How to Put Your Food Product on the Market
Getting a food product from your kitchen to the supermarket can be a challenging and potentially costly process. You'll probably need to enlist help to make your product manufacturing friendly, meet health standards, create a design that sells and connect with supermarket corporate buyers. It's crucial that throughout this process the quality of your food product doesn't decline, especially as ingredients are changed and preservatives are likely added.
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Instructions
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Secure a financial backer. If you are not independently wealthy, you'll most likely need backing. Your most promising source of investment will be from angel investors or investors to whom you sell a portion of your business.
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Discuss your idea with several food and beverage development professionals. Examine your product from a scientific perspective. What ingredients must be changed to mass produce it? What is the product's minimum shelf life and will you need preservatives to meet this requirement? What are the FDA requirements for your product and will ingredients need to change to meet them?
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Find a co-packaging facility to produce and manufacture your product. While it's possible to set up your own manufacturing, in general you won't want to do this until you're sure you have a profitable product. A co-packaging facility is a shared manufacturing facility that provides both manufacturing and expertise.
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Hire a trustworthy food broker. Start at the Food & Beverage Trade Association's website, listed in the resource section below. Your food broker should already have connections to your targeted grocery store(s) as well as a track record of being able to contact and sell to supermarket corporate buyers.
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Start small. Test-market your product at smaller grocery chains first to determine your product's selling power. If you target chain stores like Wal-Mart or Safeway successfully, you may not be able to fulfill the demand. Wait until your product sells at the smaller stores before targeting the larger chains.
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Tips & Warnings
You can find food and beverage development professionals in your local yellow pages.
References
Resources
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