Like all credit unions, Summit is a cooperative which exists to serve their members. Summit is based in south-central and southeast Wisconsin and is the #1 Small Business Administration (SBA) lender in Wisconsin among credit unions for the past 6 years. Summit helps food entrepreneurs access SBA 7a programs to provide up to $5 million of capital to younger businesses for working capital, inventory, and equipment purchases. The SBA 7a Express program provides a quicker turnaround than the traditional 7a, allowing for loans up to $350,000.

This podcast outlines what it is like to work with alternative lenders and CDFIs like WWBIC. WWBIC offers a combination of relevant business classes, business loans up to $250,000, assistance with personal financial management, and connections to people who can make things happen for business owners and entrepreneurs across the state of Wisconsin.

When food businesses start up, sometimes alternative Lenders like WWBIC are the best sources of capital because they lend smaller amounts and pair their capital with other services, like technical assistance and classes. WWBIC works with both women and men by offering relevant business classes, business loans up to $250,000, assistance with personal financial management, and connections to people who can make things happen for business owners and entrepreneurs across the state of Wisconsin. These classes and technical assistance help business owners document their business plan and get prepared to raise money.

Stephen and Chris McDiarmid of Gorilly Goods, a certified organic raw healthy snack maker in Jackson, Wisconsin talk about how their dehydration process and unique flavor profiles make them defensibly unique from other snack brands and how focusing on pitching their business model led to strategic investment in their company.

Jeff Glazer of the UW Law and Entrepreneurship Clinic talks about how the type of entity you form matters in terms of your strategic path to grow and what kinds of money you are able to raise to support that growth. When raising equity, find legal counsel that understands what you need to do to comply with securities law and its required disclosures to investors or potential investors. Protect your recipes through legal processes as well as breaking down processes of your production to assign to multiple people, mitigating the risk of another person knowing all aspects of your product production process.

Since selling food or beverages like beer are about selling your brand, protecting that brand and its growth in value through the trademark process is very important. Trademarks should be distinct and evocative as opposed to generic and descriptive, mimizing the likelihood of confusion with other trademarked intellectual property.

Jeff Glazer of the UW Law and Entrepreneurship Clinic talks about the issues with trademarks for food and beverage businesses. Since selling food or beverages like beer are about selling your brand, protecting that brand and its growth in value through the trademark process is very important. The United States is one of the few countries in the world that doesn’t have regional trademark registration. Trademarks should be distinct and evocative as opposed to generic and descriptive and the likelihood of confusion with other trademarked intellectual property is a consideration when pursuing trademarks.

Distribution rights matter a great deal for breweries and distilleries. Talking with a lawyer who has training and experience in the matter is the best way to protect the financial future of your beer brand. Whether or not you are a brewery vs. a brewpub matters a great deal to regulators. In Wisconsin, breweries get one on-brewery premise tap room and one off-brewery premise tap room.

Distribution rights matter a great deal for breweries and distilleries. Talking with a lawyer who has training and experience in the matter is the best way to protect the financial future of your beer brand. Whether or not you are a brewery vs. a brewpub matters a great deal to regulators.

Bill Anderson of Creme de la Coulee is a Wisconsin local artisan cheese maker who uses a CSA model through a cheese of the month club to connect directly with consumers. He talks about what it takes to grow a local artisan cheese company and what you have to consider when thinking about scaling that up. There are many advantages of the infrastructure for cheesemaking in Wisconsin as well as things to consider about aging cheese from a financial perspective.