13 Ways to Launch the Food Business of Your Dreams
It’s been a devastating year for food businesses—there’s just no getting around it. What’s more, women have borne the brunt of job losses across industries, including food and hospitality. But as we’ve witnessed and reported on the impacts of the pandemic, we’ve been truly floored by the resilience we’ve seen from women entrepreneurs. And, as cliche as it may sound, the past year has proven that adversity really does open the door for innovation. In other words: If you’ve always dreamed of launching your own food business, there may be no better time than now.
To help inspire you, we put together this list of lessons learned the hard way, sourced from fledgling entrepreneurs, start-up veterans, and everyone in between. Along the way we learned that becoming your own boss isn’t easy, but it just might be the best decision of your life. From raising capital to telling your brand’s story to spending smartly, these powerhouse women founders tell us how they make it work.
Illustration by Cynthia Kittler1/131. Friends Are Your Best P.R.
Sana Javeri Kadri, founder of Diaspora Co. spice company, never had a marketing budget. Instead, she depended on a community of food lovers, cooks, and entrepreneurs to share and promote her company’s offerings. Now she wants to pay that generosity forward. Read on to discover the products and founders that Javeri Kadri has her eyes on and to hear her thoughts on why a community beats a marketing team every time.
Photo by Alex Lau2/132. Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Help
Sophia Maroon’s condiment company Dress It Up owes a lot to the generosity of her friends and family, seven of whom pitched in to finance the production of her first batch of products. Read about how she turned her mother’s recipe for a garlicky vinaigrette into a brand of six delicious salad dressings, and how your family recipe could go from the home kitchen to the grocery store shelf.
Illustration by Cynthia Kittler3/133. Find the App That Works for You
“Minimart is an app that allows very small business owners like me to manage a menu, fulfill orders, and accept payment. It doesn’t saddle you with fees—and that’s a huge deal. Right now, anything that cuts into a restaurant’s profits needs to be stripped away, especially when you’re trying to start something new.” –Bronwen Wyatt, baker, Bayou Saint Cake
Photo by Emma Fishman4/134. Know What You Have in the Bank
Stacy Madison was focused on running a sandwich cart when she noticed customers seemed most interested in the pita chips she was making from leftover bread. That venture, which evolved into Stacy’s Pita Chips, became a springboard for Madison to launch a line of energy bars and the Stacy’s Rise Project, an organization that supports women founders. Read the full interview for Madison’s tips on self-financing and her story of unexpectedly becoming a snack mogul.
Illustration by Cynthia Kittler5/135. Do One Thing and Do It the Best
Nallely* makes a hell of a flan in her kitchen in southeast Michigan, a region that is, truth be told, not exactly flan country. She sells her flan on Facebook Marketplace, a place where anyone can sell anything (within the confines of the law). The photo: two flans on her glass dinner table sporting irresistible caramelized tops. The caption: “Flan para mañana: Mañana tendré flan.”
She racked up her busiest day ever last Thanksgiving: 15 flans. A two-can limit on purchases of sweetened condensed milk (COVID-19 rations) meant she had to go to three different grocery stores to collect ingredients. The things we do for flan!
The things I’ll do for flan: Scour Facebook and drive an hour to retrieve it. Which is how I met Nallely. She doesn’t sell flan full-time, but the extra cash helps pay the bills. “People are struggling financially in this pandemic, and we’re seeing them turn to Facebook Marketplace in lots of different ways” says Deb Liu, the founder of Marketplace. Home bakers are one of many side hustles on the app.
Nallely’s flan is thick and luscious, outrageously creamy, eggy, and rich but with proper wobble and plenty of caramel sauce for each slice to swim in. She’s mastered her craft—and has never worked in a bakery, by the way.
“A lot of people don’t know what flan is,” she told me. “You mean because Michigan is a lot of white people?” I asked. “Yeah,” she said. We had a moment of silence for everyone still unaware of flan, the greatest dessert of all time. Nallely isn’t sure how long she’s going to sell flan on Facebook. She loves it, has fun making it, and right now, that’s enough. –Alex Beggs
*Nallely requested that we use her first name only; laws for selling homemade goods vary by state.
