Good Food Marketing with The Virginia Foodie

I’m sure many of you can relate to this!

We've all been through those big moments that suddenly shake up our lives and make us rethink everything – it could be an unexpected illness, a family emergency, a career setback, or even a surprise accident. These are the moments that can turn our world upside down in the blink of an eye.

As a marketer, I totally get how these life-altering events can throw entrepreneurs into a loop. So, let's talk about what we, as entrepreneurs, should do when life hits us with significant moments. How...

“You don't know what you don't know until you're in it."

Says Emily Harpster in our recent conversation about the growth of her ice cream brand, SugarBear Cville.

And she is right. You really don’t know what you’re getting into unless you try it. No amount of planning and studying will make you totally ready (but of course, careful planning and strategizing will help a lot in managing your business)—because some things will always come as a surprise! Before Emily launched her craft food business, what she didn’t know was how fast her b...

Summer 2020 was not the best, but we found pleasure in simple things: like big scoops of craft ice cream. In this episode, we are talking to the owners of Blue Cow, a craft ice cream business here in Virginia. Husband and wife team Jason and Carolyn Kiser offer their insights on what it takes to run a small food business, and for them, it’s all about sourcing as many of their products as possible locally. Their philosophy is one of using wholesome ingredients that are produced in the area and collaborating with local businesses to create a uniquely lo...

Just a few months after our last conversation, Emily Harspter of SugarBear Cville is back on the podcast to give us the latest updates about the progress of her ice cream brand.

It’s truly an adventure, she says, to be a one-woman team who has now grown the brand by partnering with seven individual businesses. But it’s a rollercoaster ride worthy to be enjoyed nonetheless.

In this sweet conversation, Emily will take us on her journey of growing her good food brand, what she is currently doing, and what she is planning next. Suga...

One of the scariest (or bravest) things a food brand could do is go straight from a recipe idea to the shelf. No market testing or selling in a specialty store. It’s every startup’s dream - or nightmare if done poorly!

Emily Harpster of SugarBear Cville has done just that, and her story is a great opportunity to learn about a startup retail brand in the very early stages of development. In this episode, we speak about some of the challenges most startup food brands face and why vision and determination play a huge role in a...

“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” says a popular adage.

We like to think we can see past a first impression, but that’s not always the case. And in CPG sales, it’s rarely true. Plenty of shopper research shows how fickle consumers can be right at the last moment of putting your products into their cart – whether it’s in real life or online.

Your packaging has to do some heavy lifting: Your entire brand story needs to be available for split-second decisions. Packaging is the silent salesman for your brand; it’s there to...

Your website is one of a good food brand’s biggest investments. It is the research hub for both consumers and retail buyers alike. In an industry fraught with ever-thinning margins, it is easy for you to worry that you aren’t getting a big return on that big marketing spend.

It may help to consider your website part of a complete marketing system where all communication channels work together. This is where the concept of evergreen content comes into play. “Evergreen” content is writing or imagery that is used beyond a single project. That’s why they’re ev...

One of the missions that Good Food brands strive for is sustainability. But in order to foster sustainability, especially in the field of agriculture—the genesis of the Good Food movement, we need to support the ones who cultivate it: our farmers. While farmers are undoubtedly great at growing fresh and healthy produce, finding sustainable ways for their products to reach the tables of their target market isn’t always an innate skill.

This is where Myrna Greenfield comes into play as the “good egg” who helps farms and farmers in need. As...

“But I don’t know what to SAY about my brand!”

That’s a common complaint of food brand managers. As a food producer, you are probably very creative in the kitchen, but for most people, one area of creative expertise doesn’t always extend to writing.

Food bloggers, influencers, recipe developers, writers, writing dashboards and marketing experts are all place you may consider spending marketing dollars to get your brand story told. There are so many options, it’s hard to wade through the choices.

So in today’s episode, I talk about how and...

I’ve discovered a new word—salad-centric! And I’m excited to share its meaning with you, as well as its inventor, Kat Johnson, aka Kat the Farmer.

When I first heard the word, I  wondered how can a business be so specifically centered on salad. What does it take to run a farm that produces naturally grown crops and herbs while also managing a business that creates packaged value-added food products?

In this episode, Kat shares with us how she grows and makes all things salad-connected. This conversation is a walkthrough of her ways and mea...

