Dried fruits are a very popular snack and a deliciously healthy addition to recipes. Dried fruits contain nearly all of the same nutrition benefits as fresh fruit, providing you with essential vitamins, minerals, fiber and phytonutrients. They also don’t spoil anywhere near as quickly as ripe fruit and store well, making them an ideal staple ingredient to keep in a pantry. Of course, dried fruits do have their nutritional downsides, including being higher in calories and sugar than ripe fruit due to the freeze drying process. So, what are the best healthy dried fruits out there if you want a delicious, dried and vibrant snack? In this article, we take a look at the 5 best healthy dried foods for snacks and recipes.

Apricots

Dried apricots are a fantastic choice if you’re looking for a low calorie snack or addition to a recipe. Dried apricots contain calcium, which is essential in strengthening bones and preventing nerve function, as well as magnesium, which helps provide relief from muscle spasms and cramps.

The Hindustan Times tells us more about why apricots are at the top of the list for healthy dried fruits:

“Apricots provide for 47% of your daily vitamin A needs in a single serving and are a good source of potassium, vitamin E and copper. Vitamin E, like all antioxidant vitamins (A and C), is vital in protecting the cells from damage caused by free radicals. This is especially important in summer when the sun is at its strongest. Dried apricots are good for the skin, eyes and the immune system.”

Black Mission Figs

Black mission figs are an excellent source of dietary fiber, making them a perfect way to get in your suggested daily intake. Dried fruits that are high in fiber can help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, as well as obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Dried Plums

While you may not have thought to consume plums in their dried form, both ripe and dried plums contain significant amounts of essential nutrients, including vitamin K1, boron, copper and potassium. Plus, despite their sweet taste, dried plums do not cause a large rise in blood glucose and insulin-making them an ideal snack (in moderation) for those with diabetes.

Lychees

Both fresh and dried lychees contain a significant amount of fiber, helping bulk stools and normalize bowel movements. The fiber found in dried lychees can also help lower cholesterol and control blood sugar in those with diabetes.

Fittday.com explains the additional benefits that dried lychees have to offer:

“These delicious fruits are often sold frozen or canned, but if you can find them dried they can be a great addition to your diet. One serving provides an amazing 244% of your daily needs for vitamin C! Additionally it has 3.2 grams of protein and is a good source of riboflavin.”

Goji Berries

Goji berries are filled with important nutrients and antioxidants like zeaxanthin, helping protect your retinas against damage and supporting healthy vision. Goji berries also provide immune system support, protect against cancer and improve depression, anxiety and sleep.

Bestania.com tells us more about this superior dried fruit:

“Considered a superfood, goji berries are perhaps the best dried-fruits. By their nature, goji berries have a somewhat rougher texture compared to raisins. Despite that, they are a perfect substitute for raisins in any recipe. Before using them, soak in water to make them soft as desired.”

Here at The Greater Goods, we offer consultation services for your business, from food production to distribution. If you’re looking for advice on how to get up and running, we offer a free consultation with our expert food industry consultants and food brokers. 

Do you have a good idea for a new food product? Have you often been told that you should sell your salad dressing, chocolate chip cookies or pasta sauce? If you are thinking of marketing your food product, there’s a lot more involved than simply being a good cook and having a good idea. A food business consultant can help you work through the process, from defining your market to seeing your product on the shelves of your local grocery store.

Steps for taking your food product to market quickly

1. Defining your concept and market

The first step to bringing your food concept to market is to define exactly what you want your product to be, who you want to sell it to, and where you want to sell it. For example, are you planning to sell cookies? If so, what type of cookies? Do you want them to be sold in grocery stores or coffee shops or both? What will make your cookies attractive to buyers?

3. Make sure that you can produce large quantities of your product

Producing a dozen jars of spaghetti sauce is a lot different from meeting orders for hundreds or thousands of jars. Before you begin marketing your product, make sure that you can quickly scale up your operation if/when you have the demand. Do you have the commercial kitchen space to process large orders? Will you be able to get the necessary supply of ingredients?

