Full Transcript

Sari 0:00
Welcome to your Food Business Success. This podcast is for early stage entrepreneurs in the packaged food industry ready to finally turn that delicious idea into reality. I'm your host Sari Kimbell. I have guided hundreds of food brand founders to success as an industry expert and business coach, and it's got to be fun. In this podcast, I share with you mindset tools to become a true entrepreneur and run your business like a boss, interviews with industry experts to help you understand the business you are actually in, and food founder journey so you can learn what worked and didn't work, not feel so alone in your own journey. Now, let's jump in!

Sari 0:47
Welcome back to the podcast everyone! Really excited to have you here today, and we have an awesome guest today. I'm excited to welcome Mike Gable, who is the Director of Food Innovation Center at CSU Spur, and their goal is to support food innovators. Mike has a 20 year career in roles around product development, quality, systems and strategy and portfolio management. He has led innovation teams at Windsor foods, ConAgra Foods and Barilla. So welcome Mike!

Mike 1:18
Thank you so much for having me, Sari. I'm very pleased to be here with you. And so we love to just talk food entrepreneurship and all the intricacies that kind of happen with that.

Sari 1:29
Yeah, well I was at an event that you guys, we host. You hosted at CSU Spur. You can talk to him Naturally Colorado, just a couple weeks ago, and you were talking about all the amazing things that the Food Innovation Center is doing, and I'm sitting there, like, wait, this is in my backyard. You guys are in Denver, Colorado, and I've known about you, but now you guys are, like, full board. And I was like, Why have I not had to go have you on the podcast yet? So, like, we got to get you on here.

Mike 2:04
For a long time we were in startup mode. I mean, really, we were trying to pull together a team. And now the teams kind of pulled together our places. We have a bunch of kitchens and processing spaces that were just kind of in the works and under construction. And so, you know, in the last probably year and a half, we've really come together. And so I think, before we hit record, we were talking, we probably have about 15 clients right now, and that I was kind of cycles through people drop off, you know, some are just very quick turnkey services, and some are, you know, for the long run, you know, just wanting to leverage our services and our expertise. It's been great.

Sari 2:42
Yeah, well, let's talk first about what is the Food Innovation Center, and what do you guys do? Who your team is? Because, yeah, I mean, I've been over there since the beginning. You built this amazing facility, and I remember, you know, being shown around. And it was like, oh, someday we're going to have this, and we're working on getting equipment here. And of course, it was like, right after COVID, and everything was delayed. And so it's kind of like walking through a home where you're trying to imagine amazing things, but now, like you said, you're fully operational and you have an incredible facility. So tell us a little bit about what is the Food Innovation Center.

