How to Start a Baby Food Business
Baby food business can be said to be a recession proof business idea. Considering the many stories- and rumors- concerning the amount of inorganic substances and preservatives in baby food, more people have taken it upon themselves to produce purely organic and nutritious baby food; they are making tons of money already. If you want to be a part of the baby food industry which will be worth over $76 billion in 2021, this article will explain the basic steps you’ll need to take to start a baby food business of your own.
There’s no better time than now to start making baby food. If you know how to make them, that’s awesome, but if you don’t know how, you can hire experts who know the business and you’ll be making money anyway. From the merits to the important steps to starting the business, you’ll find all you need to know here.
Why is starting a baby food business a good idea?
You can start the business from home
This is where starting such a business begins to feel like the best idea you ever came up with. It helps people, especially mothers, spend more time at home. Since this business idea comes to nursing mothers and mothers of toddlers more than anyone else, many- if not most- independent baby food makers are moms who have little ones to take care of at home and being able to start their business from home gives them more time to be with their little darlings while they make ends meet.
It also gives you the option of working part-time; since starting a business of this magnitude is not a walk in the park, one could decide to do it part-time while they keep doing whatever job they had been doing and still make profit. This way, you determine what time you start working on the baby food, you decide when it’s comfortable for you to get your clients’ orders ready. As you devote more time to the business, you will learn to put your customers first albeit with a degree of comfort and control.
Mothers are becoming more receptive to your kind
Even though big multinational baby food producing companies have been around forever, the fact that in recent times mothers have started finding alternative baby food products is another perk of going into a baby food business. These days, mothers and most people believe that these big baby food producing companies don’t use organic ingredients to make their baby foods and many have complained that their babies are becoming allergic to these foods. This has made many mothers prefer the products of newbies in this industry because almost every baby food business starter makes baby food with strictly organic ingredients. Another reason why mothers are more receptive to starters is that many of them have babies and they feed their babies the same food they sell which makes them feel like they are on the same page.
No need for a degree before you start
Making quality baby food for sale can certainly use some expert input but if you don’t have a college degree in any food science or food production field you can still go ahead. Of course it would do you a lot of good if you had a degree in any food production, or specifically baby food production field, because it would certainly give you an edge over other smaller competitors and possibly improve the quality and overall taste of the baby food you make. However, the quality is the most important thing along with how safe and in line with food regulatory and health services rules the baby formula is.
You could teach how to make baby food for extra cash
Baby food makers get called to give seminars and workshops every time on how to preserve baby formula, how to buy the best ones, and ultimately how to make homemade baby food. As a baby food maker and distributor, you will always have an opportunity to share your knowledge with other eager mothers and potential baby food business owners for cash. In cases where you don’t get calls to go lecture people on how to make baby formulas, you could work something out yourself with the help of a few friends and experts in the business and make profit. These days almost anyone can be an author, and you can take advantage of that to make a baby food cook book. All you’ll have to do is hire great publishers, gather your thoughts and make an instructional book in print and in digital forms.
Not only babies eat baby food
Wait a minute… we’re talking about baby food, right? So, who else besides babies could possibly want to eat baby food? Good question; yes, baby food is meant for babies and yes, in some cases older people eat more baby food than solid adult food. This is not a very common case actually, it mainly happens when really old people find it difficult to eat solid food (especially the sickly ones or the ones who have lost most of their teeth), that makes solid food ruled out of their diet and with that, some care givers opt for baby food that are nutritious enough to provide older people with the basic nutrients they need. Whether or not baby food is also consumed by older people shouldn’t be a worry rather it should make you happy to know that you have more consumers of your products.