5. Design the packaging

Next, you’ll need packaging that draws the consumer’s eye and vividly portrays your branding. As a newcomer, you may not have ideal shelf placement, so your packaging needs to reach out and grab the consumer’s attention.

6. Create the labeling

Labeling is dictated, in part, by local and federal regulations. For example, you’ll need to list your major ingredients and nutrition information on the label as well as any possible allergy triggers (like nuts or soy).

7. Marketing your product with a food business consultant

Bringing your own food creation to market doesn’t have to be an impossible dream. With the help of a food business consultant, you can go from defining your idea to seeing your product on the grocery store shelves, quickly and profitable. For more information about how a food business consultant can help you realize your dream, contact The Greater Goods at (insert contact info). We have more than 20 years of experience in helping entrepreneurs like you bring their food products to market.

Chocolate is one of the most well loved treats out there and is an incredibly popular ingredient to use in recipes. This is why keeping it in the pantry as a baking staple is an absolute must. But while chocolate has a relatively long shelf life, it can spoil before you’ve even gotten a chance to use it. This is most often due to chocolate that has not been stored properly, especially if it’s been exposed to heat, leaving you in a pinch when you needed it most. In this article, we take a look at how to maximize the shelf life of your chocolate supply, so you can make sure it’s ready to go the next time a wave of inspiration hits.

How Best to Store Chocolate

It’s a common belief that you can extend the shelf life of chocolate if stored in the refrigerator. However, you should never store chocolate in the refrigerator if you can avoid it and should opt to stick to a specific temperature range if you want your chocolate to last.

The Spruce Eats tells us exactly how chocolate should be stored to increase its shelf life potential:

“Ideally, chocolate should be stored in a slightly cool, dry, dark place, preferably a consistent 60 to 70 F. It’s also best for chocolate to be stored somewhere with less than 50 percent humidity to avoid any risk of condensation, as water can cause chocolate to spoil. One lesser-known danger is strong odors, as chocolate can absorb the odor and therefore some of the flavors of other foods.”

Store Previously Opened Chocolate Carefully

There may be some cases in which you have no choice but to store your chocolate in the refrigerator – and a lack of air conditioning in hot weather is one of the top reasons. And unfortunately, when using a previously open package of chocolate, the risk of flavor contamination from your refrigerator runs even higher. 

Lindt Excellence explains how you should best use previously open packages or bars of chocolate if stored in the refrigerator:

“The fat content in chocolate causes it to take on other flavours (like foods in the refrigerator) if not sealed properly. It’s best to take out only the amounts you want to use and eat. If you do have to store it in the refrigerator, use a resealable plastic bag and then allow it to come to room temperature before using. Avoid freezing your chocolate.”

If You Need To Store it Longer

Say that you’ve purchased more chocolate than you feel like you’ll be able to use in the foreseeable future or you no longer plan on using it for what you had in mind. Chocolate can in fact be frozen if careful consideration is taken to ensure that it’s integrity is not compromised and can be stored for up to a year.

Lake Champion Chocolates tells us how you can extend the shelf life of your chocolate by freezing it under the right circumstances:

“For durations of six months to a year, the freezer can be your friend. Follow the instructions above for placing your chocolates in the refrigerator. Once a full 24 hours have gone by, move the container from the fridge to your freezer (this avoids temperature shock, and helps preserve texture). To remove from the freezer — just reverse the steps. Move from freezer to fridge, wait a full 24 hours, remove from the fridge, and let come to room temperature before you finally unwrap them. (Always eat your chocolate at room temperature, especially truffles!).”

Here at The Greater Goods, we offer consultation services for your business, from food production to distribution. If you’re looking for advice on how to get up and running, we offer a free consultation with our expert food industry consultants and food brokers.

When researching the healthiest and most delicious dried fruits out there, you may have been surprised to come across a variety of nuts included on these lists. Since when is a nut considered a dry fruit? Or have all of these tasty dry snacks been tricking us all along? While both nuts and dried fruits are easily transportable, provide useful nutrients for our health and are super easy to store and prepare, there are technical differences between the two. Let’s take a look at what sets these two similar snacks apart.

