As any delicious food dish needs a consistent recipe, your business success hinges on the relevance of your business plan. This educational webinar will guide food producers through the sections of their business plan, connect producers with local small business resources and overview industry licensing and permit regulations. 

Devan Costa-Cargill: Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Regional Director

Do your customers know how you can solve their problems? If you confuse, you’ll lose. Successful marketing clearly shows customers how your food products will help them survive and thrive. Melissa Hemken, a trained journalist and marketing consultant, will teach you how to use the Hero’s Journey story arc as the basis for all of your marketing an branding elements: elevator pitch, website, social media, product labeling, vendor booth layout, etc.

Melissa Hemken: Regional Food Business Center (RFBC) Co-Lead

This course is beneficial for employees working in all aspects of the food manufacturing and service industry.  This course focuses on controlling the 5 Most Common Risk Factors for foodborne illness.  The course will review the importance of proper temperature control, good personal hygiene, proper cleaning and sanitizing, food handling, storage, and information about common foodborne illnesses and how to prevent them.  Questions around state licensing requirements may also be asked during this session.

Stephanie Styvar & Ashley Stegeman: WY Department of AG Consumer Health Service

Jar or deli? What info and how detailed? And, then, the sale price? There’s so much to consider when selling your local food product: food safety, consumer preference, profitability and more. Melissa Hemken, a Wyoming lead of the NW Mountain Regional Food Business Center, will draw on her first-hand experience selling at farmers’ markets, Food Freedom stores, e-commerce and wholesale to walk you through best practices and considerations for how to package, label and price your local food products.

Melissa Hemken: RFBC Co-Lead

In this digital era, photography and your web presence are critical skills for every successful business. This course will focus on these two topics. We’ll start by learning how to improve your product photography through real life examples. No fancy equipment is required. Our focus will be on showing you techniques that can dramatically improve your images.
Websites can be daunting to tackle. Where do you even begin? This is the focus of the second part of this course. We’ll start by determining your goals for your web presence. We will examine the different options of web platforms that are available and discuss the pros and cons of several of the popular platforms. Once you’ve determined your goals and picked a platform, we’ll talk about the key steps in creating your site.

Brad Christensen: Freelance Photographer

This workshop will compare online sales channels for direct-to-consumer sales, as well as payment collection methods and sales tax reporting. Additionally, participants will learn major considerations for liability insurance and risk mitigation procedures.

Devan Costa-Cargill: SBDC Regional Director