Mike 3:26
Let me start by kind of broadening and going outside and talking about spur. Spur is a different type of campus. Colorado State University always wanted a presence in Denver, and when they were thinking about this, our Chancellor really had this big idea. Said we really need to capture there's like two thirds of high school students in Colorado don't consider going on a college. They think it's too expensive or they run up too much debt. And so they really wanted to have a place where K through 12 audiences, you know, these kids on field trips or school groups could come through and see people working in different careers, get them excited about, you know, higher education, being a food scientist, and seeing a food scientist actually working, or being a veterinary tech, or, you know, a plant pathologist, whatever that looks like. And so it's a very unique campus. It's always open to the public. You know, we actually have a lot of just school groups and field trips that come through here, even like home school groups that come through and just kind of see everything's behind glass. And so all of our kitchens, so one of our biggest things is providing a space for entrepreneurs. And so the Food Innovation Center really is there to support, you know, all the way down from someone getting grandma's recipe in the supermarkets, all the way up to large multinational consumer package good companies. And so we interface a lot with a variety of people each and every day. And so some of the different things we offer is having kind of a Canvas space for them to produce if they're wanting to sell, produce their product. So a big commercial kitchen, have a handful of commissary users, and we just have kind of everything in the book. They just said, hey, we want. They took the catalog and said, hey, all right, we want a pasta cooker that we've never use. You know. But, you know, we have a couple different steam ovens and combi ovens and flat top and a big, you know, tilt kettle and a bunch of everything, and even a soft serve machine that's back in storage, just because, you know, no one needs a soft serve machine, but it's a great space. It's fantastic. We've done a lot of different events there. We've done, like, a top chef event, where it's great because it's behind glass, and so you can actually walk in, have cocktail hour out in the lobby, looking in the kitchen and seeing like, you know, the chefs going to town. Then we have a dairy lab, which has been great. So, you know, small time where you can make ice cream or yogurt or fluid milk. We have a produce lab. That's that might be changing, but we'll see what that looks like, too. It was more kind of, more of a research space to make sure that we could eliminate the next outbreak of e coli. And so it was just more of like, you know, let's, let's do some experiments. And then we have another lab. Actually, we have a couple of spaces that we never anticipated in the beginning, having tenants here, but sweet Laurens, if you know them, gluten free cookie company, and they've been great. They they actually moved in a couple moved in a couple weeks ago, and so now they're R D teams here. So it's actually great because, yeah, it's been great too. Because, like I said before, we really want the spaces to be activated for people, you know, walking through and going like, all right, I never thought about that gluten free cookie company, making cookies and, you know, being a scientist and all that that goes into that. So it's great. And so the the other thing is, is our services, we have the spaces, and then we also have a lot of services, and that's everything from what food scientists do. So we, we do pure product development. A lot of people come to us just to say, like, all right, I have this idea. I've launched brands before, but, you know, I need a scientist to kind of have my vision come to life. And so we'll take the concept and run with it, but also a lot of auxiliary services, shelf life studies and nutritional facts panels, process authority letters. And then on the other side, we have actually our taste testing, our sensory services. And so we have focus group rooms and sensory tasting like tasting booths, where you sit down and, you know, they slide through a tray of food, and you just evaluate it. And it's been great. It's been fantastic. And so that's just kind of, you know, all around service center, more than always on the technical side, you know, again, we send people to you to say, like, if you need your business off the ground, talk to Sari.

Sari 7:20
All the things, yeah.

Mike 7:25
It's been great. It's been good.

Sari 7:26
That's amazing. You guys have built out such a suite of services. I know, you know, one of the things I do in my line of work is I'm a connector, and people come to me and say, I need shelf life study done. What about this? What about that? And I've always had kind of people that, you know, one offs that I send people to, and now I'm like, oh, well, just send them to you guys. It's amazing. And let's bring back up a little bit, because I think sometimes people think, well, I made this great recipe in my home kitchen. Can't I just turn it into a you know, can't they just start making it and get it on grocery store shelves? But what are some of the things that maybe people don't think about that they might need some of your services for?

Sari 8:19
Hey there, food preneur, if you are tired of figuring everything out on your own, you're hitting roadblocks, you're throwing spaghetti at the wall, and you want to say no to that and say yes to getting answers and feeling supported and not so alone in your business, I have exciting news for you. Fuel membership is open right now through May 26 we only open up fuel a couple of times a year that you can join us all a card. This is the community you have been searching for. Real food business owners, supporting each other, sharing resources and leveling up together. The Fuel membership includes twice monthly group coaching sessions where myself and April will offer you coaching. Will get your questions answered, will help you get unstuck. There's a monthly Power Hour where we get work done together, and a 24/7 community feed where you can get help any time you need it. No more late nights googling packaging regulations or talking to people who have no idea whether your pricing strategy makes sense. Inside Fuel, you've got a whole team of CPG experts behind you. Having experts and pure food founders can save you 1000s in potential mistakes and shave weeks, if not months, off of your timeline. One of our core values at Food Business Success is generosity, and we have put together some really great bonuses for those of you who decide to join Fuel this month. Go to foodbusinesssuccess.com/fuel for all the details, and you can get signed up for as little as $67 a month. Make this small investment in your business and see huge results. I will see you inside.