Photography can make or break a food brand. Your photos set customer expectations and help create appetite appeal when you aren’t there to sell your brand or offer someone a sample to try.

Photography can be an expensive investment, yet powerful images are vital for your brand’s message. When you finally decide to invest in new images, ensuring that these photos will serve you for several seasons and reasons is also a must.

Understanding how and where you will use your images beyond the immediate project can help you maximize your return.

...

“You don't know what you don't know until you're in it."

Says Emily Harpster in our recent conversation about the growth of her ice cream brand, SugarBear Cville.

And she is right. You really don’t know what you’re getting into unless you try it. No amount of planning and studying will make you totally ready (but of course, careful planning and strategizing will help a lot in managing your business)—because some things will always come as a surprise! Before Emily launched her craft food business, what she didn’t know was how fast her b...

“If you want steady sales, you need steady marketing.” I heard this first from my friend and mentor, Ilise Benun, but I will never tire of sharing that bit of wisdom.

But what does steady marketing mean for the Good Food industry? 

Well, it means many of the same things as for any business. A healthy, thriving, steady marketing program relies on five components:

Steady is the operative word here. Many leaders, from large to small businesses alike, take...

All Good Food brands are made up of two integral parts: a mission and a vision.

Your mission as a Good Food brand is what sets you apart from the big players in the food industry. It’s what makes you unique. Your vision is how you see yourself as a brand and a player in the food industry in the future.

The challenge is this: how do we close the gap towards the vision while staying true to your mission as a Good Food brand? The answer should be easy—strategy. You create a comp...

It’s a fact, defining goals without creating any supporting actions means your targets will never be attained. If you are reaching for steady sales, you need steady marketing to pull those opportunities toward you.

Like many of you, I own a small business and all too often the urgency of day-to-day operations takes priority over my own marketing. Having your marketing calendar set for the year helps turn marketing into daily and weekly practices, and not a last-minute rush to hit that promo deadline.

In today’s follow-up to my goal-setting episode 69, I’m sharin...

How do you assure customers that the food you are selling is healthy, safe, and nutritious?

The organic label has long been a hallmark of the GOOD FOOD industry, but it can sometimes be difficult to source every ingredient from organic farmers, which keeps your brand from sporting that highly-regulated logo.

Certified Naturally Grown (CNG) may be an answer to the issue of mindful ingredient sourcing. CNG offers peer-review certification to farmers producing food for their local communities through natural ways and without relying on synthetic chemicals or GMOs.

In this conversation, we...

The New Year’s Resolution is entrenched in pop culture. There can be a lot of social pressure to make yours on January 1. But while making your list of this year’s to-dos has been a tradition, following them is often a struggle. There’s not much structure behind how you’ll reach your new life-changing goals.

I prefer to set strategic goals for myself and my business. You can create new strategic goals at any time of the year. Still, I encourage you to spend some time during January to craft a thoughtful sales strategy backed by measu...

To say that 2022 was a rollercoaster year is a vast understatement. Everybody was rushing to rebuild, recalibrate and rectify post-pandemic, while most of us want to start fresh in 2023.

Fortunately, I’ve witnessed some fantastic successes in the craft food industry. Whether restaurants, catering, or packed foods, the food business has taken a massive hit over the past two years. So it’s inspiring to see - and be part of - stories of overcoming obstacles and crises averted.

This episode chronicles stories from five specialty food & beverage businesses. Listen to the practical less...

In the last episode, Anna Bradshaw and I talked about conversion copywriting and how investing in it and your website’s content could help generate sales for your good food business. There were many important topics in that conversation about conversion copywriting, creating good content, and drawing in customers to your business website. I thought the issue deserved a closer look.

A frequently overlooked part of the business, copywriting is the foundation of everything your customer experiences. Investing in great content should increase your ROI, especially if you repurpose your content for different communication channels. “Message matching” across...

As a good food brand, you need to emphasize the good in your brand. And when we say good, we don’t just mean the delicious, healthy, sustainable products you create. We also mean the good story behind your pursuit of success in the good food economy. It’s not enough for your story to travel word-of-mouth in your community. It’s essential to build your brand around your philosophy, and the best way for your mission to guide your brand is to put that story into writing.

