Edible-Alpha® Podcast

In Edible-Alpha® podcast #62, Tera talks with Ted LeBow, cofounder and managing principle of Kitchen Table Consultants, about how small food and farm businesses can stay afloat through the current COVID-19 crisis. Because Ted works one-on-one with entrepreneurs to help them build profitable food and ag enterprises, Tera felt he’d be the perfect guest to guide listeners during these unprecedented times.

Overall, Ted stressed staying as calm as possible amid the madness and practicing open communication with team members and partnering businesses. As for what small companies should prioritize right now, first figure out where cashflow stands, then contact customers, vendors and banks, which may be understanding and flexible.

Next, small businesses should plot out their cashflow forecasts on a spreadsheet to get a picture of what the coming weeks and months might look like. Look at expenses to see where it may be possible to free up some money. Ted suggested starting with labor, which could include layoffs or furloughs, then landlords, who may allow some wiggle room. As for suppliers, address those most vital to the business’s long-term survival first and try to work with them on a plan.

When talking with banks, Ted said it’s best to be honest and transparent, as he and Tera both expect them to be friendlier to small businesses than they were during the Great Recession. Also consider government loan programs and other financing options sprung from this crisis. But before borrowing more money, closely evaluate the business to ensure it has a real shot at surviving—or else entrepreneurs could be just digging a deeper hole. Companies should also avoid pivoting too much to chase after sales during this chaotic time, unless they really want to stick with the new direction long-term.

Next, Ted explained how to do cashflow forecasts and pointed listeners to Kitchen Table Consultants’ website for helpful templates and webinars. He and Tera also touched on the agriculture sector and how all of this financial advice and strategy pertains to farmers specifically.

Finally, they agreed to circle back in a month to six weeks to revisit these topics again, since the business climate will undoubtedly keep changing as this pandemic plays out. Be sure to tune into that conversation, as well as other upcoming Edible-Alpha® podcasts that’ll outline smart strategies for businesses weathering this storm. We’re all in this together.

In Edible-Alpha® podcast #61, Tera catches up with Sascha Dhanjal, founder and president of Saffi Foods based in Madison, Wisconsin. Launched in 2014, this innovative company provides premium oils and vinegars to top-flight restaurants and foodservice operations nationwide and to retail bulk departments regionally, with an eye toward growth.

The child of two entrepreneurs, Sascha’s journey began when she moved to Chile after college to work for an olive oil farm. Like many foreign oil producers, this farm struggled to break into the U.S. market, which is saturated with counterfeit oils that have driven prices down unfairly. Already having made inroads in the U.S., Sascha launched Saffi Foods to sell authentic oils and vinegars imported from Chile, Spain and Mexico at fair prices. Tasting the difference between her products and others on the market, Michelin Star restaurants, James Beard Award-winning chefs and catering companies across the country signed on as customers.

Next, Saffi Foods moved into retail bulk sections to offer consumers its source-verified oils and vinegars with less packaging waste. Though this recent venture has been successful, it wasn’t always easy to convince retailers to bring in the brand. Even though they loved the sustainability premise, many are tepid about bulk liquids in general, because it takes time and effort to keep the dispensers full, clean and presentable; plus, in the past, shoppers have been less enthused about liquids than they are dry bulk goods.

But Saffi Foods developed a solution to overcome these hurdles: custom dispensers that are easy for retailers to maintain and for shoppers to use, along with refillable dishwasher-safe glass bottles consumers can purchase. Following a successful test-run with co-ops, the dispenser design is now being tweaked to maximize aesthetics and usability—and prepare Saffi Foods for expansion into larger retail markets.

After discussing her company’s growth trajectory, Sascha shared a few key lessons she’s learned along the way, such as the importance of seeking outside help and understanding the cost realities of expansion. She and Tera also touched on the importance of dialing in marketing messaging, knowing your numbers (especially as a female approaching the male-dominated investment space) and balancing the rigors of entrepreneurship with family. Overall, this podcast is packed with inspiration and tips for entrepreneurs looking to shake up markets with their innovative food products.