The Difference Between Dried Nuts and Fruits

To understand the difference between dried nuts and fruits, it’s important to understand what each truly is. The chewy dried fruit that we know and love is simply fruit that has been freeze dried, removing its water content (and leaving it high in sugars). Nuts are not dried out in this same fashion and are technically the “seeds” or the “kernels” of different plants that have similar nutritional characteristics to fruit. 

Healthline.com explains the intricacies in truly separating these two dried snacks apart:

“Botanically, nuts are classified as a fruit that has a single edible seed with a hard, inedible outer shell. They’re considered indehiscent, which means that their shell doesn’t open when ripe. However, a lot of foods that people consider nuts are really the seeds of drupes — fruits whose flesh surrounds a single shell with a seed inside. For example, almonds, cashews, Brazil nuts, walnuts, pecans, macadamia nuts, pistachios, pine nuts, and most other nuts are botanically the seeds of drupes. Meanwhile, true nuts include chestnuts, acorns, and hazelnuts. Interestingly, peanuts — one of the most popular nuts in the world — are technically a legume and thus botanically a vegetable. However, peanuts’ nutrient profile and characteristics are closer to that of other nuts. Nutritionally, most nuts’ nutrient composition resembles legumes rather than fruit due to their high protein content.”

Are Nuts or Dried Fruits Healthier?

Due to their complete loss of water content, dried fruits have a higher sugar concentration than their fresh counterparts. While still incredibly high in nutrients, it’s important to limit your dried fruit intake for this reason. However, this doesn’t automatically make nuts the healthier choice.

The Health Site explains how both dried snacks are beneficial to a healthy diet, as long as eaten in moderation:

“Though both have their own set of health benefits, you need to eat them in moderation. Nuts are high in calories so one needs to limit their intake. Besides proteins, vitamins, minerals and healthy fats, they also have saturated fats. So heart patients shouldn’t consume too much of them. Same goes for weight watchers because of their high calorific value. Salted, fried or honey or sugar coated nuts are a strict no-no. Eat them raw after soaking in water overnight.”

Tips On Buying Nuts and Dried Fruits 

When sourcing dried fruits and nuts, it’s important to remember that not all are sold equally. While some nuts have been artificially salted or sweetened, dried fruit is also often altered from its original state. 

NYSpiceShop.com tells us more on what you should look for when shopping for nuts and dried fruits:

“With both nuts and dried fruits, you should take a look at the components in the case of packaged nuts and dried fruits. You need to avoid nuts, which have been artificially salted, sweetened or dried. Also, you also need to avoid buying dried fruits which have sugar listed as a component. Dried fruit is naturally sweet, and synthetic sweeteners add calories without any additional nutrition. For fruits which are likely to be bitter once dried like cranberries, search for dried cranberries which have been sweetened with 100 percent natural fruit juice.”

Here at The Greater Goods, we offer consultation services for your business, from food production to distribution. If you’re looking for advice on how to get up and running, we offer a free consultation with our expert food industry consultants and food brokers. 

Dried fruit is one of the easiest and most popular ways to eat fruit and is especially popular with hikers due to its convenience. It’s also a fantastic ingredient to have in your kitchen for including in your food products and recipes. However, due to the nature of dried fruit, it can be incredibly difficult to tell when it’s gone bad. Dried fruit does still have a shelf life, which depends on a variety of factors including best by date, the original drying method and how the dried fruit has been stored. In this article, we take a look at how you can get the most out of your dried fruit. 

What’s Freeze Drying Fruit All About?

As you may know, “dried” fruit is actually freeze dried fruit. Which means that this crunchy snack was once indeed a soft, ripe fruit. But how on earth do you achieve this radical transformation and what are the benefits of freeze drying fruit? 