This is where Anna Bradshaw’s job as a conversi...

Everything that we create begins with a reason. So naturally, every brand that pursues the good food journey starts with a vision—a mission worth fulfilling.

Your goal and purpose as a brand is illuminated by your mission statement. A mission statement is a group of sentences, usually one or two, that describes, defines, and sets your brand apart from others in the same market. But these aren’t just sentences you craft following grammar and syntax. 

Many mission statements make the mistake of living in the land of vague and generalized comments about...

It’s a sweet, sweet story how the good food brand, Storied Goods, was founded. Now, it is on the road to success. 

Martha Bourlakas’ Storied Goods started as a granola-making business before she shifted into concocting sugar cubes. The rationale is simple: there are many delightful granolas in the world, but creating a business that is centered on celebrations where people share stories with each other through food and drinks spoke deeply to Martha’s purpose.

She believes that in this chaotic world we now live in, there is a need to celebra...

Just a few months after our last conversation, Emily Harspter of SugarBear Cville is back on the podcast to give us the latest updates about the progress of her ice cream brand.

It’s truly an adventure, she says, to be a one-woman team who has now grown the brand by partnering with seven individual businesses. But it’s a rollercoaster ride worthy to be enjoyed nonetheless.

In this sweet conversation, Emily will take us on her journey of growing her good food brand, what she is currently doing, and what she is planning next. Suga...

The last 100 days of the year can be crucial for business owners. Not only because it’s the last window for hitting your original sales goals, but also because the end of the year is the perfect time to set up growth plans for the upcoming year. 

Although the end of the year is comparatively hectic for food businesses, it is important to review and revise your calendar for the coming year. If you are not sure of what’s supposed to be in your calendar or you’re not certain how to make all your plans become...

When I speak about good food, I don’t mean the taste. The GOOD FOOD industry revolves around a philosophy: to create food choices that have a positive impact on the environment, the economy, and our local communities.

We are in a climate crisis, and now is the time when good food companies need to step up the game if they want redefine the food market in ways that can get more food into more mouths without killing the planet. 

But advocacy alone is not sustainable. Your job as a good food brand is to fos...

There are plenty of organizations who are working with farmers on systems that facilitate the sale of local food. Many of these entrepreneurial ventures are often a hybrid of several business models, with business owners wearing many hats. Daniel Griffith is no different.

Part food hub, part grocery store, part certification agency, the eCommerce brand Commons Provisions is designed to get more good food to more people while keeping operational costs low. This model of the business is to pay farmers well above market rates for meat and other produce.

Daniel shares how Commons Provisions...

Do you enjoy cooking? Did you have a eureka moment while working in your kitchen? Are you ready to turn your culinary skills into a full-fledged business? Launching a food business from home can be daunting, and you need more than just your passion for your product for your new brand to be a success.

Marcy Thornhill ventured into a food business that she never knew would bring her applesauce to different stores and even to other parts of the world. What started as a simple canning hobby quickly became a regional favorite in local stores. But...

One of the scariest (or bravest) things a food brand could do is go straight from a recipe idea to the shelf. No market testing or selling in a specialty store. It’s every startup’s dream - or nightmare if done poorly!

Emily Harpster of SugarBear Cville has done just that, and her story is a great opportunity to learn about a startup retail brand in the very early stages of development. In this episode, we speak about some of the challenges most startup food brands face and why vision and determination play a huge role in a...

Back Pocket Provisions, makers of the most delicious Bloody Mary Mixes around, are on a mission to make life more delicious, healthy, honest and fun by helping small farms succeed.

On today’s show, we talk to Founder and CEO, Will Gray about the inception of his business and the ways in which it has grown since then. He touches on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on his business and tells us about the unique way that Back Pocket Provisions has built a market for seconds in Virginia. 

Next, Will tells us why “imperfect” fruits...

Few things are more exciting for small brands than getting their first commercially-packaged food products off the production line. 

Allie Hill and Katharine Wilson, founder and director of Virginia Food Works, respectively, get to see this excitement firsthand through the work they do. This non-profit, located in the Prince Edward County Cannery & Commercial Kitchen, specializes in the creation of value-added foods from locally-grown ingredients.

In today’s episode, we hear about the founding vision of Virginia Food Works and how they have upheld it over the years. We learn how they share the space with Pri...

