When I asked on the Small Food Business Facebook page, what types of topics podcast listeners would like to learn about, several people mentioned an interest in knowing more about selling to food service accounts.  With that in mind and armed with questions sourced from listeners about this topic, I reached out to Allison Ball, of Alli Ball Consulting, to find out more about what food producers should be doing if they’re interested in getting food service accounts.

Alli has offered listeners to today’s podcast a discount of $25 on her e-coures.  For more information, click here and use the promo code smallfoodbiz.

TRANSCRIPT:

Jennifer:

Allison, thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate it.

 

Allison:

You’re welcome. I’m excited to chat with you.

 

Jennifer:

So we’re going to start with a really basic question because we’re talking about food service today, but want to make sure that everybody listening is on the same page. So what exactly do we mean when we talk about just the word food service in general, because we’re going to be talking about how to get food service accounts, or some tips and ideas. But what does food service mean? What types of businesses does that comprise of?

 

Allison:

Yeah, that’s a great question. So food service is essentially the opposite of retail. So it’s when a producer sells to a wholesale account, then uses their product either as an ingredient or as an item on the menu. So it’s establishments where food is served over the counter rather than off the shelf. So food service accounts could be restaurants, bars, schools with cafeterias, businesses where they provide meals for their employees, coffee shops, things like that.

 

As a producer you can sell to both retail stores and food service accounts. Say you make something like a Bloody Mary mix. You could sell it in a quart container on a retail shelf, or you could sell it in bulk to a bar. Does that make sense?

 

Jennifer:

Yeah, that makes great sense. And I love the example, too. I mean some of the ones that you mentioned, things like school cafeterias and food that’s sold within a corporate setting, which certainly up here in Seattle a number of our tech firms do that. Yeah, those are ones that I hadn’t really thought of but, yeah, those are food service accounts. It’s great to think that it’s a pretty wide-ranging types of businesses.

 

Allison:

It really is. I’ve had clients who have had really, really great success in nursing homes and hospitals and things like that, so it really is a broad category.

 

Jennifer:

Oh, that’s excellent. So you know I know that over the course of our interview today we’re going probably dive into this next question in more detail, but again, kind of like at a high level. So what are some of the things that make selling to food service establishments different than selling to a retail store buyer?

 

Allison:

Yep. So like I mentioned in that past example, number one is it’s usually sold in bulk or in bigger quantities. So again, using that Bloody Mary example, you might sell a 16 ounce Bloody Mary mix on a retail store shelf, on a grocery store shelf, but you might sell your Bloody Mary mix in one gallon jugs to your food service account. So usually bulk. So usually the packaging is a little bit different. And typically it’s higher volume as well.