Luke LaBorde, associate professor of food science at Penn State tells Epicurious.com what freeze drying fruit is all about:

“In the freeze-drying process (called sublimation, if you want to get geeky), the water in the fruit converts directly to vapor, shrinking and concentrating the fruit. It’s a longer, costlier preservation method, which is why you’ll pay more for freeze-dried. There’s typically one ingredient listed: the fruit itself. “Because there’s no heating step involved and no disruption of the tissue, you get far better quality,” LaBorde says.”

How Do I Store Dried Food to Extend Its Shelf Life?

The shelf life of virtually any food can be extended if you store it properly, with dried fruit being no exception. Of course, just as all ripe fruit is not created with an equal shelf life, that goes for its freeze dried counterparts as well. However, there are simple ways that you can extend the shelf life of any dried fruit, including freezing for long term storage.

Eatbydate.com explains how you can extend the shelf life of various dried fruits:

“You can help dried fruit stay fresh longer by storing it in your refrigerator or in your pantry in a tightly closed container to keep out moisture and other contaminants. Some fruits, like prunes which are moister than many of the others, enjoy the moisture of the fridge and taste better cold. For a long-term option, you can also store your dried fruit in a freezer. Freezing is supposed to be an indefinite form of storage, but after varying amounts of time most foods start to break down or develop freezer burn. Properly dried fruit seems to be an exception – it really does freeze well for extended amounts of time if properly sealed with an airtight sealer. Some benefits of proper food storage include eating healthier, cutting food costs and helping the environment by avoiding waste.”

What is the Recommended Time in Storage?

Although the very nature of dried fruit seems like it would last forever, all dried fruit does have a shelf life. Of course, this shelf life ranges quite a bit depending on if the dried fruit has been properly stored. If stored at the correct temperature, the shelf life of your dried fruit can be extended by as much as 8 months. 

The National Centre For Home Food Preservation (NCHFP) tells us more on how you can extend the shelf life of your dried fruit:

“Recommended storage times for dried foods range from 4 months to 1 year. Because food quality is affected by heat, the storage temperature helps determine the length of storage; the higher the temperature, the shorter the storage time. Most dried fruits can be stored for 1 year at 60ºF, 6 months at 80ºF. Vegetables have about half the shelf-life of fruits. Dried foods kept in a good deep freezer can last almost indefinitely.”

Here at The Greater Goods, we offer consultation services for your business, from food production to distribution. If you’re looking for advice on how to get up and running, we offer a free consultation with our expert food industry consultants and food brokers. 

Big data in the food industry is being applied in a number of ways, revolutionizing how businesses run daily operations and streamlining complex processes across the board. If you’re looking for the right food product launch strategy, you might be surprised at just how much this technology can support your efforts. We’ll look at the five major changes we’re seeing and what they mean for everyone.

1. More Predictable Deliveries

When food can spoil in record time, food delivery is always going to be of the utmost importance. Even one miscalculated time can eat into profit margins or cause a major dent for the business’ reputation. Big data can be used to monitor traffic, climate, and construction. It takes into account the ramifications of a route change, using artificial intelligence to better estimate where food is and when it will arrive.

2. Customer Preference

How do customers in different locations feel about certain ingredients? What are their favorite flavors? We can see big data being used today to understand how customer sentiment factors into buying patterns. It helps the food industry tap into these preferences, make relevant changes, and craft better food product launch strategies. For instance, you might see a big brand ask its customers to weigh in on their next product, using hashtags to count the votes and decide what their release should be.

3. Marketing and PR

Brand loyalty and big data go hand-in-hand, and there are plenty of ways to use it to spark an interest in different kinds of foods. New technology has made it possible for brands to partner together in inventive ways, often for publicity stunts that get the conversation rolling about both companies. For instance, Uber collaborated with Iron Works BBQ specifically for South by Southwest. By participating in such a popular event, these brands were guaranteed to get positive publicity with on-time orders and truly delicious barbeque.

4. Mobile Apps

Mobile apps allow people to research a menu, make reservations, and order ahead for pickup. The best ones will track a person’s patterns and offer discounts/freebies based on what the individual likes. This is a great way to understand how people react to all of their experiences, not just the taste of the food. From selecting items to payment options, big data shares insights that would otherwise remain invisible.

