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How To Make Money In The Kitchen Products Business
1993 by Home Business Publications

There are many business possibilities that can be built on products from your kitchen: candies, jams, pies, egg rolls, and special recipes of all descriptions, and the same general business approach will work with most of them.

You can produce any one or more of these or other kitchen products -- or specialize in one category, such as diet foods (sugarless pastries), ethnic dishes (strudel, lumpia rolls), breads, or old fashioned meals. Whatever your specialty, the business applications are similar.

Your first decision is to select a line of products -- a decision that will be heavily influenced by what you are good at!

Another influence should be what will sell in your area. If there are a lot of a particular ethnic group, that may be good or bad for a potential business: good because people will know what makes your dishes are; bad because every housewife makes the same thing.

Many Vietnamese restaurants have failed because they advertised Vietnamese food, most of which is delicious, but still not well-known in this country.
Accordingly, most of their clientele were other Vietnamese -- who can cook their own Vietnamese dishes. Some of those who did quite well specialized in Chinese food -- which is similar but more importantly it is well known here. Once the patrons were inside, they found both Chinese and Vietnamese cuisine on the menu! The message here is that it is usually better to start a new business with a known product. Give your product a name that will be recognized by your intended
market!

Next, you should decide whether to wholesale or retail your products (or both). Where you live will have a lot to do with type marketing you use. In rural area, you might check with stores to carry your products, or it might be better to build a route and deliver fresh to several stores and/or individuals on a daily or weekly basis.

An alternative is to preserve your products (freeze, can, dry) so they can be accumulated and sent over longer distances. Shipping and advertising costs are higher in rural areas, but operating costs are lower. In more densely populated areas, you have more choices and more marketing opportunities in the immediate area. Sometimes you can simply advertise your products for pickup or special order and be in business.

When you wholesale, you are spared the extra effort (and worry) to find and collect form individuals and have less waste because you fill orders -- but you don't get as much for your products. The question is, can you make more profit by concentrating your efforts on production? If so, you will rely on your retailers to find, sell to and collect from the customers. Or, should you do all that yourself and pocket the extra markup?

The answer might well be influenced by your personality as well as other, more practical considerations like how much time you have and the size of your market. An easy way to handle your price list is to print retail prices only and simply inform the client of his discount. This way, the client and store clerks can refer to a ready-made price list -- it is easy for your retailers to sell your products. It is also a good idea to leave a margin between your name and the prices -- so the retailer can fold or cut it off and post it for his customers.

For some products, it would be wise to have stands or display cartons made to help assure your products will be displayed tastefully and to make it easy for the retailer to show and sell your products at their best. These could be cardboard or Masonite, and you can have your name or brand put on them to prevent them being used for other products. You can even lend them to the accounts with an understanding as to their use.

As your wholesale business grows, you should consider advertising now and then -- it will help retail sales, which in turn, helps wholesale sales. Although some of these may sound like little things -- making your products easy to display, price and sell is the way to make BIG THINGS happen!

Retailing definitely requires advertising. Since you do not have a store, where many people can see your products each day, you need some way to get out the word and keep your products before the public.

Word of mouth is great (highest quality), but painfully slow in
the beginning. Think about an ad in the local paper, a pair of magnetic signs on
your car (a cake logo, your name and phone number), renting a display window, notices on community bulletin boards, even announcements on the local radio or cable station. Arrange to have some of your products given away as prizes at community affairs or auctioned at fund raisers, anything that will help make people aware of your products.

A third option is to "wholesale" to the public. This is simply taking orders for subsequent pick-up. You can set minimum orders for small items (a dozen tamales) and give discounts for large( or family size) orders. This option does not necessarily require delivery and there is very little waste, Since you know ahead of time how much will sell. You will either make a little more profit this way, or you can lower your retail rates about 20%.

Whichever option you use, plan your activities carefully to take fullest advantage of your capabilities. For example, if you are filling an order for 6 dozen cookies, always make the maximum amount you can at one time.

If you can bake up 15 dozen cookies at one time and you have a way to keep
the overages fresh, NEVER bake fewer than 15 dozen UNLESS YOU CAN USE THE VACANT PART OF THE OVEN for something else.

The same holds true for the batter -- if your mixer will make dough for 15 dozen cookies, make as much as you can and store any excess. This will save you time, your equipment and your sanity! Whenever you produce a less than your capacity, your production costs per item go UP; your profits go DOWN. it is also good business to select products and ingredients that do not spoil easily -- things that can be frozen, canned or dried.

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