Don’t Miss Out! Food Edge Digital 2020

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Don’t Miss Out! Food Edge Digital 2020

Food Edge is Branchfood’s annual summit that fosters connection and collaboration between industry stakeholders across the food value chain. The Summit seeks to support industry networking, raise awareness about new innovations and products launching in market, and inspire us all to support a better future for food. Branchfood believes that together, we will lead the future of the industry, and we’re particularly excited to see New England based innovators take a leadership role in this change.

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Navigating the Food Industry with Kalahari Snacks

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Navigating the Food Industry with Kalahari Snacks

Tyler Noyes, Branchfood Mentor in Residence, is the Co-Founder of Kalahari Snacks, a packaged food brand that brings South African inspired biltong and crisps— air-dried beef snacks—to America.

To continue Branchfood’s support of the food & beverage community, we recently had the pleasure of hosting ‘Ask an Entrepreneur’ with Tyler, where he shared insights on his company’s launch, the R&D process, how to expand your distribution market, and more. Check out our upcoming events designed to help you achieve your goals, and continue reading for Q&A highlights.

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Branchfood's Food Trends to Watch

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Branchfood's Food Trends to Watch

Originally a Meetup group for those in the food community to connect and share resources, Branchfood has evolved into New England’s largest community of food entrepreneurs and innovators. Through our active network, industry expertise, and curated resources, we connect industry leaders with innovative entrepreneurs, supporting the collective effort to build a better, healthier, more environmentally friendly and equitable future for food.

As leaders in the food innovation space, the Branchfood team weighed in on one of the biggest and pertinent questions in the food industry: what is one food trend that you’re excited about?

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Launching Allergen-Friendly Consumer Products with Freed Foodies

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Launching Allergen-Friendly Consumer Products with Freed Foodies

Freed Foodies founder Daniel Brassloff was dissatisfied with gluten-free pizza and other baked good options on the market. After being diagnosed with tree-nut allergies in 2000 and Celiac in 2006, he has tried his best to support brands making great products for those who follow a gluten-free diet. After starting his gluten-free microwave-made mug cake business, MuggedCake, with a few of his peers at Babson College and spending a semester abroad in college studying Gastronomy at CETT university, he set out to experiment with flour blends and come up with a formulation he knew he could stand behind.

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Using Video to Elevate Food Brand Marketing and Awareness

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Using Video to Elevate Food Brand Marketing and Awareness

Driven by passion for innovation and humanity’s growth, Tom Dodge and the team at NewView.Media guides brands through pre-production, filming and video editing to craft creative content that engages, educates and encourages action. In 2019, the company produced 413 videos across 85 marketing, event, and fundraising campaigns! All of Tom and his team’s dedication and hard work has paid off — NewView.Media earned “Best Business Video Marketing Agency - Greater Boston” from Corporate Vision Magazine’s Media Innovator Awards.

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Balancing Family, Nutrition, and a Successful CPG Business with Little Pickins

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Balancing Family, Nutrition, and a Successful CPG Business with Little Pickins

Providing nutritious, delicious food for her family was always important to Branchfood member Jenn Bingham, but with a busy work schedule, it wasn’t always easy — she is a working mom, Physician Assistant, and certified natural foods chef after all! When Jenn couldn’t find a healthy frozen food option that her young daughter would love, she decided to take matters into her own hands. After meeting Co-Founder Kelly Wannier, the two launched Little Pickins, which offers nutritious, gummable, frozen finger food for ages 10 months plus.

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Bringing Mindfulness to the Local Food Movement with Fork on a Road

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Bringing Mindfulness to the Local Food Movement with Fork on a Road

Inspired by a lifetime of vegetarianism and the diversity of flavors sourced from around the world, Branchfood member Suman Shah set out to launch Fork on a Road. Suman founded this food-centric business on the belief that cooking is an opportunity to be present and connect with loved ones. She is using her 20+ years of experience in marketing, strategy and collaboration to grow Fork on a Road and provide vegan and vegetarian meal kits, specialty spices, recipes, cooking classes, and chronicles that nourish life.

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On the Perillas Menu: Dignity, Respect, and Bibimbap

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On the Perillas Menu: Dignity, Respect, and Bibimbap

This week, our Member Monday campaign highlights James Choi, founder of Perillas, a fast-casual Korean eatery specializing in bibimbap, a traditional Korean rice dish topped with vegetables and meat. Through a career in finance and consulting, James saw just how much leadership and culture affects the workplace. Attending Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary to learn about Workplace Leadership and Ethics, he started shaping Perillas’ culture and values rooted in the treatment of people with dignity and respect; a focus on people which ultimately creates more value than focusing primarily on profits; and sharing in the joy of delicious and healthy Korean food in a fast, convenient, and affordable way. Following the launch of Perillas catering and a temporary pop-up location, James is opening a permanent storefront in Bow Market this summer. Read on to learn about the inspiration behind the company, mission-driven businesses, and more.