5. Supply Chain

The more a business owner understands the supply chain, the better they can communicate with their customers. Brands today are trying to build trust with their authority, offering more than stock answers and driving to the heart of what people care about. Sustainable brands especially love big data because it allows them to prove their commitment to a much larger cause.

Food product launches can reinvigorate brands of every kind, but it can be difficult to stand out in such a crowded space. If you’re looking for more positive exposure, The Greater Goods has a team that can use big data to find a strategy that will work for you. Lean into our expertise and let us connect with your customers in new ways.

As a food business consultant, we have observed that one of the main struggles business owners in the food industry encounter is the high cost of packaging for food products. This gets even more challenging where the laws are extremely strict on the quality and type of food packaging materials that food companies are required to meet. Since such processed foods are meant for human consumption, the company has to ensure it uses high-quality packaging that not only ensures the safety of food for human consumption but also ensures that the food products remain in an edible state for the longest time possible.

As such, it is important to take your time to find the best food product packaging solutions that will ensure your food products remain safe for human use for a long time and still adhere to the local laws on packaging dynamics. Let’s see some of the main steps you can take to cut back on food products packaging costs.

Buy Packaging Products in Bulk

For most products on the market, buying in small quantities comes at a higher price point than when you buy the same products in large quantities. This is true of food product packaging materials.

When you are buying the packaging items from a packaging company that is not affiliated to you in any way, it is important to buy the materials in bulk, say, enough of them to last at least three months before your next order. This will help you cut back on the cost in two ways. One, when you buy in bulk, the company has already set its pricing relatively lower compared to lower quantities of the same product. Secondly, you spend less money transporting the products to your premises if the company does not offer delivery options for orders at the level of your purchase.

Betterpackages.com observes that buying packaging products in bulk helps you cut back on the cost of the products and shipping:

“If you are tasked with ensuring that your packaging and shipping operations run smoothly and without interruption, it is critical that you keep your team supplied with the materials they need to be productive. It’s also important to do what you can to control shipping-related costs. Buying shipping supplies in bulk can help you achieve both your operational and financial costs. If you wait until there is an urgent need to replenish your supplies, you are likely to make the smaller purchase that you are familiar with, and you will miss out on the benefits of buying in bulk.”

Ditch Customized Packaging

If you are on a strict and tight budget, you can reduce the cost of packaging when you forego customized packaging. Instead, do the packaging designs on your own or enlist the services of an affordable stand-alone packaging expert to help you come up with catchy stock packaging that will best depict your brand and still remain highly competitive on the market.

The Greater Goods recognizes and approves the need to forego customized packaging when you are short on finances:

“If you are on a tight budget, use stock packaging rather than customized packaging. Hire a professional graphic designer to design a label that speaks to your brand identity and makes your food packaging look as appealing as possible.”

Hire a Food Packaging Consultant

If you have a healthy budget in place and money is among the least of your worries, hiring a professional food packaging consultant will keep the cost of packaging materials at a lower price point. Firstly, they will offer advice on and help you land the best packaging deals within your region of operation or beyond. Secondly, they will update you on packaging trends so that you can go for newer packaging solutions that are often more cost-friendly than the older ones. If you don’t have an in-house team to fully manage the packaging process, you can outsource it in its entirety.

Entreprenuershipinabox.com notes that outsourcing is helpful in cutting down packaging costs:

“Outsourcing is a practice in which one business hires the services or products of another company to reduce its operational, production, and business costs. It is always best to outsource non-core business activities, such as supply-chain management, logistics, and packaging.”

If you would love to learn more on how to lower your food product packaging costs from a renowned food industry constant, reach out to us at The Greater Goods for a free consultation. 

The main metric for measuring the success of a business is gauging the amount and quality of sales it makes within a given time. As a food business consultant, the issue of sales comes up quite often in our consultations with clients in the food industry who would love to boost their sales volume. It boils down to several factors, three of which we will discuss in this piece today.

