Food Business Bootcamp Webinars

Are you a business owner or contemplating getting involved in a Food Business? With support from The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, the Local & Sustainable Food Systems Network of Food Secure Canada is hosting a Food Business Bootcamp. It is being delivered through a series of webinars and one in-person meeting. Full details of the curriculum and dates can be downloaded here. Past webinar recordings can be found below (scroll down).

Treating Human Resources like Human Beings & getting the job done

November 25th, 2014

Food businesses have a bad reputation for chewing up and spitting out their workers.  Community food organizations that have a social justice and food security mission need to make their people a number one priority.  Motivated, happy people are more productive, more collaborative and more creative. This workshop will cover the main motivations for people in workplaces, the importance of the social aspects at work, fair pay for good work, hiring (and firing) decisions, job descriptions that matter and performance appraisal. Participants are encouraged to bring your burning questions to the webinar. Join others from across Canada as we dive together into the finer points of discipline, the question of merit pay, and human motivation on the job.

The webinar features experienced co-operator and business operator, Russ Christianson of Rhythm Communications. The recording of the webinar can be viewed here. The powerpoint from Russ' presentation can be downloaded here.

About the Presenter: Russ has been working with communities, co-operative enterprises and businesses for three decades.  Over the course of this time, he has encouraged and supported the development of over 180 co-operatives, with a seventy percent success rate (for which he gives the founders credit).  

A common theme for all of Russ’ work is sustainability:  The collective creation and sharing of wealth within an ecological framework. As a volunteer in his own community of Campbellford, Russ was the founding President of the Aron Theatre Co-operative and the Campbellford Seymour Community Foundation. Russ graduated from Queen’s Commerce in 1981 and received a Masters of Industrial Relations from the University of Toronto in 1983.

Demystifying Food Safety

October 28th, 2014

It seems to be a regular on the nightly news – yet another food recall. Recalling possibly unsafe food is part of the public good provided by our government agencies. But ensuring it is safe in the first place lands squarely on the shoulders of the producer, whether of fresh or processed foods. A food recall can mean the end of a small or even medium-scale enterprise. If the costs associated with the recall mechanics and the loss of product income don’t put the business under, the negative publicity likely will.

So what does it take to produce safe food day after day? Food Technologist, Sylvia Caldwell, walked webinar attendees through the requirements for small and medium sized businesses. The workshop goal is to provide participants with information so that they can assess their own regulatory and food safety position and determine what they need for their food enterprise planning.

A recording of the webinar can be viewed here (please note that the sound quality is good after the first minute). The powerpoint from Sylvia's presentation can be downloaded here.

About the Presenter: Sylvia Caldwell is the food alchemist behind Foundtree Product Design, a food consulting firm that specializes in helping small-scale food businesses achieve more.  A graduate of the food science program of the University of Guelph, Sylvia received a NSERC Industrial Post-Graduate Scholarship to complete a Master’s Research project on pork quality, and has since accumulated over 15 years of food industry experience.  Her employment and projects include quality assurance & food safety management in the processed fruits and vegetables industry, research and development in animal welfare, animal feed, meat quality and sanitation, food analysis, sensory evaluation and horticulture, product development of raw and cooked meat products, salads, sauces, dressings, dips, fruits and vegetables, entrees, spice, herb and seasoning blends and beverages, and regulatory compliance for both the food and natural health product industries.  Sylvia resides in the Slocan Valley of BC where she is currently working on integration of honeybees with medicinal herb cultivation in a natural woodland.  Sylvia has also been a cheerleader and coach but her current focus is on advancing the position of agriculture and the food processing industry in the Kootenay region by enabling businesses to capture opportunities and grow.

Information technology: choosing the right systems for your food enterprise

September 24th, 2014

Running a food enterprise in the 21st century is a complicated business in which the information technology systems can either be an enormous help or merely muddy the water further and cost a lot of money. A deep understanding of your business and its technology needs is the first step in finding the right IT fit. This session provides a framework for food hubs and other business enterprises to assess their technology needs, to structure a search for technology solutions and to evaluate and select the right technology solutions for their needs. The webinar includes review technology providers which offer an array of solutions, but because food businesses have wide-ranging requirements, the session is not designed to recommend specific software systems or troubleshoot challenges that IT solutions may address. View the webinar recording here. Download Saloni's powerpoint.
 
The webinar is presented by Saloni Doshi of New Venture Advisors. Saloni works as an advisor to food hubs and food businesses across North America, and is herself a food business entrepreneur who has evaluated and used technology systems to support her enterprise. She recently completed a comprehensive assessment of technology requirements and software solutions for food hubs, and this framework emerged from that research.

About the Presenter: Saloni Doshi, Strategy Consultant at New Venture Advisors
Saloni has worked with NVA since 2011. She also recently was co-founder and co-CEO of Fresh Takes Kitchen, a for-profit social venture making healthy eating accessible to lower-income individual and family customers through a meal delivery service marketed and distributed through partnering community organizations such as schools, churches and recreation centers. She previously worked as a Strategy and Operations Consultant for Oliver Wyman where she drove product optimization, procurement and staffing strategies for Fortune 100 companies. Then, as Managing Director for Teach for America, Saloni developed cross-sector partnership-building strategies addressing the unique needs of under-resourced urban and rural communities. Saloni graduated Magna Cum Laude from Princeton University with a B.S. in Operations Research and Financial Engineering and holds an M.B.A. from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. She combines her keen interest in sustainable agriculture, local food systems and food access as principal investigator for NVA's studies and plans. She is based in Denver, Colorado.