Mike 10:15
A lot of it's looking so for sure, if there's any regulations on it. So you're making an acidified product, you know, and that's, you know, a barbecue sauce, or a hot sauce, or anything there. And so you have to, kind of, you know, follow FDA guidance. So a lot of that's just kind of, you know, getting us on the phone, and we always offer a half hour free consultation. That's all some people need. Some people just need, like, the peace of mind that said, like, hey, I don't want to kill anybody. Am I doing this right? And I was like, all right, what's your pH? Are you pasteurizing it? What temperature are you getting to? And so we go through that. So a lot of that, some people aren't thinking about things. You know, we have a lot of people going, like, all right, I want to make this product X, Y or Z. And I was like, well, with that, and again, not to get too scientific or anything else, but we're asking, you know, what's your pH. Oh, it's, you know, and I was like, well, that's pretty high. What you need to do is actually probably retort that. It's not, you know, new maker, you know, it's a very intensive processing. The commands want big, you know, minimums and everything else. And so it's not really something you could do. And they're like, oh, there's a reason I haven't ever seen a product like this in the market. And I was like, yeah, that's why. And so there's just some blind spots too, that you just needed to talk to and go, like, I have a great idea. And so we love talking to people and just saying, like, all right, make sure you have all your ducks in a row. On the other side too, some of the different scale up things is just, you know, having their process too complicated. We talked to a lot of people that says, you know, I want to do this. I want to steep this, you know, extract overnight, and everything else and like this is great if you're self producing, and if you're going to a commercial kitchen, you're going to be making this yourself, and you have all the time in the world. But if people really want to scale up to that, that co man step, you know, there's, there's a lot of simplification you need to have happen. You need to be looking at a lot more, you know, depends on how big they're scaling, but looking at more B to B ingredients, you know, great, if you can buy everything from costs go and assemble this bar. But, you know, you're going to need to start looking at different, you know, functional things that are function better, you know, great. You have a tap. You can start. You got off Amazon. Let's look at, you know, some more functional things that'll help, like, improve the texture and do different things. And so that's why you kind of talk to a food scientist, is, you know, they know some of these intricacies, or they know who to talk to get, you know, the, you know, the way we talk is always different to when you talk to food scientists, we're talking about thickening systems, you know, we're talking about water activity. There's a lot of different things, and we've, I think we've gotten a lot better. You know, everyone that I've hired so far on my team, they're much, much, much smarter than me. And so we're trying to always, like, find ways to really normalize the speech that we're talking about, even have like, you know, slides that when we talk to clients, going, like, all right, why do you need to worry about water activity? And so we just kind of go through some of these things too. So it's been, it's been an adventure and a good journey for us too.

Sari 13:10
Yeah, I mean, I think what comes to mind, yes, there's all the regulations, making sure, you know. It's so tough because you can't just be like, food, right? It's like, there's all these different categories. And you know, if it's acidified food, if it's refrigerated, if it's a dairy product, if it's seafood, meat, heaven forbid anybody comes to me with a meat product. I'm like, yeah, how much money you got? But you know, there's of course, all the regulations, and there's the food safety part of it. But even I learned I hadn't really thought about it this way. You know, you were talking at that event about, you got to think about your product. Your product might be on shelves for a while. And you know, when we make, let's say, you know, maybe a pickled product or something famous. pickles. We're typically eating those rather quickly, and we don't think about the color or separation or the flavors lasting, you know, for much longer, maybe on a store shelf, but then also in somebody's pantry.

Mike 14:27
Yeah, we talk a lot about preservation, and preservation really has, like, a bad name it, you know, I mean, this is lots of people can make, you know, good food. You know, we're used to eating food in the moment, or, you know, maybe throw in the freezer and, you know, slot thawing it out a few days later, or whatever else. When we're talking about really, like making sure that that product's going to be good quality wise, but also food safety wise, you know, here for three months, six months a year, whatever it looks like. And so there's so many different considerations, and that's really, as food scientists, we've just, you know, looked at, you know, the factors that go into that we want to make sure that it's microbial stable, that, you know, we are using the right preservation system. And again, it could be something that very traditional, like, you know, a Benz weight or a sorbate. And don't worry if you don't, you know, some different things that don't look nice, and our whole foods, you know, friendly. But there's so many different things nowadays that there's a lot of suppliers out there that offer, like, a very reasonable, natural, you know, to label as, like a fruit vegetable extract or a mushroom extract. And so there's things in there that you can do. And so we just give people those options. And I think that's always and then we're, you know, we talked about, all right, if you're going to do this, yes, great. Your color is amazing right now, but you're using something that's probably not going to be like, you know, it's going to probably fade. Are you okay with that? There's just different things we like to always kind of ground people and what's realistic within, you know, the food system. I mean, just like everything in life, you'd love to have, you know, the best product for like, pennies, but, you know, or you'd like to have something that doesn't have any thickeners or gums. You know, xanthan gum never looks good on the label. But the reality is there for a purpose, you know, and it's there for a lot of different things. And so we always kind of give that trade off and say, like, all right, if you don't want to go this way, you know, you're probably going to have separation. You're probably going to have, you know, where you're going to have seven out or whatever else. And so, those conversations we like having, just because we see some of the blind spots that people might not recognize.

