Breaking Into the Food Biz
Tempted to start your own food business? Getting launched and staying afloat are tall orders, but help is at hand, thanks to the Food Craft Institute, Food Funded, and Bay Bucks.
Jenny Eu learned how to scale up her Three Trees Nutmilk business through coaching at Oakland’s Food Craft Institute. Photo courtesy of Three Trees Nutmilk.
In This Newsletter:
● Food Funded Hosts Entrepreneurs and Investors – March 26
● A Food Craft Institute Success Story: Three Trees Nutmilk
● Let’s Go Farm Joins the Bay Bucks Barter Exchange
● Book Review: Good Food, Great Business
● Recipes: Carrot Cake and Bourbon Chai Spice featuring Three Trees Nutmilk
The Nuts & Bolts of Food Funding
Food Funded: Entrepreneurship & Investor Fair
March 26
The Presidio, San Francisco
Entrepreneurs and investors come together for a day of workshops and presentations to catalyze the funding flow for new ventures. If you’re seeking funding for your food business, apply by Feb 20. Workshops cover financing, crowdfunding, distribution, risks, building buzz, and more. Info and application: here
Calling All Food Crafters!
Oakland’s Food Craft Institute (FCI) serves up hands-on kitchen skills plus classroom know-how for food entrepreneurs. Their courses in traditional food-making techniques, combined with savvy business instruction, provide a launching pad for artisan food crafters. Here’s the story of FCI grad Jenny Eu, who founded Three Trees Nutmilk. Eu also shares two recipes below.
Almondmilk flavors range from original and vanilla to matcha green tea and raw cacao.
Photo courtesy of Three Trees Nutmilk.
Farmer Joey Smith offers his CSA box through Bay Bucks and hopes to receive bookkeeping and budgeting help from other exchange members. Photo courtesy of Bay Bucks
Bay Bucks Teams Up With Let’s Go Farm
Bay Bucks is a thriving barter exchange for Bay Area businesses. The service is growing, and it now has a CSA box on offer. Let’s Go Farm in Santa Rosa recently joined the Bay Bucks exchange, which lets business owners offer up their extra inventory or skills and benefit from someone else’s. “We help businesses become more resilient by reducing their need for cash,” says co-founder Chong Kee Tan. Members, who range from farmers and food crafters to dentists and accountants, don’t trade directly with one another—they give to and take from the exchange.
Although Bay Bucks already boasts coffee, tea, chocolate, bread, and meat among its offerings, the CSA box is the first available through the exchange. Starting in early June, the farm’s founder Joey Smith is offering a 26-week box filled with organic veggies plus recipes. As a member of Bay Bucks, Smith hopes to tap other members for help with bookkeeping, budgeting, tax prep, and produce harvesting.
Bay Bucks welcomes new businesses. Read more about their exchange in our Fall Harvest 2014 issue, and read Tan’s interview with farmer Joey Smith here
Good Food, Great Business:
How to Take Your Artisan Food Idea from
Concept to Marketplace
by Susie Wyshak
(Chronicle Books, 2014)
Read the Review by Kristina Sepetys
Recipes Featuring Three Trees Nutmilk
Three Trees founder Jenny Eu offers two recipes using different varieties of her crowd-pleasing almondmilk.