These are tips that will help you open up the business and position it to make more sales if you follow them diligently. For best results, we advise you to ensure your entire team, and not just the sales and marketing department, knows and appreciates the efforts you are putting in place to enhance your overall sales. Let’s find out what these factors are.

Lower Your Cost of Production

There are several creative ways to reduce the cost of producing your services or products that can help you lower the final price that the consumer has to pay. You do not have to lay down any of your workers to lower the cost. You can start by incorporating new methods of marketing your food products that offer employees extra perks when they hit a given sales volume within a given time. This will motivate them to work harder and smarter each day to hit their sales goal. They will be innovative enough to be able to make massive sales while still maintaining the offer of great value and service to your consumers. 

As a way to make more sales, lowering the cost of production helps you sell your products at a lower price point that attracts more customers. This is especially important in landing new ones from the group that might have been pushed away from your fold by the higher price point, and they are still interested in using your food products and services.

Produce More Handheld Food Products

In the modern world where people often eat on the go rather than by fully settling down for a lengthy meal, making more snack food is a sure way to boost your sales volume. If you can increase the amount of dried fruits, nuts, and chocolate that are more snack-friendly, you stand a chance to net in more customers who are always looking for easy to carry and highly palatable food products.

In a bid to save on time, modern-day consumers often go for the best products that will bury their hunger within the shortest time possible without compromising on food safety and their health.

Siteselection.com acknowledges that making the move to produce more snack food will endear you to more consumers.

“There is another trend that is quickly gaining speed – the quest to produce more handheld snack food. People don’t sit down to eat together anymore. They are eating on the run. More and more convenience type foods are becoming popular.”

Hire a Professional Food Industry Consultant

Food industry consultants not only have the capability to help you improve your normal business operations such as finding the best wholesale organic bulk food suppliers. They can also help you enhance your sales and marketing strategies with advice on areas where you need to improve or activities you need to strike off your sales plan altogether. They have the advantage of having more knowledge of the industry. 

Working together with your in-house team, the food business consultant can help you come up with robust sales and marketing plans spanning longer durations and whose results can be regularly measured not only through the sales volume metric but also using other aspects like the overall customer satisfaction. 
If you would love such an experience, we invite you to contact us for a free consultation to begin your journey to better sales and greater customer satisfaction.

According to a report in Barrons, eight out of 10 consumers report that they value sustainability, with about 70 percent of those polled stating that they would be willing to pay an average of 35 percent more for products that are environmentally friendly. And with any sort of increased demand for sustainable products is going to come an increased desire for sustainable packaging. Sustainable packaging is part of a grander sustainability strategy, and it can help engage and improve sales from eco-conscious consumers. It’s why working with a food packaging consultant can prove to be so beneficial as part of any strategy. Here’s a closer look at how sustainable packaging helps build brand transparency:

Sustainable Packaging Strategies to Build Brand Transparency

Consumers don’t just want to know where products come from, but many are increasingly inquiring about where packaging comes from as well. Hence, ensuring that packaging is made from sustainable materials or optimized in a way where less material is used can help appease eco-conscious shoppers. Here’s a look at some strategies to communicate the sustainability of your packaging:

• Include information on how to recycle it: While paper and cardboard are almost always able to be recycled (and easily recycled via curbside bins), many consumers aren’t aware that many of today’s plastic packaging can be recycled as well. However, flexible plastic cannot be placed into curbside bins just yet — there is usually an extra step or two involved. Include this information on the package so consumers can take action and know how to properly recycle it.
• Advertise it: Is your packaging derived from recycled materials or harvested from sustainably managed forests? Is your plastic packaging compostable or plant-based? Make sure you’re advertising this on the package itself to communicate this to customers.
• Promote initiatives: Many brands today have adopted long-term sustainability strategies and goals to reduce their carbon footprint and move toward a net-zero operation. Make sure that your customers are aware of these initiatives and put a QR code or website on the package where they can go to learn more about what your brand is doing to help protect the environment.

