The First Steps to Start Your Food Business

Guest post is provided by Food Trade Consultants, a consultation service offering seminars and packing of small orders to entrepreneurs in the food industry. Visit www.foodtradeconsultants.com for more information.

The first step to creating a successful food business is to write your recipe down on paper. This method, called “setting up your recipe”, requires that you include every pinch, dollop, smidgeon, dash and drop that you use. Don’t leave anything out because then the packaged formula will not taste the same as the way you prepare it.

Everything needs to be weighed and accounted for, so you’ll need a scale to measure everything in grams. First list your ingredient and then the weight in grams next to each. Next you will have to write down every step you take for making your recipe. Is there a certain order that you mix your ingredients in? Does one come before the other? Does something need to be melted before it is mixed? Don’t leave anything out. If you cook, you know that any minor adjustments can affect the outcome of a recipe in a major way. There is a sort of order of operations to cooking that cannot be ignored. Cooking times, intervals for adding ingredients, setting times should be written down in detail.

The next thing to do is contact a food trade consulting service to help you along the rest of the way. Consultants have successful history in the food business and know how to efficiently maneuver the system. Avoid making the same first-timer mistakes that everyone else has made by consulting a knowledgeable professional in the food industry. Be sure to sign a Service Agreement and Nondisclosure agreement to protect both you and the consultant from intellectual property theft and legal action.