How do you create a brand with a destination in mind? That may seem like a vague and dreamy question, but in an industry where the margins are slim and competition for the shelf is challenging, starting your good food brand with a plan for where you ultimately want to take your business will get you to your goals faster than if you adopt the trial by fire approach.

When you imagine the future for your brand, what stores are carrying your products? What kind of value does it add to the market? What is your brand...

It's so easy to feel pressured to get things done as quickly as possible, especially in food marketing. That feeling often leads to business owners to rush, and push out their marketing needs as quickly as possible. This might compromise your business’ output and even hurt your brand. 

The same goes for many aspects of running a business - there’s that constant pressure that comes from the need to think, act, produce and earn.

When you’re in this situation, remember that things aren’t as bad as you imagine and whenever you feel like you’...

To scale or not to scale. To grow, but how far? What's the right choice for your brand? 

Many brands choose co-packing as the next best step for increasing production to meet market demand. But choosing a co-packer can be a nerve-wracking process. Handing over your recipes to someone else feels like you are relinquishing control over your business. So it’s not surprising that many food brands delay the decision until it’s almost too late. Many times, the rush to increase your production in a hurry causes unsatisfactory results.

In this episode, Ashley Sutte...

The change of seasons always gives me a lift. Spring to summer to fall to winter. It's a lovely cycle. - Georgiana Dearing

All things are made beautiful in their time. Everything has its proper timing, and every action or idea on this earth is attenable if you are sensitive to its flow and when it should come to fruition.

Business planning is no different, and if you’re a food business and sales and marketing activities are consuming lots of mental energy, then there’s no easier way to align your strategy and campaigns than...

One of the things I hear a lot from small and startup businesses is that deciding on product packaging is the most exciting and awaited part of the production process and business launch. What color to use, what size of the box or jar, how many inches from the lid should the logo sit. These are the thrilling questions that get thrown in the brainstorming process for packaging.

Unsurprisingly, it can also be the most nerve-wracking, and here’s why. Packaging has the smallest physical space but needs to work the hardest. With competition getting tighter, as a...

Picture this. You started a food business out of your sheer love and passion to create something of quality that’s unique, and is good for the planet. You made something that you, as a customer, were desperately looking for. You’ve nailed the product. You get great feedback from your customers at farm markets and pop-ups. You are ready to hit the retail shelves. Then…

Crickets chirping. 

Your products aren’t getting picked up the way you’d hoped. And the thought that keeps you up at night is: Why aren’t people buying it? What happ...

As a small food business owner, are you confident about conveying your real worth or marketing your own brand and product line? Or are you uncomfortable with marketing because you feel that promotion is self-indulgent?

This is a common mental block for most good food brands. Though they’re proud of their product and believe in their mission, they are wary of marketing - especially online marketing - either because they don’t understand it, they think they don’t need it, or they’re afraid it’s a lot of work.

In this episode, I’ve outli...

Americans love all food, from all regions, and they want what they want when they want it. The questions many craft food brands wrestle with is how can you be a GOOD FOOD brand when your product is something exotic? What do you do when you make a product every American loves, but you can’t possibly source it locally?

Wild Blue Chocolate started their business by answering that question first - diving knee-deep into the chocolate production process to make sure that each step of their process is rooted in sustainable, beneficial, and profitable de...

"Content, social posts, and ads: these are the tools we can use to grow online sales. And the good news in 2022 is that these tools are getting smarter and smarter." - Georgiana Dearing

Whether intentionally or unknowingly, every small business aims and needs to boost its ecommerce sales. This might not be the natural first step for most small brands, but tapping into online sales will not only expand your reach and give you the opportunity to multiply your profits, but it also help establish your brand’s integrity. 

Especially if you’re a niche brand...

Diabetes is a frightening condition that affects 425 million individuals throughout the world. Since sugar and other processed foods are the main ingredients for most food products, we aren’t really left with much of a choice.

Jose Hernandez, the Co-Founder and President of ChipMonk Baking, thought otherwise. He and David Downing, Co-Founder and CEO, started the brand to provide healthier snacking options not only to help those suffering from diabetes but audiences who are trying to eat clean and healthy by avoiding sugar or keeping a keto diet.

In this episode, Jose and Mi...