Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/523050
Specialty Food Association's pavilion, not on your own. Foreign trade shows are often held 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. for four or five days in a row. It helps to have support staff there to cover for you so that you're not personally trying to staff a booth for all that time. Also keep in mind that international shows, demos, and trips take a lot of time out of your schedule. I'm fortunate to have two cousins in our business, both of whom have exhibited at shows in London for us. startup spotlight cost-effective booth and did our best to share the Chuao experience with everyone we can. Once we had those relationships in play, we worked on creative, cost-efficient ways to reach the end consumer, through social media, press, and partnerships with like-minded brands. With an innovative, culinary-focused brand like yours, brand partnerships might help you increase your exposure. You can choose to participate in culinary events and demo at times you know will be high-traffic, like store openings or holiday weekends. We have had many requests for our product in the U.K. Are there any considerations when sell- ing a product overseas? D.R.: I can assure you that there are indeed considerations. I visited the London area five times over a 10-year period before we finally established a solid distributor. You will probably spend a signifi- cantly disproportionate amount of time and money before you start to see any return on international sales. Although you may initially be able to hand-apply "stickers" with country-specific labeling, we prefer to create professional packaging for each international market as soon as sales justify this. It's also quite possible that you'll need to create recipe cards, fliers, and so on to help explain to the interna- tional consumer what to do with your product. Keep in mind that international customers often require you to provide ingredient breakdowns that are essentially your recipe. They are not trying to be sneaky; it's just a very standard aspect of their evaluation process. You're often allowed to round the most sen- sitive ingredients to "<1%." In the U.K., if you call an item "raspberry sauce," for example, you may have to add the percentage of raspberry in the product to the ingredient statement. Although this makes sense in the example, you may find situations where your product name is actually a small percentage of the total product due to the nature of hot chile peppers. Lastly, we have found that it will save serious time and money if you a) price your products FOB [free on board] at a U.S. port city, i.e., don't get involved with trying to arrange international freight yourself, and b) exhibit at international trade shows as part of the Denise Purcell and Susan Segrest are editor and contributing editor, respectively, of Specialty Food Magazine. @ Startup companies can find resources such as "How to Get Started in the Specialty Food Business" and "The Basics: The Business of Specialty Food" in the Knowledge Center on specialtyfood.com. 140 ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE specialtyfood.com "You will probably spend a signifcantly disproportionate amount of time and money before you start to see any return on international sales." Founder Tessa Lowe