Sari 16:31
Yeah, and the other thing, and you mentioned all that is, like, also commercial ingredients, or, you know, I've worked with a lot of products where, like you said, you got to simplify, like, your recipe, you know, I've worked with sauces where they come in with, they're using other people's sauces and products and there it's this whole concoction. It's like, yeah, but we got to get this down to, like, some really simple ingredients, some flavorings, like, you said, we don't have time to, you know, let this steep overnight, and all these like things that you don't mind doing when you're just doing this at home, because it's kind of fulfilling and creative and fun. But when you think about commercializing and getting on store shelves, or even if you're just, you know, if you're doing online and things. The price never those costs never pencil out well, and so there might be flavorings that you need to consider. There's definitely going to be commercialized ingredients that are going to come with COAs and different documents that have been tested. And you know, you got to also have that whole aspect of traceability, and, you know, knowing your products and making sure that they're safe. And so I think that there's a lot that I talk about for sure, and that you guys know backwards and forwards that can really help people.

Mike 17:55
Yeah, first time entrepreneurship, it's great, and everything else. But you know, both of us know very well, just having your recipe is just such a I mean, it's important, but it's not the most important. I mean, there's so much more on building a brand and having that recognition, marketing and, you know, logistics after the fact, and manufacturing, and, you know, ingredient supplier, you know quality and everything else. And so great that you have that nailed down, but, and so I think, you know, and that's the benefit of, you know, having you working with your clients, and us working with our clients is, you know, giving you that understanding of the blind spots that you might have, or have you considered this, are you looking at this? And so it's just, it's always nice to have that reassurance and know that you kind of built up your team, and that's what we're trying to provide us, you know, just an extra person. That in case of emergency, they're at the Coman, they're there have some issue, call us up and we'll see what we can do.

Sari 18:49
Yeah, I mean, this is part of the work. And I love that you are giving people options. And I think, you know, when I work with entrepreneurs who have this amazing idea or that family recipe, and like you said, there are sometimes reasons why you have not seen this product on a store shelf, because of the process for food safety and everything that's involved and that, you know I love, to help entrepreneurs get really clear about, like, what is their mission, what are their core values? And sometimes you just can't get there. And are you willing to, you know, have a 90% like, you know, if your gold standard is a 100% you know, we might only be able to get it to 85%, 90% and I've worked in my early days when I did more project based, which I would do a lot of, or I would like subcontract with a lot of different people. If I had you guys around six years ago, that would have been a different story, but it would have been a lot easier. But there was a couple projects that we just couldn't get there, you know, because we needed to have certain processes that change the, you know, maybe it was the raw garlic, and it needed to be cooked and, you know, heated to a certain temperature, and trying to simplify the recipes and things like that. And, you know, sometimes you just can't get there. And, but I think it's still think it's worth the try.

Mike 20:21
Totally is. And I think there's, you know, and that's how you have to, we always say you have to have a little bit of flexibility. Your recipe might not be perfect, and you, as the founder, you understand your gold standard and everything else, but, and there's, and not to see you're compromising on the recipe, but there's some give and take, right, to make it realistic. You know, even when we talk to people going to comand say, like, you know, if you've been stop producing, and you are the one making like, quality checks every time, and you're making everything perfect, unfortunately, your co man is not going to have that level of quality or dedication. You know, they have different goals. They have completely different goals than you, you know, they're trying to make it as fast, they're trying to get volume in whatever else. And so quality is one of those things, unless you hold them accountable to it. And so there's the it's just the reality is, you know, know your tolerance, and I think that's what I spoke about a couple weeks ago at the retail ready conference, was, yeah, you really just got to know your tolerance and how much you're going to accept. And again, that almost shouldn't always be you as the founder making those calls. You should get some, you know, third party just, I mean, again, friends and neighbors were talking about, just say, like, all right, is this still good? And they're like, yeah, that's great, you know, even though, yeah, not as good a quality, yes. But again, you know, you don't want to alienate an existing consumer base or client base that you have, if you've been selling for a while, that you're going to degrade in the quality. But sometimes, you know, before you launch a product, you know, understand how risk tolerant you are to, you know, changes in the recipe, or color change, or something in shelf life happening, or a little bit of separation, again, you know there's things nowadays like separation. If you have that, you find that at a Natural Grocers or Whole Foods, whatever else, people aren't going to buy. Aren't going to balk as much, you know, or they're used to shaking it up and going like, that's great, you know, maybe they're not using some of these gums or whatever else that you know. So, so. It's just understanding your consumer for sure.

