented kitchen at night. (Insert your Jewish yenta/Italian grandmother here – oye! It was dark! oye! It was a lot of work! oye! You never called/wrote/came to visit!) But then one day I realized perhaps I could afford a little help. Someone to come in and help with production, making the nights smoother and less lonely.

Prior to beginning to sell our tarts, much of my recipe development took place between my home kitchen and the commercial kitchen I was renting. At home, I have one taste-tester, in the kitchen there were at least 4-5 other companies working at any time that I could call upon to proffer input. (Don’t get me started on the um, challenges of trying to work in an over crowded kitchen with everyone clamoring to use the same equipment for their production and still only put in a 7 hour night).

Both were a big help in finalizing our original set of recipes, but as it still just me working, my notes were sort of my own. Some modifications got written down, some didn’t, I knew what each one was, and how each filling should taste. It wasn’t much different than holding up your grandmother’s apron and reverse engineering her recipe for brownies (or red sauce) from it.

The first person I ever had help out in the kitchen, showed up on the first night, ready to go. I pointed her to where the knives and a cutting board were and what she would be making. Her first question… “Is there a recipe for this somewhere?”

I still have a penchant for jotting recipes down on paper, with notes and revisions (some things get typed, some don’t). But I do keep some plastic shelves around to drop them into so at least their staying power has a fighting chance while I fight for time to properly type them up. 

Tart and Sultry

Things are heating up in our world of tarts. Literally and figuratively.

We love summer, we really do. Bright sunny days, our herb garden (eh hem, lone basil plant) sprouting up fragrant leaves. But with the sun comes the heat, and on any given day we assemble and bake hundreds of tarts. Bake. Turn on the ovens and add a few hundred degrees into our quickly sweltering space. Some days it’s like swimming through the waves of heat.

Our current space isn’t partitioned, so whether you’re making dough, assembling tarts or doing admin/paperwork/boss-type things (um, me), there’s not much of a chance of a breather from the ovens. (Of course in January it’s the opposite story, any reason to get the ovens going is a good reason).

I keep us plied with gallons of iced tea, fans and mandatory refrigeration breaks. Conversation tends to drift to topics like whether ice cream sandwiches can be considered dinner (they are sandwiches, right?). Our neighbors next door are nice enough to let us occasionally come sit in their lovely air-conditioned waiting room (chiropractors) and we never arrive without a plate of treats for their staff.

Friends of mine have commented that it must be great to have days when you literally feel like you’ve sweat off 5lbs (and can eat or drink anything as a result). Hmmm… I wonder if I can turn this into the next biggest weight-loss thing. Sweatiest Chef? Doesn’t quite have “that catch” now, does it?

I can’t complain about the heat too much, it’s just part of what we do. Besides, the great summer weather (after drying out the farmland fields finally), is growing some good things for us.

Advice for Renting Commercial Kitchen Space (Portland Edition)

I find it encouraging that our phone is ringing more and more with people looking for kitchen space to either launch or upgrade their food start-up into. Regardless of if I am looking for a tenant, I’ll gladly spend a few minutes chatting with callers about where they are at in their process and what their next move might be. Based on the questions I get asked, and what I went through when starting LPPCo., it appears (and please send me some links if I’m wrong) that there really aren’t good resources getting a food business launched.

As much as I am full-force working on our company growth, I actually enjoy having a small tenant or two, as much for the overhead offset, as being able to help foster another food business.

The first questions I always ask people who call are, Where are you in the process? And/or where are you producing out of currently? This tells me a lot. First, it tells me if your product has legs or if you are a “tire-kicker”. Secondly, how much time/usage do you need in a commercial kitchen initially?

Generally the conversation then turns to licensing and insurance. In Multnomah County (where we are based out of), a food company is required to: be licensed by the health dept (either Multnomah Health, or Oregon Dept of Agriculture), have a City of Portland Business License and business insurance.

Not everyone realizes all of the above, and often they’re stymied as to what to do first. My advice is to get your business license and insurance in order first, as the health department licensing will be tied to the address of the kitchen you rent.

And speaking of rent, rent for kitchen space is based off of overhead. Almost everyone I talk to who runs their own commercial kitchen knows exactly how much it costs per hour to run. This is something you have to factor into your own business plan. The “friend” who could be lending you his (restaurant/kitchen/catering) space for some cheap hourly rate, while helping you out initially, could be also doing you a disservice at the point you want to grow. Understanding what the market rental rates are will help with your growth plans and mitigating any surprises when you start calling around to other kitchens.

There are a few scenarios for renting kitchen space.

One is a pure commissary kitchen, which will rent time & space to as many companies as will fit. They tend to be more accommodating with schedule and usage, as well as allowing you to move specialty equipment into their facility. The downside is, depending on how crowded the kitchen is when you want to use it, there could be a wait to use the equipment (like ovens and the dishwasher).

Another situation is a kitchen that was formerly (or is) something else. An event space, restaurant, or a church kitchen. It’s always best to ask up front what the restrictions are for usage.

Food companies which have their own production space, and might want to lease out the off times to a smaller company (where we fall) are another option. We tend to be your least flexible options in what we’re interested allowing for time and usage.

I once had someone pitch to me that they needed to extend our hood system to include their 80 gallon boiler for their bagel making business. Um, no.  A friend who runs a vegan food company is not interested in sub-leasing space to companies who work with meat. Then there are a few newly-sprouted gluten-free only kitchens.

In these scenarios it’s important to realize that these are facilities where companies (and their employees) are making their livelihood and sometimes your company is just not a good fit for us, whether it be how much time & space you need or the types of product you’re producing. Luckily, we are a small(er) industry here in Portland, and I try to refer inquiries to other kitchens who I think I might have time/space available.

As of now, I might take in one small tenant, a company who doesn’t need a lot of storage space and is interested in working at night. Which is based off of how I see my own company needs expanding. Should I see it change, you can bet you’ll see our rental ad up on Craiglist.