Today is all about branding and identity and the visual side of how you represent what it is you're doing. So to do that, I reached out to friends in the food space who specialize in logos and branding for food businesses. 

I'm definitely starting to feel the emotional side of making a decision to build a food business. I didn't think I'd experience it so much because I've been running my own consulting business for three years now but man is there a lot of self-doubt.

What am I doing to differentiate my product and company?

Something that you may or may not think about when you're first developing a food product is the shelf life. At what point do you start to consider the shelf life of your product? What are some ways to begin testing your formula before sending it to a lab?

A catalyst is a movement for change, it's something that gets things moving! It heats things up like it's a really cool chemical reaction and it's also a social reaction to the global crisis and how food is a major part of our environmental issues. And now it is the name of my new company.

It can not be understated that it takes a team to bring an idea to a grocery store shelf. In this episode, I talk about the importance of connecting with subject matter experts and I reveal the company name!

You have a great idea to make food - but where can you do that?

The name has been going through an evolution but you have to have a name in order to register a business and move forward.

This week I struggle with indecision on purchase options, expand on the company name, and have a moment with a craigslist seller who seems to be a scam artist of sorts who deals in used ice cream equipment.

Goals for next week-

Work on the business license, ingredient sourcing, and cheese caves for vegan aged cheeses.

Have you ever done something that scares the crap out of you? You know the odds are stacked against you but if you don't take the risk you know you'll regret it?

That is where I have found myself- at the crossroad of knowing what I love but fearing failure so much that I keep talking myself out of going after my dream.

I figured a podcast could be a great way to hold myself accountable and maybe help out another foodprenuer as I navigate a food startup from scratch to stomaches everywhere!

Follow along each week as I navigate the real world of creating a vegan dairy alternative and bring it to market - fingers crossed 🤓

Here's the transcript if you want to read rather than listen.

Intro Screamin Vegan

K80: [00:00:00] I thought I'd jump on here and introduce myself and introduce this new show that I'm doing. My name is Katie Jones, and I am the founder of screaming vegan ice cream. And what this is, is this a podcast that. Documents. My journey of taking a concept from the idea to hopefully the retail shelves. Now my background is in product development for a vegan company. Did that for many years. I'm more recently as a technical consultant for people that have vegan companies that are having problems, and I help them troubleshoot and build up their systems. And each time I do that, whether I'm working on vegan ice cream, cheese, spread, or vegan yogurt. I say to myself, why am I not doing this?

[00:01:00]

I love this. I love being in the plant. I love optimizing the equipment. I love tweaking the formula. I love looking at how I can improve shelf life. I love all of the product development side of it. I also really liked marketing. Marketing is a lot of fun, so I'm going to have a lot of fun with this brand - screaming vegan. I mean, how can I not just highlight ice cream in the most insane way? So my idea is to document it with this podcast. So that I can look back in a few years from now and think, wow, I was nuts. Was I thinking, or maybe you can get something out of it. As I navigate things, as I said, I'm less worried about the formulation and the making of the product. What I don't know how to do is the business side. I don't know what the sales and I don't know the business side, so that's where I'm hoping that I can network and meet people who are interested in joining me.

[00:02:00]

Building this food company isn't a solo mission. There's a lot more than just wanting to make another vegan product. For me, this ties into the work that I've been doing over the past couple of years with food heroes. Food heroes is a podcast where I talk to experts from the food industry about sustainability. And solutions for solving some of the issues currently caused by the way we produce our food. So I've got this a year of kind of this MBA background in how to have a food company that aligns with your values. So I thought, okay. Two years is a good time to be studying. I keep talking about it on my podcast or I can put all these lessons into action, and that action for me means tying in my values of wanting to reduce food waste, do better for the planet to work against climate change, to present a food option that is delicious and fun that can help reduce our dependence on dairy cows and animal agriculture in general?

[00:03:00]

 I am not 100% vegan, but I would say that if I could impact anything, it would be reducing our reliance on dairy cows and creating a better lifestyle for those cows and calves. And it is possible. I've had lots of really great vegan products, non-dairy products. I'll say that. Lots of great non-dairy products, and I'm excited. The other thing that I intend to do is ethically sourcing ingredients. I don't believe that animals are the only thing being disregarded in our food supply chain. I think humans bear a huge cost and are not compensated. So I intend to source all ingredients ethically. Sarah trade direct trade. Any way that I can make sure that those farmers and people at the beginning of the food chain are fairly compensated for the work that they do.

[00:04:00]

The other pillar that I want to have in place that also is very human-centric is I plan to do a buy one, give one system. Now, I haven't quite figured this out yet because I'm not even profitable, nor do I even have a product. So as I get going, I'll share what that's like as I start researching once there's some money coming in and I can start looking at how to set up a socially responsible system. There are some that I like out there. I love the microfinancing. I believe in supporting small shareholder farmers, especially women. I think all these things have very positive impact for our communities. So there you go.

I see this in a series where the first season will be just me coming in and sharing what I'm learning.

[00:05:00]

As I'm working through prototypes of my product and doing the branding and marketing. I will of course, need you as a taste tester if you're a willing participant, um, to get involved with them.  You can email me if you want to be part of the taste test or the inner circle, and I will get you on the list. And if you're close by, if you're anywhere near st Pete, even better. Because that means you can come to my ice cream lab. You can sample what I'm working on. So my first step is, of course, the prototype, the branding, and then I'm going to swing into the permit. The business licensing. The regulatory stuff and then start getting it out there from market testing at some of the local events and markets to test the idea. Are people ready for screaming vegan ice cream? There's one other thing that I want to bring up to you.

[00:06:00]

I've been told for many years to avoid vegan terminology and to go with plant-based or plant-forward because it is more inclusive. And I have decided to call bullshit on that because for me, this is. About declaring, drawing my line in the sand, and saying, this company represents that we do not need to use Derek house to make a delicious, satisfying product.

[00:06:36]

I'm just waiting for people to leave the room. If you're still here, welcome, welcome, and I'm glad to have you here and I think this is going to be a lot of work. I think it's going to be a lot of fun, and I'm super excited. I cannot wait to start converting a space into my ice cream lab.

[00:07:00]

I think I mentioned that food waste is one of the issues that I'm going to be incorporating by diverting a stream of what would normally be surplus or food waste into the formulation of the ice cream. So that should be very interesting cause I'm not sure how that's going to work. That's the new stretch for me as a recipe developer. I've never worked with some of these byproducts so. Uh, if I was going to do a straight-up vegan ice cream, that's simple. I could do that one. But I'm going to put a little challenge out there for myself to utilize 15 to 20% edible upcycled ingredient. So you can expect me to come on here once a week, give you an update. Yes. It fails. Wellesley still has a tick out ice cream maker at my garage if it goes well.

[00:08:00]

I think the potential for a ripple of positive impact starting from something as simple as vegan ice cream could be so much fun and I hope you'll join me. If you like podcasts, send me a review. Let me know. Give me some FiveStars subscribed so you'll hear every week how things are going. I know it's going to get a little Rocky, so if your area of expertise is in the business and sales side, ingredient acquisitions, especially when it comes to ethically sourced ingredients, please get in touch with  me 

Okay, well, I guess I better get back into the ice cream aisle and see what's going on. Create some delicious new flavors for you.

Peace.