Sari 22:15
What I love is that journey of entrepreneurship is like, I think it is about, you know, not lowering your standards, but like, you have to be a little more flexible. You have to be a little more fluid. And you're going to have, you know, this is part of the journey and the process. And like, you know, there's a lot more just taking risks and trying things. Sometimes you're going to have a batch that's a little off color and I think what you guys probably also do is, when you're thinking, I think when you go to a Coman, right, establishing some of those standards and those tolerances so people under, like, when you go to a Coman, it can't just be, like, there's only, you know this, like, one way, you know, if you're baking cookies, like, there has to be some tolerance of like, what's too cooked, or what too baked, and what's under baked, but like, in between is okay, because we're dealing with human, lots of humans and machines and much larger quantities of products.

Mike 23:19
Yep. And I think, yeah, keeping comments accountable is always one of those things. And again, this is you should really have a good quality document that that spells it out how frequency, you know, and again, not to nitpick every little thing, because there really is a couple big things that really affect the quality. And just understanding is that a just a measurement of what pH is it? You know, there's the food safety aspect. They, for sure, have to be kind of maintaining stuff. But, you know, is there a color aspect, you know? And we, you know, even in large, I mean, I was working for companies that were, you know, $10 billion companies, and so we would actually even use a lot of times, just like a color scale. It was just like a printed out thing that we're just showing, like, all right, here's too baked and here's under baked, whatever else. And this is where you want to kind of land on whatever else. And just, you know, these are easy things that you know, any person on the line, any quality, your quality assurance person, should be able to go like, all right, you know, based on this here, a three on the color scale. And so just making sure that you work with them, and just kind of, like saying, you know. Great if you have a command that's going to do that for you, that say, like, all right, we want to, like, make sure, and everything else. But a lot of times I see the founders, they really have to go and they have to push some of these on. And that should be, if you get pushback from from the co man.

Sari 24:42
A little bit of an orange flag.

Mike 24:46
It's a very hard relationship. That's probably one of the hardest relationship you're going to have as a new founder.

Sari 24:53
It really is. Yeah. So what is the workflow, if somebody, like, if I wanted to take the product to farmers market. Is it still appropriate for me to come work with you guys? Or, like, what's the flow if I think I want to do this?

Mike 25:09
You know, everything starts with a good call, and that's what I usually do, is say, like, it's just set up half hour. Let's just kind of talk through who we are, and we have, you know, a nice list of our services and even our pricing. And let's just kind of talk about what you might need. And we always going to give a couple different options. You know, even for like, product development, a lot of times for us, it's we offer, you know, something where it's very hands off. You are giving it all to us. And then we have options where you work alongside with our food scientists, a co development session. Just come on site and just work side by side. Then we just have consulting where you're going to do everything else, but when you need to, you know, to dial a friend, you just pick up the phone and call us. And so we kind of always give, like, a lot of different options, because we know that it's, you know, a lot of people are bootstrapping. It's the they don't have 1000s of dollars to spend on this. And so yeah, and then we'll just kind of talk through our options and kind of, you know, give them a range of what our services are. And kind of like, you know, we've tried to find a lot of ways to, kind of, like, even cut down on, you know, doubling up on fees too. Like, if you come and do a co development session, usually we're putting it into our system so you get out, like, a calculated nutrition facts panel, so you have that, so you don't have to pay the extra money for that too. So it's the system's fairly fluid, and, you know, we're starting to book up, and so we're, we might, you know, I think that's the one surprise that I think catches people off guard is just like, how long the development process really is, you know, large CPG companies, they might have a life cycle of, like, you know, 12 months to, like, 18 months or two years, you know. And so we're always telling people, I want this product next month. I was like, you know, our typical cycle, if we're doing all the development ourselves, is about six to eight months, and that's just because we're doing a lot of iterations behind the scenes. We're ordering ingredients and samples. Sometimes the times we're trying to, like, you know, work through the process, and then we're just, you know, managing other clients, projects. And so it takes time. Everything takes time, and hopefully most people are good with that. I know people want to get their product to market as soon as possible, but I think even in that time, they should be like, you know, contacting and reaching out, building up the things we talked about before understanding, all right, do I need? What regulatory do I need insurance? Do I need? What am I doing? Am I meeting with co packers or whatever out that it looks like.