Business Structures, with Julie Hamel of FDEM was held in English on Nov 13th and in French on Nov 15th. The english language recording of the webinar can be viewed here and the Powerpoint can be downloaded here. The french language recording can be found here and the powerpoint downloaded here.

The session on Business Structures helps participants understand the range of forms that enterprises can take and the legal, tax and financing implications. Julie covers the spectrum of enterprise forms: non-profit, for-profit, hybrid, public / private and social enterprise.

About the Presenter: Julie Hamel is a senior business advisor with over 20 years of experience. She began her career as an entrepreneur, before becoming a social economy business advisor in 2006. She successfully managed 3 Subway stores of her own through the 90’s, along with 2 stores owned by the franchisor.  She later spent 3 years as the general manager of a private golf club, before moving into a business advisory role. Julie’s range of expertise includes marketing, finance and business development. For the past seven years, her social pre-occupation has led her to invest most of her time and energy in the field of local economic development, including dozens of not-for-profit organisations. Julie earned her BA in economics, as well as her MBA, from the Western Business School at the University of Western Ontario, now known as the Richard Ivey School of Business.

FDEM, the Fonds de Développement Emploi-Montréal,  supports economic development in Montreal neighbourhoods through support to businesses rooted in their communities and committed to creating and maintaining employees. Their vision is to humanize the economy.

Business Modeling, held on Oct 30th, with Norm Tasevski of Purpose Capital covered using data to build your business case. Watch the recorded webinar by clicking here. Topics covered include:

• finding analogs and comparables (companies with similar characteristics) for operating data;
• how to estimate revenues and costs;
• how to estimate supply;
• how to establish physical capacity needs;
• building analytical models and simulations.

About the Presenter: Norm Tasevski is a co-founder and partner with Purpose Capital, and leads the firm’s business development efforts. Norm has spent his career working with and for impact-minded for-profit, non-profit and government organizations. Prior to Purpose Capital, Norm was a Social Entrepreneur-in-Residence with the Social Innovation Generation (SiG) program at MaRS, where he advised a portfolio of approximately 30 innovation-minded social organizations in topics ranging from business model refinement to investment readiness. As a management consultant with Aperio, Norm managed a portfolio of social enterprises, advising each from idea generation to initial market entry and capital acquisition.

Norm holds an MBA from the Schulich Business School, where he also teaches social entrepreneurship and impact investing at both the MBA and BBA levels. Norm also teaches social entrepreneurship to MEng students out of the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto, and frequently guest lectures in other schools such as the University of Waterloo, Ryerson University and Queen’s University. Norm currently serves as Chairman of the Board of the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario and as a partner with Social Venture Partners Toronto, an organization that focuses on non-profit capacity building and growing the community of philanthropists in Toronto.

Section one of the Business Boot Camp, The Business Landscape, was delivered by webinar on Oct 9th & 11th in two parts. The recordings of the webinars can be accessed below. 

Watch the recording from Part 1, held on October 9. Watch the recording from Part 2, held on October 11.

View Kathy's powerpoint here.  Kathy Nyquist provided some useful resource materials for webinar participants: the Business Landscape worksheet can be downloaded here and market research resources can be downloaded here.

Download Joe's New Business Question List.

View the complete powerpoint for the Business Landscape section.

The focus on the Business Landscape covered:

• Connecting your mission and vision to business opportunities/gaps
• Elements of a business model
• Analyzing the macro environment and your local market
• Understanding why similar businesses have succeeded (analogs) or failed (antilogs)
• Identifying current and future competitors and your comparative advantages/disadvantage
• Identifying your unique position in the market – differentiation
• How this informs your brand

About the Presenters:

Kathy Nyquist founded New Venture Advisors in 2009. Her work has led to the launch of four food hub businesses including Blue Ridge Produce, a keenly-watched model for the rebuilding of local food systems, where she serves on the advisory board. Kathy has over 20 years of marketing and strategic leadership experience with Fortune 100 companies. She served on the integrated marketing leadership team for a $5 billion product portfolio at Kraft Foods. Kathy previously managed accounts at Leo Burnett and Young & Rubicam, then the nation’s largest advertising agencies, developing national campaigns for Coca-Cola, Keebler, Frito-Lay and Miller Brewing. She also completed the financial modeling and valuation training used by Wall Street firms.

Joe Karthein is currently the Operations Manager at the Kootenay Co-op in Nelson, BC. Prior to the Co-op, Joe worked for Community Futures in Nelson, assisting start up businesses, primarily in the food sector, with their planning, product development and financials. Before returning to Nelson in 2008, he was based in Vancouver, working as the Western Sales Manager for Béland Organic Foods.  He is also the creator of a natural foods manufacturing business (certified organic) in 1999. Joe has spent 8 years visiting grocery stores daily (conventional and natural) throughout BC and Alberta liaising with their key staff.  He has written three comprehensive business plans and critiqued in detail over 50 business plans from both a finance and marketing perspective. Joe was also employed as Natural Foods Broker (Western Sales Manager) from 2002 to 2006.