Read Also: How to Start a Mini Supermarket or Grocery Store
The downside of starting a baby food business
Starting can be tough
There are different processes involved in taking this sort of business from ground level to the top of the ladder in the industry. Finding your feet is not the easiest of feats either. This industry is being dominated by a number of household names that have been in business for ages and these guys have raised the bar so high already. It will take a lot of advertising to get your products across to your target customer. Seeing that you cannot compete financially with these multinationals, you might prefer to do the greater part of the job yourself and this will slowly but surely take its toll on you. No matter how good your baby food is, it will take some convincing to get people to take a chance on you instead of going with the baby formula they’ve always been using. Another difficult thing is getting a license; it can be a hard and long process. Sometimes it could take months and if you’re not lucky, more than a year. Getting started will also cost money in terms of getting equipment for the production the baby food, paying the few hands and brains you hire along with other expenses.
Stronger competition
Making baby food for a living has one big problem- the competition is above your pay grade. The baby formula industry is already being dominated by some companies who have been in existence for decades and they are already household names. If you want to have an idea of how big these top companies are, thing about the baby food they fed you when you were a baby and what your next door neighbors are feeding their own kids. These top companies are your biggest competitors because they have the sort of customer-base that you can only dream of, they know everyone in the industry, they have all the marketing tools at their disposal because they have enough money to hire the best, and they could easily have the cheapest products in the market because they have the capacity to produce a lot at once. It is a brave thing to attempt to start a baby food business taking into account what you’re up against.
What to consider before starting
Produce or sell only
Starting a baby food business does not mean you must make the baby food. So, if you were thinking you can’t go into it because you’re a man or a woman that’s not catering to toddlers and babies, don’t. However, it would be a big advantage if you were both business owner and producer because that way, you’ll be saving money and it would be easier to build rapport with your customers. Knowing this should help you decide how you would like to operate your business or what way would suit you best. If you don’t have all the time in the world, you could decide to produce and sell to retailers, that way, retailers could even go pick up their goods at your place or you could decide to be a retailer if you don’t know how to make the baby food. And if you have all that it takes to produce, market, sell and hire experts then you should do it all.
The type of store
You can make your baby food available to customers either by getting a store where they can go buy the products or strictly online. In some cases, baby food producers or sellers provide both options. With an online store, you would be eliminating any extra cost like rent or lease but you would have to provide more payment options and a delivery service. While that is the opposite when it comes to having a shop where people can walk in, take a look at what they’re about to buy, ask questions and get convincing answers, the cost of getting a shop and the stress involved in finding a suitable location among others will make one have to think carefully as any choice will affect the business. Starting this business with every available option could be too much to handle and it could also burn a hole in your pocket. This is one good reason why you must consider these options before you choose any. Having to sit back and take factors like these into consideration is smart and at the end of the day you will find out that you will make a wise business decision based on what you have carefully considered thereby giving everyone who is going to be involved with your business, including investors, the notion that you know what you are doing.
Franchising
There comes a time when an aspiring business owner has to step up to reality and make some adjustments to their initial business plan for the good of the business even if it means giving up total control of how the business should be run. Franchising is one big compromise that the average hopeful entrepreneur would have to consider before starting a baby food business especially when they cannot get the business started on their own after some due diligence. If after you must have done your feasibility studies and made your budget, you find out that you need help somehow for your business to have a shot at getting to the next level, go into partnership with established baby food business that share the same interests and have similar values and vision as you and get a franchise. Running your business under someone else’s name comes with its perks and flipside but in the end you will make profit and gain vital experience and exposure in the business.
Steps to starting a baby food business
The steps you take in getting your baby food business from just an idea to a place where it can exist freely just like every other thriving business starts with making a well thought-through plan on what kind of business you will be running, what it would look like and how exactly it will be run. Other steps to starting a baby food business include the following:
Having a license to produce baby food
Since every single baby food on the shelf has got the food and health regulatory bodies’ approval, yours wouldn’t be any different. Whether your baby food will be on the top shelves in grocery stores or not, you must get a license by the authorized health bodies before you start. Each state or region has theirs, so go out there, meet with them and find out all that you will need to get a license to start your baby food business. The consequences of not doing this can be severe.