Sari 27:31
It's interesting that just it made me think about the way I talk to people, and the way I've laid it out in my program is that you're working in these three buckets all the time. You have your product and the things that you guys are doing, but you also have all of the marketing material, the branding, the label, the like, what package are we going to put it into? Which I would imagine that's also really helpful, because the packaging is going to matter on some of the shelf life as well. So you're kind of, like, it's this like dance that you're doing where you're taking the product a little forward, but then you're also, like, taking the branding forward and the packaging forward. And so you're doing everything related to this product. And then you also have, like, all of the business stuff, you know, the licenses, and all the other, you know, the business things. And then you also have the go to marketing, or the, sorry, the go to market strategy, where it's like, okay, once I have this product and it's in my hands, and it has a beautiful package and a label and everything on it. Now, what? Where do I go sell this? Am I going to try to get on store shelves? Am I going to, you know, get online, go to farmers markets? And so I think there's enough to do there. My point is, like, you guys are an important part of it. Obviously, we don't have a business without the product, but, you know, come work with somebody like myself, and we'll get all like, we got to do all the other pieces as well. And you don't want to have a product and then be thinking about your go to market strategy. By the time you get the product, you should be able to like, the website should be ready. The, you know, the farmers markets, the you know, you're starting to talk to wholesalers and things like that. Like there's a lot you can be doing. And yeah, a six to eight month, nine even. I mean, some products, I'm like, yeah, this is a year and a half project.

Mike 29:44
It truly is because, yeah, there's so many. It takes a team. It takes, you know, patience. It takes, you know, learning different skills. I mean, if you are a founder that's trying to go in it alone, which is great. And I'm not saying you can't do that by any means, but you know, you are learning how to be a marketer and a scientist and operations person and a logistics you know, I mean, you're doing a lot of it, and lots of wonderful people have done that, but, yeah, it's so many things you truly need to take some time to get it right. And again, there's always reservations. You know, if you wait too long, you're probably going to do it. And so yes, you want to kind of push this out and and fix along the way. And so that's what I think you were saying to like, if you're trying for 100% of having it, everything perfect, whatever else, you're probably not going to get there. And so, you know, 70% is great. And you know 80%, 90%, yeah, just, just do it, just along the way.

Sari
B minus work. Got to get it out there. So I have my product, and it's like I'm cruising along. Maybe I'm self manufacturing, or I'm taking it to a small co packer. Why is it important to have you guys a food scientist and your kind of team on speed dial, as you like to say?

