how does my mom get into the food industry?

[xbleedblackx89]

a little about us, we live in southern california, my mom makes really the best food and snacks some persian. everyone of all races loves them, her chinese food, and snacks and all of her food is healthy and good for you. whenever we go to costco we see meals like lean cuisine that aren't tasty or good for you and sell or other things like a trail mix nuts package for so much money, how can she get into this business. like make foods and sell them to stores or package them.
thanks.

[ripsaw]

Hi...

The food business is a varied business and there are different areas of generating sales / income.

Generallyl, every city / county / state has an agency that is tasked with over seeing the operations of anyone involved with selling food to consumers.

The reason for this, is that people can become ill if eating food that is not stored properly or prepared using accepted practice.

There are regular inspections of places that prepare and package food for resale by the various agencies depending on what area a business is operating.

Generally, it is an involved process to prepare food for processing and packaging for resale to stores.

The kitchen or preparation steps each involving separate aspects of processing the final product are all regulated in terms of the kind of equipment that is approved for use, right down to the kind of tale top is allowable.

Generally, a start-up for food preparation for a person who is lite on experience could be considered very difficult.

I don't mean to discourage anyone, but from the information you gave in your post, it appeared that your mother may not possess the level of experience to make the step to start up in the first effortl.

It might be more practical to go to work in a food processing facility that is processing and packaging food for resale in food / grocery stores to obtain a level of experience to have a better idea of the steps involved.

Beyond the process steps working with the actual food preparation and the packaging, all of which is highly regulated, there are issues such as labling requirements, all the way from nutiritional contant, to ingrediennts used in the final product, and weights and measure requirements.

Truly, it is a complex business. If you have been following the news there is a firm back east that has been in business for decades called Tops...they processed hamburger into patties and distributed in supermarkets in a wide area.

The ongoing testing of finished product revealed some bad batches, and the recall forced the company to go out of business.

Unless on is going into a "franchise" type business where the plan is written into an Operation Manual, and there is training involved the best way to prepare for going into any business for yourself, is to work in the kind of a business you want to go into first, and gain the experience.

With experience you still take much risk, but at least you are prepared for the situation.

Keep learning and learning; there is no substitute for learning....no mater the subject.

[deep_impression777]

It seems that both of you view this in the direction of the packaged food business. However, for starters and people with noe experience, why dont you start small, have a local made to ordewr home business that can cater to small gatherings or small comfortable dinner parties?

This is a small but sure step and there is nothing that blocks you from rising up.