Local Foods Shifting Paradigm

Local Foods Shifting Paradigm
As Fasta unleases Fasta Boxed, it is recognizing and embracing a shifting paradigm in the local foods movement.  It is moving from craft shows, farmers’ markets, co-ops and retail storefronts to a content marketing based sales funnel propped up by a solid group of core products and a cult like customer following.  Did you fill up your frequent purchase card?

Taxes & Inflation

Inflation is a reality of life, the same as death and taxes!!  High gas prices have  had and continue to have an adverse effect on small and large businesses alike.  Large businesses are better positioned to “weather the storm”, passing on the expensive costs of gas to customers.  On the other side, small business owners have to reduce labor and other costs to be more efficient and hope they can weather the never ending storm of uncontrollable costs.  Health insurance, gas, international code standards, ADA, tax code, high rents and a marriott of other uncontrollable issues put small businesses at an extreme disadvantage.

The Hipsters Live And Let Live

The shift starts with the people, the experiences they have and want! The “gig” economy is a reality to embrace, digital nomads in the food area of sorts. The new retail front is that of Amazon Prime, Blue Apron, Etsy, web stores and food trucks! This arena has its benefits, smaller or no storefronts, sales 24 hours, less labor, streamline distribution via Fedex or UPS.  All simply made with a “stack” of a few of these stripe, square, weebly, squarespace, wordpress and or hundreds of other native intuitive apps.  Most of which work together seamlessly, most of the time.  The new paradigm replaces newspapers and magazines with Facebook, Twitter, Google ad words and a content marketing approach encompassing more bells and whistles than a Tesla.  

Farmers’ Markets Are Farmers’ Markets

Farmers’ markets are a great way for food startups and boutique farmers to get started, conduct customer and product development, but alone make for a hard living. Getting started is easy in most states if you have the determination and will power.  You can get a home food license or a small commercial space with a hand sink, prep sink, 3 bin sink and bathroom sink.  Don’t forget to make sure you are ADA compliant.  It’s the opportunity cost of long days spent at farmers’ markets that can be windfalls or busts because of rain, shine, peoples’ vacation schedule, or any other number of uncontrollable factors.  However, they are great for building your brand, gaining wholesale brand awareness and helping you decide if a bigger “leap” is for you.  In the long term, it's a grind working 28 Saturdays a year, rain or shine.  It takes several markets to even cover the most basic costs, no vacations this summer, as your only focus is on the markets.  Hire your first employee if you believe that's the easy solution, then you have payroll taxes, call offs and potential theft.  Ultimately, farmers’ markets are great for getting started and a sustained source of revenue but they are time and labor intensive and unscalable.  The best ones involve cities,  then you have to deal with traffic and a day long commitment.     

Volume Solves Problems

Wholesale is a critical factor for success in any modern food start up.   It can take shape in many forms for us, places like: Way Fruit Farm, The Barn at Lemont: Organic Gardening Center & Natural Market, Burkholder’s Market and dozens of regional restaurants.  While margins are significantly less, the frequency of orders makes up for the difference and contributes to overhead.  However, low inventory turnover, stringent buy back terms, coupled with lack of brand awareness, have sunk many start-ups as they get their movement going. Cold Calls, larger companies like Wegmans, Giant and Walmart are treacherous waters without someone championing your product internally.  It’s a lost cause, local washing is the new green washing.  My thoughts are to let wholesale grow organically like Peruvian lily coming back every year bigger and bigger till you have a patch that will yield flowers you can cut and sell.

The Facebook Effect

Reaching a critical email list mass is essential for success in this new digital arena of bricks and clicks or fail.  A failure to successfully harness the power of lists is a one way trip out of business.  How do you get a list? You have to start somewhere: a website, farmers’ markets or retail shop sign-ups are several places to start.  What you can do with this information is build rapport, inform, sell, inform.  In this new area of clicks, content is kind of a viral picture of a goat or pig doing something funny could be worth more the a billboard in Time Square. The issue at hand is time to consistently generate relevant interesting content, scheduling programs like Hoot Suite can help greatly.  One idea when you decide you want to go into business is to start taking pictures and finding articles so you have a good backlog of content to get you started. My research points towards a critical mass of 30k to 100k followers till you have a critical mass worth its salt, so please sign up for our email list and like us on Facebook.

Leading By Example: Fasta Boxed BOOM, POW, WOW!

