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Damian's from marketing online. And in this video, I'm going to give you the 10 reasons why when you start a food business and you're looking to get a commercial kitchen and you want to create that package food product, don't get a commercial kitchen when you want to start a food business. And I'm going to explain what I mean right now. All right. So it is Damien and this is marketing food online and welcome to YouTube premier food entrepreneur channel for you guys, the food entrepreneurs who want to start a food business, get your food truck up and running creative, packaged food product, or even get your product online and on Amazon or any of those platforms and get your own website up and running. Now in the introduction. As I mentioned, if you're looking to start a packaged food business, that means taking a recipe and creating one of these, a packaged food product, and you want to get it into retail stores or even sell it online, get it into Amazon FBA, wherever your eventual goal is, do not get a commercial kitchen.
Now you're probably thinking to yourself, well, Damien, how can I take this a recipe and create one of these, but not use a commercial kitchen because you know that you can't do it from home. You are allowed to produce products under the cottage food laws in pretty much every state, but did you know that you could only distribute it to very limited sources? You can only distribute those fruit products that are made at home in a very limited area. Now, if you want to create something like this from a recipe, get it into stores. There are 10 things you really need to look at before you rent the commercial kitchen. Now really quick rundown, Damien, what is the commercial kitchen? That is a great question. A commercial kitchen is basically a commercially licensed facility that has different types of ovens, different types of tables, different types of equipment and everything else in between to allow you to rent the space for a certain period of time and produce a food product.
Or if you're a caterer, you can rent the space and create all of your food and then bring it to your event. A lot of food businesses start from home, but if you're looking to get a product into retail stores or sell it over state lines, guess what? You can't really do it from home. So I'm going to explain to you the 10 things that you need to do in order to utilize the commercial kitchen, to make your food products, but you shouldn't jump right in and just go down and rent the commercial kitchen and then start making your products. So let me explain why number one, packaging that is right. Again, I'm going to use this Annie snack cheddar mix blend, which I'm totally addicted to, by the way, this thing is crazy. Crazy good, but you need to create this, the package. Now you're probably thinking, well, Damien, I have a recipe.
I have a food. I can go out and start selling it. No, you can. Not just yet. And before you rent the space at a commercial kitchen, you need to get all of this in order to get it into retail stores and to make sense of renting a commercial kitchen. So number one, packaging, you need to determine what type of a food product are you making. Can it go in a box? Can it go in a plastic jar, a plastic bag? There's a lot of different types of packaging. You need to determine what exactly is your product. Now, obviously this is a trail mix. So this is perfect. Perfect to go inside of a box. But if you have a spaghetti sauce, it doesn't go in a box. I understand. So you need to figure out what is going to be the best way for you to package your food product.
Now that's number one. Number two, you need to get nutritional analysis done. That is this right here. Now you're probably thinking, well, Damian, they'd probably call it. It's a fortune. Actually it doesn't. If you check out the link down below in the description, there's a company that I've actually utilized dozens of times for many of our snacks and candies in our business. It's called recipe. recipes.com is a software that's set up there. You just plug in your recipe and it spits out an FDA compliant, nutritional analysis. How cool is that? So you can actually just hop in there and you can create literally this to go on your own packaging. That's number two, number three, the size of your package. Now you're probably thinking, what does that mean? Well, the package is one thing, but how much are you going to actually add in there?
That is this. So you need to create your net weight. How much of the product is in the box? So this is a nine ounce serving. This is a nine ounce box. And of course, as you do your nutritional analysis, that will break down how many servings are in the entire box total. So you need to figure out how do I determine that maybe you want to sell. If you have a trail mix, maybe you want to sell it a 16 ounce bag, maybe one pound bags. Maybe you want to just make it nine ounces like this Annie's box. Okay? So you need to determine the size of the actual packaging itself, not just the package, but then once you determine how you put it in there, how big is it now really quick tip. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. Those start trying to come up with some random, crazy size packages.
If you have an item, let's say a trail mix like this, go out to the markets, go out to Superstore, supermarkets, go out to stores and find out how big are the packages that are already out there. You could pretty much duplicate the size. There's no sense of going like five pounds, unless you're looking to get into a big store. One of the big box stores like a Costco or Sam's or something like that, like a wholesale club. You don't need to go much bigger than what's already on the market. So that'll give you an idea of how to create your size. If you have your own version. Number five, I'm sorry. Number four, the allergen statement, the FDA has nine specific allergens, nine allergens, normally that are found on packages and that they give as guidance for you to put on there and make sure that you have your Allergan.
This one, you can't probably see the letters, but it's right on the bottom. Make sure your packaging has an allergen statement. Now, what exactly does that mean? Do you mean I'm not familiar with that? Okay. If you are producing a product and there is a facility to potentially either commercial, commercial kitchen, where there have been peanuts, there've been tree nuts that there had been wheat soybeans, anything of that sort, there is a potential for what's known as cross-contamination. So you want to make sure that you state on your packaging, those allergens, that the FDA laid out for guidelines, that that will allow you to be sure to cover you. And that's going to be a safe bet that anybody who's allergic to tree nuts is going to know. Obviously tree nuts is in potentially in the facility where you're making it or in the product that you're making itself.
So you got your allergen statement next up, number five, your bar barcode. So you want to get into retail. You got to have one of those beautiful little black and white bars on the bottom. Where do I get those again? I've got you covered. Check it out, down below in the description. There's a link to a company you can buy barcode. Yes, you can actually buy them online. You do have to be careful where you buy them from the ones that I'm going to give you. The links down below are legitimate and you can definitely get yourself. Some, some of them actually sell them individually, or they could buy five, 10, 15. So if you have a bunch of different products, buy a bunch at once, it's going to save you a lot more money. But remember that has to be on your packaging. Why do you have to have a barcode thing?
