Sarah Masoni

I always tell my Incubator Village participants to plan for 300 samples per day, the samples should be small, and easy for you to prepare, in the case of popcorn, you could consider having a prepackaged item and 1/2 ounce would be plenty. You can also prepare your samples at your booth, with small paper cups, placed on a tray or the table, easy for a buyer to pick up and taste. If you have multiple flavors, think about just a couple of kernals per sample. You can always give someone more if they take a fancy to your product. I also reccommend that you have a couple of small gift bags with a sample set tucked away ready to hand out if you meet a buyer that is really interested and would like to take a snack with them. Congratulations on joining the Specialty Food Association, we are glad to have you as a member.

Hi Chris Thank you for asking this question during the share group on March 15th. Certificate of Analysis is typically required for ingredients going into the food that you are manufacturing. I believe that you can have a local food testing lab do routine microbiology testing for large orders, and perhaps include the cost of analysis to the buyer that is requesting the COA. Common tests may include: Standard Plate Count, Yeast & Mold, Coliform/E. Coli. Best to ask the buyer what information they are looking for before having your product tested for information they do not need. You should always have your ingredient specifications on hand from your ingredient vendors, just in case you need to evaluate an ingredient shipment that seems to be out of specification, you can of course reject ingredients that do not meet the specification that the supplier provided you with. If you would like additional help please feel free to reach out.

I recently helped a company word their price increase in the message line of their Quickbooks messaging that is sent out with their invoices. I took the price increase to the single serving so that it was more manageable, it ended up being a $0.02 increase per serving, and they didn't have a single push back. Everyone is experiencing price increases because of availability issues, freight issues, shortages of employees and employee demands for higher pay. I suggest full transparency, as you can bet the buyer doesn't want your brand and product line to go away. How you send the message will be the important piece.