Mike
Yeah, I think it's just always important. We've worked with co packers. We've been in co packers. We understand kind of, you know, some of the requirements. And so a lot of it really is handing over your baby to this person, this strange or whatever else that you're going to trust to do something. And again, there's, you know this, and I think you know your listeners understand this too, is you have such a spectrum of awful co packers all the way up to like the best people that you could ever you know, give your baby to and so this is just for us to have some time with your recipe. Look at it. If there's way to simplify it, look and then truly understand if you have all the pieces, you know, people are say, like, all right, I have this great recipe, or whatever else. We're making it at a restaurant. We have a lot of people that are reaching out. We have this in a restaurant. We just want to get this like, in a format. We can sell it retail out of our restaurants. And so they haven't thought about a nutrition facts panel, they haven't thought about funnel packaging. They haven't thought about a lot of these things. They haven't even probably thought about COGS, you know, things in a restaurant work very different from like a consumer package good. And so it's just getting those different things and just kind of talking through that and saying, all right, you know, and understanding, you know, manufacturing too, yes, you can do in the back of your kitchen and everything else. But, you know, if you want to go to a Coman, here's some of the things to look out for. Here's maybe some people that we could recommend you to. We find a lot of times the Comans that do best, or people that have been founders, you know, and entrepreneurs, they really set up shop. They said, all right, we actually bought the equipment, and then we started, you know, co packing for one person. And you know, a lot of people like this, right? Sari, and so they just, they understand what an entrepreneur is going through. And so they very much more friendly about kind of setting up those contracts, the minimum order quantities, that makes sense. And so we just love working with those type of comans too. There's a whole lot of things that I think you know, why you'd want us in speed aisles, just, you know, I think a lot of it comes out, you know, just that 11th hour, right before you go to a Coman, let's just sit together. Let's look at this. Let's, you know, those co development sessions everyone loves, you know, our food scientists, Kate and Rachel, are amazing. They just, it's just so nice. It's, like, almost refreshing to go, like, all right, I've been staring at this recipe. Now I have a second set of eyes on this. You know, you're giving me suggestions or give me recommendations. And so just like, let's look at this and and it just helps to have, you know, just a second opinion.

Sari
Yeah, well, there are times when you're, I mean, even self manufacturing, but your co, you know, your co man, and it's like you're on the line, or even after the fact, and then, you know, the colors changed after the fact, or something you know, isn't quite right. And so having somebody that already knows the product and the background and the context, and so you can start problem solving. And these things happen all the time.

Mike
Yeah, we always tell people, you know, scale up, it sucks. I mean, it's just it. Everything that could go wrong is probably going to happen. You know, there's a little way to insulate from that, and kind of doing some of your homework ahead of time. But, you know, regardless, you know, I've launched probably close to 100 products, you know, over my career, and, you know, nothing goes right the first time. There's just always hiccups. And there's, you know, I've spent probably months at production plants, you know, doing things that should be relatively simple, but it's just, you know, getting that right. And so, so, so it's hard, because I know you probably have a co man that you're going to, they're going to charge you for the test, and you're gonna might have to do multiple ones of those to get it right. And so that's, again, coming back to that discussion, you know, know your risk tolerance, or your ability to pivot, and you know, but also know that like there's probably going to be something, and I spoke about this before, where your flavor is not as where it is. You're probably going to have to consider bumping up some of the flavor components, whether it be spices or a natural flavor or anything else. And your thickening system is always going to be, it's weird, you got new equipment. You're not on a stock pot in a kitchen, you're in a steam jacketed kettle. And so it's going to act very differently. And so these are just things that you're going to be like, all right, I need to have a tolerance of the amount of starch going to put in there and, you know, usually that's even fine for the nutrition, for X panel, you have a 20% plus or minus for there, so it's not a big deal, but just understand that your recipe was likely to change.

Sari
Yes, you can absolutely be a solopreneur and you can create an incredible company, but you cannot do it alone. And I am such a huge fan of like I preach, you got to go find your who's you got to go get, you know, your team built out and like I would not want to Google my way through food safety and hope that I did it right. You know, I would hire a team. I would have my food science team. I would have my graphic designer, I would have somebody like myself who's kind of like a generalist and overall mentor. I would, like you gotta go find who's that help you to know you're doing it right. That you know. I mean, not even just the money, but I mean this is also something that you could hurt somebody, if you do it wrong. And so there's so much writing on the line. It just blows my mind. When people are like, I'm just going to figure it all out by myself, and I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, you have to build out a bench. You need a team. This is a team effort, even if you don't have a like, you basically you're subcontracting, right? These are all. These are your fractional, you guys are your fractional food scientists.

Mike
Couldn't agree with you more. It really, you know, just again, like I said, reassurance to pick up the phone and say, like, you know you're not going to kill anybody because of this fact, or whatever else you know. Just getting in the nitty gritty, I like, you know, all these fun things that I was kind of mentioned, the pH and water activity and the processing and the pasteurization, or, you know, the preservation system, or, you know, do you have all this, right? So it's, you don't need a, you don't need a four year degree in food science to understand this. You just need to, you know, someone on speed dial.