Photo by Emma Fishman6/136. Build a Village, Not Just a Business
When a sudden rent hike forced her to close her pizza shop in Atlanta’s Westview neighborhood back in 2016, Keitra Bates decided to do something about it. But not just for herself. She wanted to protect other businesses like hers from being displaced as the area rapidly gentrified. “This is a historically Black neighborhood,” she says, “but when people come here, they don’t see us. They open up beer spots for the newcomers.” So she bought a new space down the road and dubbed it Marddy’s, an affordable shared kitchen, marketplace, and incubator for Black-owned food businesses making everything from vegan cheese sauce to Bahamian coconut tarts. But that’s only the beginning of the story. Read on to learn more. —Hilary Cadigan
7/137. Nail Your Story and Tell It Well
It wasn’t until I dove deep into The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks by Toni Tipton-Martin that I realized I wanted to tell the history of Black food through ice cream. I’ve made over 320 flavors. Each one has a voice and intention behind it. Some are historic flavors that spark nostalgia—like ’Nana Pudding, Strawberry Pretzel Salad, or Peanuts and Coke. And, oh, my gosh, Sun Drop! Sun Drop is like 7UP here in the South—it’s a big deal. People went crazy for it. –Lokelani Alabanza, SATURATED Ice Cream
8/138. Give Your Profits Back to Your Business
When I first started, I was ordering spices online for my spice shop. But they weren’t flavorful enough for me, so I began custom-blending them, which entailed traveling to over 26 countries to personally source ingredients. The flavors were better, and the customers took notice. I learned that I needed to reinvest my profits into the business so I could have the brand match my vision. Another example: I hired a boutique branding agency, which redesigned our labels and helped me tell my brand’s story. Yes, it cost money, but it was a game changer in terms of visibility and impact. And this past year, at the height of the pandemic when everyone was cooking more than ever, I hired a co-packer to mix, bottle, and label my spices. It was expensive too, but so worth it because we were able to increase our capacity and inventory, which of course, all translates into sales. –Angel Gregorio, The Spice Suite
Illustration by Cynthia Kittler9/139. Make a Mistake…Really!
Jamie Liu, Only Pans L.A.: I love making kimchi, but mail-order kimchi wouldn’t work—it could explode when you ship it, it gets weird and warm. So then I thought, How can I shift this into something that’s shelf-stable, that I can ship, because that seems to be what the market needs and wants right now. So I started to sell noodle kits. I want to make it easy for people to cook dishes they love at home. Now I’m selling six different sauces and a spice mix—you can add on noodles—that sell out within four hours of listing them on Instagram Stories. It’s exciting, but it’s also a sh*tshow. If you have an idea that you really strongly believe in, just keep pushing even when it seems like nothing’s going to work out. At the same time, be open and flexible enough to change.
Robin Beltran, The Black Vegan Company: The worst and best mistake I ever made was signing up to sell NBA tickets door-to-door. But I learned persistence, how to find a yes in a stream of nos, and how to find connections in the sales process. Now when I go into peoples’ houses to educate an entire family on vegan eating, including, say, an 85-year-old Black woman who has been cooking the same family recipes since 1944, it’s about respectful communication and finding that point of connection. If I ask her for a favorite recipe and she says fried chicken, I say, “Let me teach you about mushrooms and how they take on a meaty flavor, and how you can batter them in aquafaba and spices.” It’s a way of saying: “I see you, I hear you, I’m with you, I’ve got you.” We have to set up a relationship that feels attainable, relevant, and guided.
Carlie Steiner, Seco Cocktails: One of the biggest mistakes I made when I launched Seco Cocktails, my online cocktail-making classes, was that I assumed that all my restaurant skills would automatically apply to this virtual world. Building experiences has always been my number one thing, making sure that when you leave my restaurant, you’re going to be like, “That was the dopest experience I’ve ever had.” And that’s what I wanted in these classes. But I needed to get a whole new skill set: reading a Zoom room, setting up my station, positioning the camera and lights, making sure to look into the camera. I needed to come up with a whole new set of rules that genuinely could not be googled. Like telling people to keep their mics on so I could hear when they laughed at my jokes.
Photo by Traivs Rainey10/1310. Don’t Quit Your Day Job (Maybe Ever)
When Tiffany Hall started Empower Cocktails, she made the decision to keep her job as a corporate lawyer. “There are financial realities to living in New York City,” she said, “and even with a great product, it can take time to see a financial return.” Read the interview to see why believing in yourself doesn’t necessarily mean going all-in, all at once.
Illustration by Cynthia Kittler11/1311. Look to Your Foremothers
I don’t need to tell you that Harriet Tubman was a Boss Lady on the Underground Railroad, rescuing 60 to 70 people before the Civil War began. But did you know that before she worked as a spy for the Union Army, she was employed to nurse soldiers back to health? There was only one problem: Uncle Sam didn’t compensate her for her work. So, like any enterprising entrepreneur with a flair for baking, she sold homemade pies and gingerbread.
Historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar, author of She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman, says Tubman worked through the night, baking “upward of 50 pies an evening and produced large quantities of gingerbread” to support herself. The funds supported her until she successfully sued to get her wages. Queens must be compensated for their work. –Dawn Davis, editor in chief
12/1312. Solve a Problem for Your Customers
Azora Zoe Paknad imagined Goldune as an online store that would make a low-waste lifestyle more accessible. “I wanted a solution that could work for people who don’t have a ton of time to explore, say, reusable toilet paper,” she says. Beyond the store’s environmental focus, the website’s curation is modern and incredibly stylish, proving that sustainability doesn’t need to look beige and bland.
Illustration by Cynthia Kittler13/1313. Get the Law on Your Side
Many states have regulations that restrict the types of food home cooks are allowed to sell. These restrictions—known as cottage laws—are often hotbeds for debate among local and state governments. Danielle Mickelson, an entrepreneur from North Dakota, successfully changed the cottage laws in her state. Since her victory, she’s been able to continue selling pies, soup, pickles, bread, and more, all out of her house. Read all about how Mickelson challenged North Dakota’s Department of Health—and won.