One of the nice things about packaging is that it can serve as a marketing tool and means of communicating a brand’s sustainability goals to consumers. This, of course, in addition to protecting and safeguarding whatever product is inside it.

How a Food Packaging Consultant Can Help

Need help getting started building brand transparency and communicating any sustainability goals? That’s where a food packaging consultant can help. From down-gauging packaging and using less overall material to optimizing packaging design and acquiring packaging materials from renewable resources — and communicating sustainability efforts in a clear, concise way — a food packaging consultant can help share your brand’s sustainability initiatives and increase consumer trust through transparency. Remember, product packaging is a great way to build a brand. Be sure you’re utilizing it to its fullest extent.

Most food processing businesses usually struggle to keep their food products contamination free. Given that processed foods are a delicate commodity that would easily put you into trouble with the law if they became unsafe for human consumption, you will want to ensure you keep up with the best trends in food preservation. You do not have to go through the rigorous processes if you are on a tight budget. Instead, you can opt to incorporate simple techniques along the food chain from sourcing raw food, transporting it, processing, packaging, and finally distributing it to reach your consumers. 

We will discuss three simple measures you can take to ensure your food products remain uncontaminated and fully safe for human consumption throughout the recommended shelf life period. 

Use Airtight and Watertight Packaging

Food products have a higher risk of going bad if you do not safely store them in suitable packaging or containers. You need to ensure the packaging material you use is both airtight and watertight if your food products are to remain uncontaminated. If it is allowed in your region, you should first go for plastic containers or bags before packing products in larger packages like cartons. This will help you keep moisture and air off your food products until the moment the consumer opens the package ready for immediate use. 

If plastics are a thing of the past in your area, you should consider other packaging options like glass and cans. Aluminum cans and glass bottles are good for packaging both dry and wet food products such as dried fruits and beverages. To further ensure the products remain safe, you can add a tamper-proof security seal over the top of the container so that consumers would know that the product has not been compromised before it finally lands in their hands. 

Reduce Transportation Distance

A lot of things can go wrong along the sourcing and supply chain if you are not careful enough. Your raw or processed food products could easily get contaminated the longer you have to transport them from the suppliers to your operating base and from here to the location of the final consumer. 

You should go for wholesale organic bulk food suppliers who are within your local area of operation to help reduce the distance over which food materials for processing have to be transported. While you may not be able to actually bridge the gap between your premises and the final consumer if you are serving a larger area, you can reduce the risk of in-transit contamination by using modern transportation technology like refrigerated delivery trucks. 

Thebalancesmb.com acknowledges that businesses and consumers should be encouraged to reduce the distance food travels before it is eaten.

“Most fresh fruits and vegetables travel an average of 1500 miles before reaching their final destination. Most people’s food is better traveled than they are.” 

As they observe, there are several benefits to reducing food travel distance. “The food tastes better and is healthier.” 

Furthermore, this is a suitable marketing tactic to leverage so you can woo more consumers to your business.

Source Only Fully Grown Farm Produce

It gets riskier for you as a food business if you source your food items from producers when it is yet to grow fully. Incomplete maturation in food means that it is of lower quality and will result in lower quality processed products. If you are to buy food items that have not reached the recommended maturity levels, you risk contaminating them and the final product along the food chain. 

Risks such as the accumulation of mold and aflatoxin in your products like cocoa butter, chocolate, nuts, and dried fruits are likely to occur if the farm produce was harvested unripe. These contaminants may also come up if you buy your raw items from a food broker who stores their products badly by exposing them to moisture at the store. 

If you want to eliminate the risks of contaminating your food products, broker, we are an experienced food industry consultant firm and we can help you find the best wholesale organic bulk food suppliers and food product packaging solutions. Be sure to contact us to book a free consultation. 

In most places all over the world, the cost of production of products and services remains one of the biggest expenses businesses incur every day. While this usually centers on the cost of labor and other resources like energy, today we will focus solely on the cost of acquiring the raw materials for the production of food items in a food company. As a food business consultant, we have realized that most food companies usually struggle with finding the best suppliers for organic items such as fruits, nuts, cocoa. We will also briefly consider one of the major ways of cutting back on the cost of food processing in relation to your proximity to your primary consumers.