Sari
Okay, exactly. You don't have to go get the degree. You just need somebody on the phone who you can pick up and call if they know it. So I love that you guys have just built such a wonderful playground over there for food and CPG. And I know you can go in and tour it and see all the amazing equipment, or, I'm sure you work with people all over the country. So it doesn't matter where you are located, doing things virtually works as well.

Mike
Which has been great. Actually, it was a big surprise for us how many clients from out of state we started getting. And, you know, it's great. Sometimes a lot of people like to do like, you know, when we're doing like, a product development, they'll do a lot where we're just mailing them samples, but they'll say, like, the last little bit, I just need to refine this flavor a little bit. Fly out, spend a day with us, you know. And that's always just great to be together. And then we get a lot busted out in, like, an afternoon. And so it's fantastic. But, yeah, it's been good to see how much the I mean, the entrepreneur network and the the system, I mean, it exists all over and so we're just so excited to meet so many different people, so many fantastic ideas. You know, I never ceased to amaze me how many different ideas there are out there.

Sari
Yeah, absolutely. Well, tell people what they do. Like, this is such a great episode. I'm sure it's going to be a muscle, you know, one of our top ones. So tell people how they can find you and what they need to do if they're interested in working with you guys.

Mike
So you can easily Google the Food Innovation Center at CSU Spur, Colorado State University Spur will come up. You'll see some of the first results. Or you can email me directly. Michael dot Gabel, G, A, B, E, [email protected]. But yeah, we were around. We're always happy to talk to anybody again. You know, a lot of people just need that half hour consultation to say, I'm trying to do this. What do I need to look out for? And a lot of people just like to come on. Our team is fantastic. We'd love to talk to you.

Sari
Yeah, and Mike, you were so generous to offer a discount. And I'm not even going to put a number on it, because you guys may change it, but definitely tell people where you heard about Food Innovation Center, and you'll give them a little discount for working with you guys as well, which is really generous. Yeah, we're just so thrilled. But this is in my my backyard, and you guys are up and running and full service, which is amazing. Oh, and I went want to mention you guys also have as part of the campus, you're always doing different food, shows and lots of events, like you said. So I know, you know this is timely for it coming out now, but if you're listening, in the future, there'll be other things going on. So you guys have a food showcase coming up in the fall, which was really fun. I attended that last year. So do you want to tell a little bit about that?

Mike
It's just a small, very mini, like Expo West type, you know, setting where we just have tables set up. We, it's always the second Saturday in September. Last year, we had about 30 different brands that came out, and we try to get local business experts like yourself or buyers from local supermarkets that can come out, give them some feedback, and it's just great. And then we open it up to the public, and last year, we had about 1000 people show up. And so it's just, you have a chance to demo and sell and just, you know, get some exposure. And so it's just another part of our services that we provide. And so we're excited for that. So September 13 this year, but every second Saturday, we're going to have this in perpetuity.

Sari
Amazing. Yeah, you guys do some great events there, and always fun. So thank you for all you do. Yeah, definitely go and check out their services. Get in contact with Mike. I'll put all of your info in the show notes as well. So people have that.

Mike
Thank you so much, Sari.

Sari
It's been a pleasure chatting with you. Great, thanks, Mike. Have a great day. Thank you so much to Mike for his time today and sharing with us all of his knowledge. You can see how experienced the team is at the Food Innovation Center, and I cannot recommend them enough. I'm so grateful that they have all these services under one roof, and that it is at a wallet friendly price point for entrepreneurs who are bootstrapping, so important that you do have a food scientist on speed dial. So please do not hesitate to reach out and make sure you share that you heard about them on the Food Business Success podcast. All right, until next time, have an amazing week.

Sari
The smartest thing you can do as an entrepreneur is to invest in a who to help you with the how to speed up your journey and help you skip the line. When you are ready for more support and accountability to finally get this thing done, you can work with me in two ways. Get me all to yourself with one on one business coaching, or join Food Business Success, which includes membership inside Fuel our community of food business founders, that includes monthly live group coaching calls and so much more. It's one of my favorite places to hang out, and I would love to see you there. Go to foodbizsuccess.com to start your journey towards your own food business success.