Developing a great food product that has been validated and has huge market potential is an excellent starting point, but that’s when the real work begins. If you’re going to tap into the ever-growing food market and develop a long-term, profitable business, then you’ll need to find a way to scale.
The good news is that scaling a food product is easy. The bad news is that scaling a food product without compromising on quality can be a challenge. There are plenty of businesses that have found it easy to make a delicious item in small batches, but it is slightly trickier when they try to make larger quantities. Here are some tried-and-tested tips that should make sure your product tastes just as good in a batch of 1000 as it did in your kitchen.
Make Consistency Ironclad
Many great products begin their life as a creative brainchild of the founder. That makes for a great origin story, but it does make things complicated when you get into a food processing plant. Before you scale, it’s important to get the manufacturing process consistent and ironclad. That means documenting each step of the way so that there’s no room for variation. Your intuition and feel may have created the product, but now is the time to let a formulaic approach take over.
Upgrade Your Equipment
When just starting out, most food businesses make do with low-level equipment — and that’s just how it should be, since the idea is still being validated and basic equipment will produce virtually identical results as high-quality equipment in those batch sizes anyway. Once you decide to step things up, however, the quality of your equipment will be much more influential. You’ll get better results from mixes and pumps that include stainless steel balls, shafts, and upgraded gaskets and O-rings compared with non-commercial offerings. It’s also especially important to upgrade any equipment that can influence food hygiene, which is important when starting out, and outright critical when preparing to become more established.
Design a Great Working Process
One mistake that new food entrepreneurs make is believing the only way to scale is to do things faster. That’s not the case — fast can be good, but if it ends in recalls, reworks, or batches that just seem to miss…something, then the speed gains not only count for nothing, but less than nothing. It’ll cost you time, money, and potentially customers. It’s better to develop work processes that you can trust, even if that means moving a little slower than you’d like. It’s better to gradually work up to your intended level rather than speed your way there only to find that you’re too ahead of yourself.
Lock In Suppliers
Having to switch suppliers can impact any business, but especially food businesses, since it has the potential to change the taste of the item. Locking-in arrangements with suppliers that you know and trust can make the scaling process much more straightforward, since there’ll be fewer variations once you begin to hit your stride.
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