The Ultimate Resource Guide to Getting Your Specialty Food Business Off the Ground
Having trouble finding ingredients? Want to know where to get packaging for your food products? Or what about design help? And don’t forget all the resources to grow your online business, too!
While many of these resources are ones I use for Green Mountain Mustard, I included others as well so you can take your pick. A lot are New England based, too, but I’m working on finding resources for those of you on the west coast. Here goes!
Where to find ingredients
- BulkFoods.com
- Nuts.com
- Hillcrest Foods (Saratoga, NY)
- Reinhart Foodservice
- Produce Connection
- New England Produce Center
- Honeyville Grains
- AllBulkFoods.com
Where to find spices
Where to find packaging
- Andler Glass
- Burch Bottle
- Richard’s Packaging
- SKS Bottle & Packaging
- Berry Plastics
- Berlin Packaging
- Filmore Container
- Container & Packaging Supply
- Flex-Pack
- Wenham Lake Corp (used packaging equipment)
Where to get design work done
- Jar Design (we used them – Lis is awesome!)
- 99Designs (good for logos)
- CrowdSpring (good for logos)
- ThemeForest (they have way more than logos)
- oDesk
- Envato Marketplaces
Where to build your website
- Shopify (what we’ve been using since January 2014 and I LOVE it)
- Squarespace
- Wix
- Shopped (WordPress)
- WooCommerce (WordPress)
- BigCommerce
If you’re looking for a company to host your website, A Small Orange are the greatest – super helpful, cheap, and sites are never down.
Where to build a food truck
- M&R Specialty Trailers and Trucks
- Food Truck Empire (New and used food trucks and trailers for sale.)
Other food business websites you’ll find useful
- Small Food Biz
- Recipal (great for nutrition facts & inventory management)
- Foodcentricity
- FoodStarter
Guides I’ve Written
- The Complete Guide to Profitable Co-Packing
- Food Business Secrets Book – Available on Amazon
- More guides coming soon!
14 Comments on this post
AUTHORRebecca
on March 7, 2016 at 11:31 pm -
Hi Michael,
I found your site a few months back, I subscribed and have gotten a lot of help from your blog & resources! Thanks!!! Congrats on your new kitchen!!! Can you give me a few pointers on a brochure & sell sheet. I have a basic idea but so many questions…I’m less than a week away (I hope) from launching a food specialty business in Upstate NY & I need both. I wrote a basic sell sheet for retailers I’ve met with..just simple info-product descriptions, wholesale cost, delivery info etc. Anything I’m missing? Should they compliment each other in design?The brochure I’m torn about…obviously handing out to potential customers, at farmers markets etc. My Big question: Do you recommend prices? And what else is super important??
Thanks! Maybe you’ve written a blog about this….
AUTHORmichael
on March 15, 2016 at 6:10 pm -
Hi Rebecca — sorry about the delay in response. I actually have great article on sell sheet design on this blog, but you can definitely keep it simple. Sometimes when I’m in a pinch I make a quick one on Google Docs and call it a day. I do recommend prices because it keeps my product relatively the same price and it takes the guess work out of the buyer’s hands. Good luck!
AUTHORzelda curti
on July 31, 2016 at 1:51 am -
Hi Michael, I bought and downloaded your packet with all the videos and excel spread sheets to start my business and i have been doing great. But recently i have been running into spoiled product due to what i think is a flaw in the glass sanitization process. I make almond milk and we have been washing the bottles in the dishwasher and leaving them to sit a couple of days. I am afraid it is this process which is not working too well. What is the best method for sanitizing glass bottles? A juice company in my shared kitchen hand washes them and puts them through a sanitizer solution then air drys them right before filling- is this the best? you could just direct me to a website- i tried searching but could not find anything
AUTHORmichael
on July 31, 2016 at 11:16 am -
Hi Zelda,
Thanks for your purchase of the GFBA! As for spoiled product, beverages aren’t my strong suit, but it sounds like you may have to talk to a food scientist on this one. Or, you may just have an insanely short shelf life for some reason. Find your local university that has a food science lab and get in touch – they’re always more than willing to help.
Good luck,
Michael
AUTHORDina
on January 3, 2017 at 9:49 pm -
Hi, Michael.
Just wanted to let you know that the link for Filmore Container doesn’t work properly, you might want to take a look from your side. I tried a few times and it took me to unrelated advertisement pages.
AUTHORmichael
on January 3, 2017 at 10:42 pm -
Thanks, Dina! I’ll update the link.
Michael
AUTHORTom Dubowski
on January 15, 2017 at 4:20 am -
Maybe its time to update this page. Some of the links in “Other food business websites you’ll find useful” dont work.
AUTHORmichael
on January 15, 2017 at 1:21 pm -
Yep – it’s on my list to go through this week. Thanks, Tom!
AUTHORAlvin
on January 22, 2017 at 6:47 pm -
The best infromation to starting a new business i have ever found online
AUTHORmichael
on February 4, 2017 at 6:42 pm -
Thanks, Alvin! Glad you like the blog!
AUTHORRoss Graham
on February 6, 2017 at 11:32 pm -
Is there any chance that we could be listed as a resource for insurance?
Thanks!
AUTHORmichael
on February 7, 2017 at 10:22 pm -
Yep – I can put you guys on the list.
AUTHORSydney Mueller
on May 22, 2017 at 8:59 pm -
Hi Michael,
My name is Sydney and I’m an intern at Grow North MN, a resource and connection hub for MN food and Ag entrepreneurs. I would love to discuss the possibility of convergence between our goals/sites. Please email me at hello@grownorthmn.com.
AUTHORmichael
on June 13, 2017 at 10:19 pm -
Hi Sydney – thank you for the comment – I’ll reach out via email.