Let’s do this!

Get Closer to Your Suppliers

While you may always want to base your headquarters in more developed areas rather than the rural or farming areas, getting closer to the suppliers of your raw food products will help you reduce the cost of delivery from the location of the suppliers to your premises. This means that the cost of production becomes lower in the long run. If you can’t find a suitable location to set up your headquarters near your suppliers, you can consider setting up small satellite premises such as collection centers where you can bulk up produce from your suppliers before finally transporting all of it at once.

Ed Burghard, a former marketing executive at Procter & Gamble notes that getting closer to your suppliers helps reduce overall expenditure, hence reduced production costs.

“Companies will be considering all aspects of production and distribution costs when selecting a place for their operation. The old adage of location, location, location applies. The closer you can be to the supply chain and your consumers, the lower your delivered costs.”

Grow Some of the Raw Food Yourself

If you can, growing some of the raw food on your own is an excellent way to reduce the cost of production. This would require you to have arable land where you can grow these plants to provide you with raw material for your food industry. It is not necessary or advisable that the food processing unit and farm be on the same piece of land, but if it comes to this and the local laws apply, you can definitely run with the idea. The key advantages include being able to grow your food more organically and managing to reduce the cost of bringing them up to the factory-ready level.

Get Closer to Your Consumers

It is advisable to get closer to your primary consumers as much as possible if you are to leverage lower delivery costs as well as the likelihood of attracting customers who support the buy-local movement. This approach by customers stems majorly from health and environmental concerns where they want the experience and feel of food safety with the assurance of what they can closely relate and associate with. This favors your business as you will make more sales and won’t have to deliver products over long distances as would be the case if your main consumers are far apart.

At The Greater Goods, we are always willing to help businesses in the food industry to maximize their profits while still providing great value and service to their customers. You are welcome to contact us for a free consultation. 

Food and beverage retailers and manufacturers have had to deal with some dramatic changes over the past year due to the pandemic. In some cases, years of projected sales growth occurred, instead, over a period of a couple of months. Many staples became hard to find as logistics chains struggled to adapt. Those in the food industry consultant niche have seen their clients dealing with new challenges and are helping them develop innovative ways to meet them. In many instances, consumer purchasing patterns have changed in ways that are likely here to stay. A few of the trends that will endure:

Longer Shopping Lists

Many people are working to reduce the amount of time they spend in enclosed buildings like grocery stores. One way they’re adjusting is by shopping for more products less often. Researchers at Deloitte have found that consumers are adding more items to their list each time they shop. Where many would previously have stopped into the store a few times a week for a few items, they are instead spacing out their trips and switching to weekly or biweekly trips.

Delivery and Curbside Becoming the Norm

Resources like Instacart and PC Express were already making grocery delivery a more enticing option for time-crunched shoppers. With the pandemic, demand has surged. Instacart has now provided deliveries to over 5.5 million people, served by an army that is soon to reach 750,000 shoppers.

While the trend was initially driven by lockdowns and fear of disease transmission, it has remained in place as consumers have come to appreciate the convenience of this option. Chains like Whole Foods have even begun to adapt to this evolution by adding “dark stores,” which serve as warehouses for delivery and curbside orders, and do not have retail shopping within the store.

How a Food Industry Consultant Can Help Navigate Changes

The pressures exerted by changing shopping patterns require a response that will allow food manufacturers and retailers to continue to thrive. Often, a new approach will be needed to accommodate new consumer tastes while keeping businesses profitable. Food industry consultants can work with these businesses to help find new sources for ingredients and materials when current distributors are unable to keep up with demand. They can help identify which new suppliers have the quality that customers have come to expect. They can ensure that new suppliers have the certifications that a company needs.

The food landscape has changed dramatically over the past year, and will only continue to evolve. By staying abreast of changes and using knowledge and resources to meet them, food retailers and manufacturers can continue to find success.