In Edible-Alpha® podcast #60, Tera catches up with consultant Alli Ball, creator of the Retail Ready online course and the Food Biz Wiz podcast. A former grocery buyer for Bi-Rite Market in San Francisco, Alli struck out on her own in 2014 to follow her true passion: helping producers get into retail.

At Bi-Rite, Alli had the bandwidth to nurture emerging food brands, helping them hone their offerings to maximize sales. But as she and Tera discussed, most grocery buyers don’t have this much capacity. So when an entrepreneur pitches a product, they often hear a quick “no” and receive little if any constructive feedback. But this doesn’t necessarily mean the product is a dud. Oftentimes, entrepreneurs are rejected because they don’t know the proper way or time to pitch to buyers—or how to speak buyers’ unique language.

This is where Alli comes in. She coaches producers on how grocery buyers think, how to pitch effectively and how to boost their wholesale business. Along with one-on-one consultations, she offers her 12-module Retail Ready online course, which covers everything from identifying target audiences to crafting effective sell sheets to working with brokers and distributors. Students move through the course material at their own pace while also participating in biweekly live group chats with Alli.

For additional support, current students and Retail Ready graduates join a Facebook group, where they can network, post questions and solve problems together. Then if brands wish to continue working with Alli one-on-one after completing Retail Ready, they have that opportunity. She also hosts the weekly Food Biz Wiz podcast, which delves into common challenges her students encounter and sometimes features PR experts, brokers, financial gurus and other industry stakeholders. Recently, Alli launched the Food Biz Wiz Quarterly Planner to help food companies set and achieve their business goals.

To date, some 250 brands have taken Retail Ready and there are numerous success stories. But as Alli pointed out, she gives producers the tools to succeed at retail, but they have to do the work. Those who’ve really dug into the program and taken action are the ones that land on store shelves—and fly off of them.

A whole lot goes in to getting new food products “retail ready,” and entrepreneurs often don’t know what they don’t know. Tapping into resources like Alli’s can make the difference between an awesome product that never reaches consumers and an awesome product that people love and purchase again and again.

In Edible-Alpha® podcast #59, Tera talks with Dale and Pam Johnson, owners of Century Sun Oil in Pulaski, Wisconsin. They produce high-oleic organic sunflower oil on a farm Dale’s family has owned since 1882, selling at retail and in bulk to other industries.

A longtime dairy farmer, Dale switched his acreage to organic in the mid-1990s, sold off his cows and began growing vegetables. But when big corporations bought up the local canneries, he and many other independent farmers lost their contracts. Plus, a new four-lane road had been built through his property, slicing one 80-acre field into 11 sections and making large-scale vegetable production difficult.

So Dale got innovative. First, he grew organic vegetables on a smaller scale, sold them at his own farm market and converted some underused barn space into a processing facility. Next, he moved into hay, corn and soybeans, then decided to give organic sunflowers a shot. But unlike most sunflowers, the type Dale chose to grow aren’t high in omega-6 fatty acids. These seeds are chockfull of heart-healthy omega-9s, and with cold-pressing and double-filtering, they yield a rich-hued, shelf-stable unrefined cooking oil.

Around this time, Pam moved to Wisconsin and joined the business. The couple tested the sunflower concept for about three years before officially launching Century Sun Oil in 2009. They found success selling at farmers’ markets and a few stores, eventually getting picked up by a distributor.

In time, they stopped growing sunflowers altogether, opting instead to buy them from a handful of organic farmers so they could focus on making oil. Along with selling to consumers, Century Sun Oil has built a substantial bulk business catering to restaurants, foodservice operations and the cosmetics industry. The excess meal from processing gets sold as feed for cows, chickens and hogs.

Century Sun Oil is an awesome example of ongoing evolution and innovation in organic agriculture. When a crop or farming system no longer works, market dynamics shift, landscape changes or unexpected channels emerge, farmers can research, recharge and refocus in new directions.

In Edible-Alpha® podcast #58, Tera speaks with Paul Scharfman, president of Specialty Cheese Company in Reeseville, Wisconsin, known for its Hispanic and other ethnic cheeses. Since purchasing five small cheese factories in 1991, Paul has grown the business exponentially, increasing sales annually and employing 250 workers.

