Dive Brief:
- Food entrepreneurs shared insights into how to survive in the fast-paced and hypercompetitive food industry environment during a panel at the Northside Festival in Brooklyn, NY, last week.
- White Moustache Yogurt founder Homa Dashtaki made the decision to cap production, even as demand increases, until she finds a market to sell the whey byproduct that results from her yogurt production. "Hold the integrity of your product above anything else," she said. "If you can produce one cookie a week, make sure it’s the best damn cookie."
- Ripple Foods co-founder and co-CEO Adam Lowry offered two key points of advice: "Jump in," because failure in this country is not a black mark; and success doesn't mean the hard work is over: "Even when you have successes, you still want to try to fix the things that need improvement. There’s never a point where you dust your hands off and say you’re done."
Dive Insight:
Lowry's remark about embracing the potential for failure echoed recent sentiments from international entrepreneur Cedric Bru, CEO of Taulia. Bru commended the U.S. startup atmosphere for not denying or stigmatizing failure, which he said is an attitude held more often in European ventures.
Being successful involves open communication about failures which leads to innovation and informed course changes, whether that be in product development, marketing, leadership, production, or the supply chain. That advice applies to startups but even more so to legacy food and beverage manufacturers that may be slower to adapt to changes in trends and perceptions.
Dashtaki's point about the importance of a product's integrity also resonates for manufacturers of all sizes. When manufacturers cut corners and use lower-quality and lower-cost ingredients, they risk sacrificing their brand's reputation for a margin boost.
But as consumers become more conscious about labels and what's going into foods, manufacturers weigh ingredient sourcing and processing decisions more heavily when it comes time to reformulate and develop new products.
That also aligns with Lowry's other point about the need for constant improvement. No longer can major food and beverage manufacturers feel confident that they will ride their decades of success into the future. Startups are stealing more market share each year. Manufacturers that realize brands require continuous improvement — or support through acquisitive growth — will be more successful.