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How Instituting a Proper S&OP Process Can Bring Clarity to your Cashflow

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How Instituting a Proper S&OP Process Can Bring Clarity to your Cashflow

Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) is a monthly business management process that integrates quantitative data from different parts of the business, with the goal of driving better decisions around production planning, purchase order management, sales strategy, and product development. Simply put, the S&OP process refers to the regular communication between sales and operations departments to ensure smart cash decisions are being made. The S&OP process is critical for the success of CPG brands. A broken or non-existent S&OP process can lead to problems such as spoilage deductions, forecasting mishaps, and negative distributor balances. In fact, the number one reason brands reach out to advisory firms like Rodeo CPG is because something unexpected has happened that could have been prevented with a proper S&OP process.

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Building Products that Customers Trust: Learn how Rootastes Launched One of Boston's Leading Catering Businesses

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Building Products that Customers Trust: Learn how Rootastes Launched One of Boston's Leading Catering Businesses

Member Monday continues this week with a spotlight on Mint Pattanan, founder and CEO of Rootastes. After moving from Thailand to Boston for graduate school, Mint founded Rootastes in 2016 with a mission to change the way office employees eat their lunch. Rootastes is designed for companies run by people who believe that taking good care of their team is smart business and the right thing to do. In addition to office lunch delivery, Rootastes recently launched their Fresh Baskets service. These weekly farm fresh baskets deliver a mix of fresh fruits, seasonal veggies and proteins plus local goodies. Rootastes is offering Branchfood followers 10% off their first Fresh Basket order — use code BF10 at checkout!

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What is the single most important process contributing to the success of a CPG brand? Rodeo CPG's Top Tips for Success

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What is the single most important process contributing to the success of a CPG brand? Rodeo CPG's Top Tips for Success

We’re thrilled to share our next installment of Member Monday featuring Kevin Mannering, Partner and Chief Operating Officer of Rodeo CPG. This week, Branchfood partnered with Rodeo CPG to host a webinar titled, “Where’s My Cash? How Instituting a Proper S&OP Process can Bring Clarity to your Cashflow”. If you missed it, head to our YouTube channel to watch the event recording and learn why optimizing Sales & Operations (S&OP) communication is the single most important process contributing to the success of a CPG brand.

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Delivering the Farmers Market to Your Front Door with Market 2day

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Delivering the Farmers Market to Your Front Door with Market 2day

Up next in our Member Monday campaign is Insa Elliott, co-founder of Market 2day. Insa’s background in technology and business strategy led her and her co-founder, Stephanie Marmer, to launch a solution for making local food more accessible to Greater Boston community. The Market 2day app seeks to support the local food community and bolster sustainability by giving farmers a direct-to-consumer (DTC) delivery platform and allowing consumers to shop small.

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Bountiful's Restaurant-Quality Meals from Home

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Bountiful's Restaurant-Quality Meals from Home

This week, Member Monday features Julian Cohen, Founder and CEO of Bountiful Kitchen. Bountiful is a community-driven dinner delivery service based in Somerville that works with local chefs, farms, and artisans to provide a fresh and seasonal rotating dinner menu featuring restaurant-quality dishes. Keep reading to learn about launching a business during a pandemic, partnering with local farms and chefs, and more. Don’t forget to check out Julian’s Instagram takeover on our Member Monday highlight!

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Tasting Global Flavors with Naturel Juicing

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Tasting Global Flavors with Naturel Juicing

Our third installment of Member Monday highlights Nagélore Jean-Caïdor, founder of Naturel Juicing. Naturel Juicing creates fresh, nutrient dense, 100% raw cold-pressed juices, with no additives, preservatives or chemicals. These juices have globally-inspired flavors and seek to support a healthy life. Keep reading to learn about the process behind creating health-forward juices, balancing a day job with founding a startup, and more. If you missed Nagélore’s Instagram takeover, head over to our Member Monday Highlight to check it out.

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Health + Flavor — The Perfect Recipe for FlavaNaturals Chocolate

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Health + Flavor — The Perfect Recipe for FlavaNaturals Chocolate

Member Monday continues with a spotlight on Alan Frost, Founder of FlavaNaturals. FlavaNaturals specializes in performance-fueling (and tasty!) dark chocolate and cocoa powder products delivering cocoa flavanol levels proven to enhance brain, cardio and metabolic function. Keep reading to learn more about Alan’s successful career and the driving force behind FlavaNaturals. And, if you missed the Instagram sorry, check out the Member Monday Highlight on our page.

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Discover Spritzal Cookie Company + Branchfood Member Monday

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Discover Spritzal Cookie Company + Branchfood Member Monday

At Branchfood we strive to support the efforts of our industry-leading members and highlight their great work in many ways. To that end, we launched Member Monday, a campaign that seeks to support members’ and their efforts in building industry transformative businesses. Tune in to check out our members taking over our Instagram and revealing what inspired their entrepreneurial pursuits, how they launched their products, and what is in store for their future.

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Branchfood x Off Their Plate Team Up to Provide F+B Products to COVID-19 Medical Workers

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Branchfood x Off Their Plate Team Up to Provide F+B Products to COVID-19 Medical Workers

Branchfood is thrilled to announce our partnership with Off Their Plate, a grassroots movement that was just stated in Boston and expanding nationally, to provide meals to frontline medical workers in partnership with leading restaurants. The organization is moving very fast as the pressure is quickly building on our hospitals.

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