Three decades ago, queso fresco, asadero and cotija cheeses weren’t obvious choices for cheesemakers, but Paul knew demand for these varieties was growing. Food scientists helped his team hone their Hispanic cheesemaking chops, and soon they were turning Wisconsin cow’s milk into in-demand ethnic cheeses.

But in the meantime, Dodge County was losing residents to urban centers and small dairy farms were dwindling. Then when Reeseville High School closed, it decimated the town and sunk the community’s spirit. Specialty Cheese purchased the vacant school and transformed it into a modern processing and packaging facility, which fueled growth and necessitated hiring more and more workers. But in a town of less than 700 people—and with recent unemployment rates so low—attracting candidates proved challenging.

Inspired by their empathy-driven “soft management” training, the management team began looking for workers who’d been unemployed. Many businesses would steer clear of these folks, assuming they were flawed or unwilling to work. But the truth was many Dodge County residents couldn’t work due to lack of child care, elder care or transportation.

To solve the transportation issue, Specialty Cheese launched a rideshare program called Getting to Work. The company hires drivers to ferry employees from all over Dodge County and beyond to and from the Reeseville facility 24/7 for a small fee. Today, about 75 employees use this service, and a new childcare program is in development to allow even more people to work. Specialty Cheese also sponsors an annual art and music festival, which Paul hopes will attract young professionals to the area.

Next, Paul and Tera discussed the untapped business opportunities in rural areas nationwide and how seizing upon them can revive communities both economically and culturally. Rural regions have plenty of land fit for agriculture, and since consumers today want to know who makes their food, small farmers and artisan food makers have a hungry market—which they can now access directly through ecommerce. Using sites like Amazon, entrepreneurs can bypass distributors and retailers and build “multimillion-dollar businesses based in rural nowheresville,” Paul said.

America might be shocked to learn how many untapped food and agriculture business opportunities await in rural areas. Forward-thinking farmers and artisan food makers can start something special—and lucrative—from anywhere and, in turn, help revitalize their communities.

In Edible-Alpha® podcast #57, Tera speaks with Abby and David Bachhuber from Lovefood Farm, a small, profitable, diversified organic vegetable farm in the Madison, WI area. Before starting their own farm, Abby had previous experience in the small family farm industry including her work at the Dairy Business Innovation Center and David worked as a project manager for 12 years at a neuroscience and psychology research lab: the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. A professional project manager, David got the “bug” for farming around the time the couple met. After growing things in every square foot of conceivable space in their yard, and absorbing the lessons that come with hands-on growing, they decided to pursue farming as a profession and build it into a profitable business.

Abby and David started farming one acre of rented land with a two-wheel BCS tractor and sold their vegetables through a small CSA, a farmers market and a farmstand outside their home. David worked with The Center for Healthy Minds to reduce his hours in the summer so that he could farm part-time while still keeping his University position, though he worked 100 hours a week to keep up with everything before switching to farming full time. As lifelong learners committed to the success of their new farm, they participated in workshops at the Angelic Organics Learning Center (including a “loving brutality” in helping them assess the viability of their business), mentorship with the late Chris Blanchard and education through MOSES’s mentor program.

David switched to farming full time after their second year of operation. Abby had residual grant income coming in from past grants she had written which the farm has now replaced as a source of income. She has since gotten another full-time job with benefits to support the family though plans to join the farm in the future at the right time. After they could no longer rent their original one acre, they farmed at the Farley Center’s incubator program for two and half years. Finally, they bought their own 30 acres of farmland (with 5 acres currently in production) with the financial support of David’s mother and a land contract agreement. Their farm is the former site of the City of Stoughton’s compost operation, essentially a “black slate”, which allowed them to certify their crops as organic from the very beginning.

They are now working on adding essential infrastructure, like hoop houses and a pack shed, with plans to build a greenhouse. Their current mix of distribution includes 3 farmers markets, 4 grocery stores, 100 family CSA members and between 5 and 20 restaurants in a given week, with a farmer friend providing distribution to local restaurants. Over the summer, Lovefood Farm scaled up to 8 part-time employees in response to David’s mentor’s recommendation to hire as a means to prevent their own personal burnout during the busy season. In the future, David and Abby expect to reap the benefits of their most recent round of perennial herbs, expand to medicinal herbs (both dried and fresh) and increase their restaurant distribution.

