Want To Become A Foodpreneur? Here Are The 4 Ingredients You Need To Build A Successful Company

I’ve always been obsessed with the Everyday Magic™ of functional mushrooms like reishi, chaga, and lion’s mane in helping people relax, energize, and get more done.

But it wasn’t until the explosion of Web 2.0, when conversations about hot new superfoods started popping up on the blogosphere, that I realized that there might actually be a market for unique products like drinkable mushrooms or ingestible skincare.

With all the free education available on the internet, I felt inspired to create a disruptive category in the food industry, and root my company in educating the public on the benefits of superfoods like functional mushrooms and adaptogens.

Today, consumers are more open to new “undiscovered” foods and beverages than they were 10 years ago, which has given would-be foodpreneurs like yourself even more opportunities to reach them.

But starting a food or beverage company isn’t just about having a product that your friends and family love. It takes hard work and very specific expertise, and there are many factors that can keep your products off the shelves.

Here are the key ingredients you need before you launch the next big food brand:

1. Passion is a must.

If you want to get into the food business, your heart has to be in it.

Think of the family organic food business, Amy’s Kitchen. In 1987, owners Rachel and Andy Berliner were awaiting their first daughter, Amy. While Rachel was pregnant and on bed rest, Andy went to the grocery store to look for organic and vegetarian ready-made meals. When he couldn’t find anything suitable, he and Rachel decided to start making their own.

The couple started by making pot pies which they sold out of their home. They planned to remain a small company, but soon customers were demanding more — so they started making pizzas and soups. When it came time to decide on a name for their company, Rachel’s mother Eleanor suggested they name their company after their newest family member, Amy.

Today, even though the company has grown far beyond the Berliner’s home kitchen, it remains committed to its initial goal to make it easier for people to eat well.

As Amy’s story shows, successful food companies tend to be united by a strong underlying passion. This is key because starting a food company is a tough road. There is no playbook and no “foodpreneurship” major at universities.

My passion for functional mushrooms began on my family’s farm in Finland, where I regularly foraged for mushrooms with my mother and brother. As I grew older, I became interested in the science behind the foods I’d loved as a child. I encountered cordyceps mushrooms while training for a marathon. Awakened to its invigorating properties, I gathered a few of my closest friends from university and decided to start a superfood company. In 2012, Four Sigmatic was born with the vision that your life quality can be vastly improved by simple dietary tweaks.

But that’s not to say it has been a simple road.

Even if you’re lucky enough to create a successful product, you will have so many long days, too little sleep, and one-too-many headaches to solve, that you’ll quickly burn out unless you really love it.

That’s what kept Amy’s going, and that’s what keeps me going, too.

2. Make sure your business plan is fully baked.

Some people think that if they enjoy baking muffins at home and their coworkers love them, they can go ahead and start a muffin company.

Not so fast.

There are many rules and regulations involved in the food industry that the average person isn’t aware of. First of all, the FDA doesn’t allow you to cook food for commercial purposes in your home.

Product labels are also tightly regulated. If you put “sugar” in your muffins, the FDA wants to know exactly how much and what kind. And just because you once read a blog post suggesting an ingredient may lower the risk of cancer, doesn’t mean you can include that claim on the label.

Even the placement of your nutrition label matters. I once saw a cool, hipster brand that had raised plenty of venture capital put the nutrition facts panel on the back of the box. That was a major problem because the FDA requires these labels to always be on the right side of the front of the packaging.

Manufacturing is also quite complicated. You might have a tasty product, but there’s plenty of food science involved in giving it adequate shelf life. You also have to take product liability insurance into account. Almost all retailers and partners require that if somebody chokes on your muffin, you have the required insurances and customer support to assist.

Finally, there’s distribution. Even if a Walmart, Costco, or your local co-op says they want to carry your product, they typically have their own specific requirements about labeling, insurance, and distribution.

A lot of the information is more tribal knowledge — you have to go to events or get in the trenches of them to figure it out.

You may make the best-tasting muffins in your town, but unfortunately, you have to tackle all these operational details before turning your baking into a large-scale business.

3. Remember who you’re cooking for.

When I immigrated to the U.S. from Finland and started talking about edible mushrooms, people looked at me like I was literally on ‘shrooms.

But I didn’t just want to make another kombucha or “guilt-free” popcorn. I wanted to create a disruptive category — to get Americans drinking mushrooms.

And that came with several challenges.

First and foremost, I had to convince people that they would actually enjoy drinking mushrooms. The problem was Americans tend to have a sweeter palate than in many other countries, and functional mushrooms are quite bitter.

I reverse-engineered our mushroom drinks based on what bitter flavors Americans actually did enjoy. The list was short — basically just coffee and dark chocolate. So I used coffee and cacao as the delivery system for the bitter functional mushrooms. With this decision, it became equally important to educate people on how coffee and cacao can be superfoods in their own right.

Once I got my target customer on board, I had an easier time convincing retailers — who were initially very skeptical — to stock my products.

4. Be naïve enough to find your own recipe.

I see so many food and beverage brands just trying to do what every other brand does.

And most of them will probably fail.

Copying others is never in your best interest. And while there’s plenty of room for error, there’s always room for innovation and creativity. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Write down your dream scenario and follow this vision instead of trying to copy other brands. Growing never ends in the food business (pun intended).

The key is to stay open-minded and never assume you’ve learned all there is to know because the industry is always changing.

And if you gain traction at some point, remember why you started. When investors or retailers approach you asking to expand your product line, change your recipe, or introduce new flavors, think to yourself before you make a decision: “What was that initial spark? What made me tick? Is this in line with that? What do my customers want?”

When you start a food business, things will get hectic, often. There will be grease fires galore to put out (sometimes literally!). But if you stay true to your vision and learn all you can, you’ll have a surefire recipe for success.