Fasta Boxed is our solution to the clicks part of the bricks and clicks. A box shipped to you door with a selection of seasonal ravioli, pasta and sauce with a recipe if you desire that Blue Apron experience.  It’s a perfect gift and easier than driving to bricks (our physical locations).  After attending local economic forums put on by the Centre  county commissioners, it became more evident that the new local has expanded. Seeing companies like Rising Spring Meats and Happy Valley Meats succeeding in delivering eight to twelve cows a week to NYC and other metropolian areas is evidence of this expansion.  We decided to change are our paradigm.  State College and Harrisburg markets 1 to 1.5 million people, a one day fedex shipping radius of approximately 100 million people.  It only took eight years and a box with dry ice to take the leap.  A simple “stack” of weebly, square and shipstation and a great web designer, Juneberry Design, and we are in business.  As for content, this blog is a start...

The Hipsters Live And Let Live

The shift starts with the people, the experiences they have and want! The “gig” economy is a reality to embrace, digital nomads in the food area of sorts. The new retail front is that of Amazon Prime, Blue Apron, Etsy, web stores and food trucks! This arena has its benefits, smaller or no storefronts, sales 24 hours, less labor, streamline distribution via Fedex or UPS.  All simply made with a “stack” of a few of these stripe, square, weebly, squarespace, wordpress and or hundreds of other native intuitive apps.  Most of which work together seamlessly, most of the time.  The new paradigm replaces newspapers and magazines with Facebook, Twitter, Google ad words and a content marketing approach encompassing more bells and whistles than a Tesla.  

Farmers’ Markets Are Farmers’ Markets

Farmers’ markets are a great way for food startups and boutique farmers to get started, conduct customer and product development, but alone make for a hard living. Getting started is easy in most states if you have the determination and will power.  You can get a home food license or a small commercial space with a hand sink, prep sink, 3 bin sink and bathroom sink.  Don’t forget to make sure you are ADA compliant.  It’s the opportunity cost of long days spent at farmers’ markets that can be windfalls or busts because of rain, shine, peoples’ vacation schedule, or any other number of uncontrollable factors.  However, they are great for building your brand, gaining wholesale brand awareness and helping you decide if a bigger “leap” is for you.  In the long term, it's a grind working 28 Saturdays a year, rain or shine.  It takes several markets to even cover the most basic costs, no vacations this summer, as your only focus is on the markets.  Hire your first employee if you believe that's the easy solution, then you have payroll taxes, call offs and potential theft.  Ultimately, farmers’ markets are great for getting started and a sustained source of revenue but they are time and labor intensive and unscalable.  The best ones involve cities,  then you have to deal with traffic and a day long commitment.     

Volume Solves Problems

Wholesale is a critical factor for success in any modern food start up.   It can take shape in many forms for us, places like: Way Fruit Farm, The Barn at Lemont: Organic Gardening Center & Natural Market, Burkholder’s Market and dozens of regional restaurants.  While margins are significantly less, the frequency of orders makes up for the difference and contributes to overhead.  However, low inventory turnover, stringent buy back terms, coupled with lack of brand awareness, have sunk many start-ups as they get their movement going. Cold Calls, larger companies like Wegmans, Giant and Walmart are treacherous waters without someone championing your product internally.  It’s a lost cause, local washing is the new green washing.  My thoughts are to let wholesale grow organically like Peruvian lily coming back every year bigger and bigger till you have a patch that will yield flowers you can cut and sell.

The Facebook Effect

Reaching a critical email list mass is essential for success in this new digital arena of bricks and clicks or fail.  A failure to successfully harness the power of lists is a one way trip out of business.  How do you get a list? You have to start somewhere: a website, farmers’ markets or retail shop sign-ups are several places to start.  What you can do with this information is build rapport, inform, sell, inform.  In this new area of clicks, content is kind of a viral picture of a goat or pig doing something funny could be worth more the a billboard in Time Square. The issue at hand is time to consistently generate relevant interesting content, scheduling programs like Hoot Suite can help greatly.  One idea when you decide you want to go into business is to start taking pictures and finding articles so you have a good backlog of content to get you started. My research points towards a critical mass of 30k to 100k followers till you have a critical mass worth its salt, so please sign up for our email list and like us on Facebook.

Leading By Example: Fasta Boxed BOOM, POW, WOW.
​
Fasta Boxed is our solution to the clicks part of the bricks and clicks. A box shipped to you door with a selection of seasonal ravioli, pasta and sauce with a recipe if you desire that Blue Apron experience.  It’s a perfect gift and easier than driving to bricks (our physical locations).  After attending local economic forums put on by the Centre  county commissioners, it became more evident that the new local has expanded. Seeing companies like Rising Spring Meats and Happy Valley Meats succeeding in delivering eight to twelve cows a week to NYC and other metropolian areas is evidence of this expansion.  We decided to change are our paradigm.  State College and Harrisburg markets 1 to 1.5 million people, a one day fedex shipping radius of approximately 100 million people.  It only took eight years and a box with dry ice to take the leap.  A simple “stack” of weebly, square and shipstation and a great web designer, Juneberry Design, and we are in business.  As for content, this blog is a start...