In the podcast, Lovefood and Tera also reflect on the challenges faced by farmers due to climate change and the entrepreneurial problem solving needed to survive variability in current weather patterns and the marketplace. Abby commented that they are constantly revisiting their “yes” to farming to evaluate if it makes sense to continue. They plan to grow their farm and its sales in the coming years to further support their family.

Note: This podcast was recorded in the late Summer of 2019.

In Edible-Alpha® podcast #56, Tera speaks with Mary Ann Bellazzini from Campo Di Bella winery, farm and farm-to-table restaurant. Campo Di Bella is a diversified agritourism operation, rooted in the Bellazzini’s Italian heritage and located on 20 acres of rolling hills in South Central Wisconsin.

Owner Background

When Mary Ann Bellazzini and her family moved to Wisconsin, they didn’t plan to be farmers. She and her husband grew up in first generation Italian families and they knew food. Their journey started with a large garden on their five-acre property. Encouragement from friends first led the couple to selling their excess vegetables at the local farmers market. Next, they launched a CSA, and later they purchased a farm four times the size of their original property. Their agritourism business grew from there.

Winery

The Bellanzzinis purchased their 20-acre farm in 2008, and they added 265 grapevines. Growing grapes for use in wine production is a challenge in Wisconsin’s climate. Delays due to various weather and farm issues meant they didn’t harvest their first grapes until 2014; however, the couple created one variety of wine from this harvest and it sold out. In 2017, when their batch of wine failed because of an extremely cold winter and damp spring, they experimented with making cold-hardy, traditional red wine vinegar. With support from state grant funding, these first vinegars will be available in winter 2019.

Campo Di Bella attempted to produce a rosé in 2018. With feedback from local mentor Philippe Coquard of Wollersheim Winery, they determined that though their rosé was a good dry wine, it was not appropriate for the Wisconsin market. In another example of “making lemons out of lemonade,” they turned this rosé into vermouth using brandy from Michigan and spices from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They currently maintain just shy of an acre of grapes and release one variety of wine per year, which they sell at their restaurant alongside other wines.

Farm to Table Restaurant + Farm Stay

In 2013, Mary Ann and her husband tested their restaurant concept in various offsite locations. One year later, they decided to build the infrastructure to host dinners on their own land. They incorporated a wine cellar in the basement and used the main floor for dinner service and tastings. In fall of 2014, they piloted Saturday farm-to-table dinners with wine sales on the premises. In 2015, they opened the restaurant full time on the weekends; the weekend menu includes a three-course Friday cenetta dinner for $35–$45 and a five-course Saturday farm-to-table dinner for $55-$65. Guests come from as far away as Chicago and Minneapolis for their high-quality meals and treat the farm as a destination that delivers a unique dining experience. In 2018, they turned the second floor of the restaurant building into an AirBnB suite.

Campo Di Bella is a great example of a farm embracing the entrepreneurial spirit and pivoting their business model to adapt to both emerging market and environmental conditions. Mary Ann is excited to see her kids, and kids of other farm entrepreneurs, start to envision their own unique paths for keeping the family farm viable for future generations. To learn more about Campo Di Bella or to book a dinner, visit: https://www.campodibella.com/

Franchisers make money through initial franchise fee for setup costs, controlling product sales (by buying product, then selling to the stores after marking it up), and royalties, which come off of top line sales of the franchised business in return for the support and process development of the franchiser. This is often the biggest source of income for franchisers.

SAGE contributes to the food system by helping elevate the data around the impact of food and agriculture in a way that helps people understand the connections between this sector and the rest of society and the economy.

Kitchen Sync gets different people at the table – including the private sector – using the right language to invite everyone in to a problem solving and solutions-based session that meets their values and needs, rather than trying to change minds about those fundamental concepts. In bringing those people to the table, they are also better able to visualize and communicate the multitude of actors it will take to improve the food system for the long term.