How a Fortuitous Purchase by the University of Idaho Changed My Foodie Fortune
Episode 3 - Background leading up to my foodie career and The MONETIZATION CHEF
Dear Cottage Foodie,
In Episode 2, we left off with Sandy’s exploding manufacturers’ representative (sales rep) business. She offered specialty foods and gift items in Idaho and the surrounding corners of Montana, Washington, and Oregon.
I continued income-producing odds and ends, eking out a living, mostly freelance writing and teaching business classes. And supporting Sandy’s enterprise with the design of forms, systems, sales scripts, and travel itineraries.
My personal superpower is business system designer, and I continually dreamed up tools to make Sandy’s road repping more efficient for her time and effort.
THANK YOU - UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO!
And then, a thrilling announcement from the University of Idaho. (Which I mentioned at the end of Episode 2.)
The institution purchased the Ore-Ida co-packing facility in Caldwell, Idaho, and planned to turn it into a food research facility AND food processing incubator for startups!!
When I read the announcement for the first time, blood drained from my face, I felt a bit faint, and a sensation of inevitable serendipity surged through me.
This was going to be my moment. I knew it.
Combined with the 150+ small retailers Sandy was already calling on (yes, immediate sales outlets!!), this opportunity to start my own food business at an instantly profitable level was just too fortuitous and unbelievable to pass up.
We scoured her food lines, looking for a niche opportunity others overlooked. Sooo many options.
OUR FIRST PRODUCT - A STAR IS BORN
We finally decided on offering a barbeque sauce for wild game, something we could sell to “hook and bullet” (fishing and hunting) stores, both of which are BIG in Idaho. No one was doing that!
(No one is doing that still, however. Cough. Read on.)
I will gloss over the days and weeks of formulating a recipe (with the help of a chef), learning how to process, and finally, actually processing. (Note: making sauces over a steam kettle is hot, sweaty work. Not a romantic career field.)
When the first run was over, we were looking proudly at 22 cases of 12-pack, 12-ounce bottles. Unlabeled.
So, we went ahead and designed a Rocky Mountain Wild Game label and got a small run of sheet labels printed.
BUT, being a marketer first, I wanted to make sure we were covering all the bases.
Since we were heading into the holiday buying season for retailers, we put together a cute “Holiday Elf” label, complete with “missing elves” in the ingredients list.
Then, on a whim (and being a Jeff Foxworthy fan), I thought there might be room in the market (especially in Idaho) for a redneck theme.
After all, most gift items are purchased BY women, FOR women. Men get practical stuff (tools, shirts, socks). But maybe, just maybe, there was an opportunity for a food gift line that women could and would buy for men.
Almost everyone “enjoys” a burly redneck relative in their life, whether a blue-collar cousin or hubby, an annoyingly crude and funny Uncle Bob, or an embarrassing son (or daughter!) in a rough-neck job.
We slapped together a hokey Idaho Redneck label, and now sat there proudly, with three product options in our barbeque empire line-up.
Next, we did our version of a market survey, almost a “focus group.” Starting with three unlabeled bottles of sauce, we stuck one of each label on a bottle, then went around to a dozen of Sandy’s nearest wholesale customers.
According to their collective forecast, the number one best-seller was split between Wild Game and Holiday Elf. No one picked Idaho Redneck as top seller. “Too Southern,” was their consensus.
We sold some cases of each to retailers, and when the re-orders came in, we had our winner.
Idaho Redneck BarbieQ Sauce outsold the other two labels COMBINED by a ratio of 4:1.
Idaho Redneck launched as a brand, complete with dot com domain availability (which we still own, but don’t currently use).
Remember the Palouse Mall holiday show story from two stories ago, where a cowboy bought our first two bottles? We are now there in my story timeline!
Wholesale orders were gangbusters. Followed then, by that very successful holiday retail show at the Palouse Mall we shared the earlier email post.
Lots of presents went out that Christmas from our stash. Customers who purchased at our kiosk gave out 10$ of thousands worth. From our own house, we used leftover inventory after the show, and made the goodie-bag rounds to neighbors. And shipped to family members around the country.
Enthusiastic feedback!
Then… crickets.
There are two main seasons in the gift industry:
1) Late spring/summer tourist/traveling season (great for “provincial” products with a state or local name on them) and
2) Late fall/winter holiday season, great for gift baskets, also with a local/regional flavor.
Smaller independent stores generally order only one, maybe two, months ahead of each season, then periodically the rest of the year as inventory sells out.
In between can be a sales desert. People in gift industries don’t mention how lonely January and February can be (especially that first year.)
Cottage foodies selling baked goods might be a much better option this time of year (imho) — cupcakes, cookies, and cinnamon rolls (with a cup of coffee or glass of milk) sell year-round! Maybe even better during the winter.
Thankfully, by March we were back in cash flow.
PS Substack tells me this email is too long, and will be truncated by most email service providers.
I’ve written a MUCH larger email, but I am cutting off here.
Please join us in Episode 4, where I outline the meteoric rise and health-related fall of our foodie empire, and all the fun we discovered, playing with food product development.
And then, our double pivot, as our success was victimized by changes in the economy and a health condition.
Catch you with next episode (4), where I tell my story of serial food product development.
Blessings!
Mal Dell
The MONETIZATION CHEF
”Cooking UP Profits for Foodies!”