Well, when you go to a grocery store, the reason why they actually have barcodes is this number one inventory purposes. They're going to bring these in. And they're going to say, they're going to buy a hundred boxes of this. The store needs to know specifically that they have a hundred of these boxes and as they scan it, it's going to come out of their inventory. So they know when to call you up and buy more of your product. So remember to put one of those fancy dancy guys on their barcodes, number six, number six, brand identity. Now this really cute box has a bunny. You can see the buddy Annie's has done atrium, Mendez effort and tremendous job. I love their bar, their packaging, their boxes, this appeals to both adults and kids because their brand has that little cute bunny, this whole look and feel of all of their boxes and the little story and funny thing.
This is all part of their brain brand. So when you see this, you recognize it instantly as Annie's snacks. It's a great concept. It is a fantastic line of products. They have a lot of products by the way, not just snacks. So you want to create a brand identity, keep that in mind. So before you rate that commercial kitchen, your packaging needs to have its brand identity on it. Okay. So number seven, what are the most important parts to renting? A commercial kitchen is number seven. All the clients that I have done consultations for my one hour consulting calls, they ask me about growing their business in a commercial kitchen. The first question, and the only question I asked, how many orders do you have for your product and how big is the orders? And most of time, and during the beginning stages, they say, well, Damien, I really don't have any purchase orders.
I then respond and say, don't get a commercial kitchen just yet. You need to make it useful. You need to make it financially feasible. If you're going to rent a space and it's going to cost, you potentially even a couple of hundred dollars or more for a few hours, you need to do it only when you have a purchase order. Because if you go out to a retail store and you start soliciting locally, or maybe to some, some buyer, who's going to be buying a bunch of units from you. That is when, and only when I recommend you use a commercial kitchen, let's just say, you go out and you produce 500 of these boxes, but you have nobody interested. Nobody knows about your product, but you just made 500 boxes and patting yourself on the back. But you just spent a few hundred dollars renting the space.
Guess what? These are going to sit around and collect dust until somebody buys them. So don't go to a commercial kitchen. My recommendation until you actually have yourself a purchase order or the guy down the street. Who's the manager at the local retail store. Grocery store says, Hey, Danny, I'm giving you like 500 of these fantastic. That's going to be X amount of dollars. Yay. Now you go down, go to a commercial kitchen, rent the space, and then guess what it makes sense because now you have put money out to a commercial kitchen and you now have a purchase order, which is making it make sense that you have to put out the money for the commercial kitchen. It's one of the same. If you get a purchase order, rent the kitchen. If you don't have anybody interested, don't do it just yet. Okay. So number eight, then you lock down the commercial kitchen.
Pretty much what I was just touching base on. Number eight is then you go and say, look, mr. Commercial kitchen, I need to rent it for three or four hours. I have an order for 500 of these fantastic treats that now makes sense. I'm going to pay you to rent this space, make, buy 500, turn it over to the local grocery store or retail or whoever it is it's buying. Now you've made total sense in renting the space. Okay? Number nine, this is really key and super important. You need to, before you do any purchase orders, figure out your distribution. Are you going to use a food distributor? Are you going to make the 500 units? And then the food distributor is going to send it out for you. Are you going to get in your little car and drive out and then start giving out all of the boxes that you've sold to the local retailers in the area?
So think about distribution because distribution is very key and super important and could be a huge waste of time. If you don't have anyone interested in your product, you're going to drive around town with a truck full of boxes of snacks makes no sense. Nine distribution. Number 10, this is the last one. And this is something also that's super important when it comes to figuring out, um, as far as how much time it takes for you to make the product. So you're going to rent the commercial kitchen, but do you know your turnaround times? That means the amount of time it takes for you to make 500 boxes to give to the local grocery guy down the street. So now if you don't know how long it takes for you to make it, then that is something you need to sit down and truly think about because your turnaround times are going to be very consistent.
They need to be, if you're going to stay in business. So you make 500 of these, you give it to the store down the street, they sell through it. They say, look, I'm calling up. I'm totally out. I need some as soon as possible. And you're on the phone saying, well, I'm not really sure how long it really takes for me to make the product not a good idea. You need to understand your turnaround times before you go to the retail stores and start soliciting companies to buy your product. Because if it takes you longer than two weeks and you tell somebody two weeks, guess what? My grocery store is not going to buy the product from you again, because you have no idea what you're doing. So if it takes you a certain amount of time to produce 500 boxes, write it down, understand your turnaround times.
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Because when you give somebody a quote and say, look, I'd be more than happy to give you 500 boxes, mr. Grocery, but it takes me two and a half weeks to put it together. Then you call up the commercial kitchen, rent out your space, produce your product, and you're good to go. So if you want to start your new business and you want it to be extremely profitable and successful, don't rent out a commercial kitchen just yet. Make sure you kind of go through those 10 things. I was mentioning finalize those. And when it makes sense, then jump on the commercial kitchen, get yourself scheduled for your space and your time, and then make use of it until then don't do it. If the video is helpful as always pleased to give me a big thumbs up. And if you like snacks, by the way, I'm an item, not selling this, but I'm just selling this thing is crazy.
Good. Get yourself some of that too. So I'll see you guys on the next video and if you liked it, of course, there's always give me a thumbs up. If you've got questions, let me know down below, and I'll see you guys on our next video. Thanks for watching marketing food online. And if you are looking to create your own food truck, start a home-based food business. Under the cottage food law franchise, a food operation start a packaged food business, private label, your own food product, sell on Amazon. Get your own online store or sell food online. Remember to subscribe and check out these videos for more resources, take care.
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