Also, you will need to get a permit to operate your business in whatever location you choose. Sometimes securing these permits and license can take months and that can be stressful. Your baby food production factory will be assessed the whole time to see if you are fit or you have a sanitary “kitchen” to make these foods for babies.
Secure legal protection
You don’t have to wait until you get into some kind of trouble before you secure your business and yourself legally. Sometimes things get out of hand in business and regardless of whether or not you meant well, you could lose the business. A legal aid will advise you on how to manage situations whereby there is a misunderstanding between you and a customer, a competitor, or even an employee. For example, you could be making the best baby food in the land but if you don’t sign a non-disclosure agreement with your employees, they could use your recipe to start their own business or even sell it to a competitor once they stop working with or for you. Your legal advisers will also help your business with taxes.
Source funds
You will need more money that you thought you would to run a successful baby food business. Starting might seem like what you’re doing is enough but if you’re serious about getting across to as many customers as possible, then you need money to launch your business. The equipment and ingredients will be purchased, the team of experts will be paid, and there will be other running costs and bills to pay. The cost of marketing and delivering these food items is what makes some people opt for a franchise or a partner to help relieve the financial burden. A loan is a good option but you might have to run the business for at least a year with promising records or get a guarantor to secure one for this sort of startup. A good business plan will also help convince investors to take a chance on your business in order for you to start.
Read Also: Funding Options for Small Businesses
Get the tools
When you’re making baby food for about five customers, you wouldn’t have to get more equipment to make baby food than the ones you already have but it’s a completely different story when you’re ready to start making these foods for dozens of customers en masse. The baby food processing equipment will increase and you will have to purchase the ones that will be able to process a large amount of raw food all at once and they can cost up to $100,000 each. To run a successful business, and also to meet standard requirement for operating a baby food factory, you will need to get different baby food processing machines for different types of raw materials. For example, if you use a rice processor for both corn and rice, a baby who’s allergic to corn might be affected. Then there is the storage unit which you will need to store both raw food and processed food. The conditions for storing both sets of foods will be different therefore there must be provision for conditions that would best preserve the foods. There will be occasional checks and inspections from designated health officials to make sure that the foods are properly preserved- these storage units must be kept clean and safe.
Form a team of experts
If there’s one thing most people who have been unsuccessful or had little success in this business regret, it is running the business alone. It sure looks like a small business because only your next door neighbors are the ones placing orders at the start and with that it’s okay to do it all by yourself but the truth is that you and your business will take a big hit once your clientele increases. Get people who are skilled baby formula makers to get some work off your hands, hire those who are good at marketing and have them sell your products, get people who know their way around town and make them your delivery personnel. At the end of the day, you will be glad that you did spend a few thousand dollars to get your business moving at a pace you never imagined.
Branding
Branding matters in this business as you have to maintain a “baby friendly” business. Right from your business’s name to whatever you decide to name your baby food products, they should all be a combination of baby and food. There are software like Namely, Novanym, and Shopify, with which you can put in these simple keywords and they’ll generate a good name for your business. Also, everything about your business should be about the wellbeing and cuteness of babies. Have baby friendly colors and images as your business’s signature.
Develop your unique formula
If you’re just going to make the same baby food or formula to look the same way others make theirs, taste the same way, and cost the same, then why should people buy yours? This is the moment to shine- a period when a star that is you can be born so seize this opportunity and make the sort of baby food that would beat others in the market. Do your research, find out what food has what vitamin and get other flavors to complement them so that as you prepare your ingredients and different grains for the baby food production, there would be a variety of unique and tasty flavors to choose from.
Provide great customer service
The few customers you have are the reason why you’re in business and your competition is always flirting with them on a daily basis- on TV, radio, the internet, and any other place you can think of. In order to keep them satisfied and then get more customers, you must make your service exceptional. Part of that is making great and organic baby food, making it easier for them to place orders and get their orders, reach you for any question or enquiry among others. Make them, especially your first customers, feel like a part of your “business family” and they’ll remain loyal. Be available when they call and respond to their messages- they’ll feel valued.