This year, Specialty Food Association members and non-members alike attended and viewed on-demand the many educational resources featured on the specialtyfood.com Learning Center. These include webinars from the SFA In the Know, Maker Prep, Regulatory Update, and Buyers’ Market series.
Following is a list of the most popular SFA webinars:
1. Channel Strategy: Selling to Costco
President and founder of LaunchPad, Jeremy Smith, discussed how to work with Costco and gave insight into winning strategies to get specialty food products sold.
2. Using AI to Benefit Your Sales, Branding, and Marketing
Industry leaders Aaron Feiger and Felice Thorpe shared some easy, low-cost ways that specialty food makers can leverage AI to improve strategy and creativity.
3. Category and Segment Trends Driving the Industry
Researcher for SFA’s State of the Industry 2023-2024 report David Lockwood and Mintel analyst Melanie Bartelme highlighted some category and segment trends that will affect the specialty food world.
4. Booth Camp: Talking with Buyers and Press
The education session took a two-pronged approach to maximizing one’s time when attending a food show: half was devoted to pitching a product to specialty food buyers, and half explored the best ways to market a product to the press.
5. Is Your Food Brand Ready to Scale?
It can be difficult to know how a specialty food business can find and take the right path to success. This education session covered how to understand how to connect with consumers, how to set goals and choose the right online platform, when to consider alternate channels (airports, cafés, etc.), and how to scale safely.
The following high-impact resources are also worth revisiting.
1. Grants for Your Specialty Food Business
Raising capital for an emerging business can be difficult. SFA member Alex Piasecki, founder of Seal the Seasons, shared some tips on earning federal, state, and private grants.
2. Anatomy of a License or Strategic Partnership Agreement
Working with partners can be exciting but challenging. Creating an ironclad license agreement or strategic partnership is important to protect one’s business from potential legal pitfalls.
3. Perfect Pairs: How DTC & Grocery Can Support Each Other
In an exploration of how a specialty food business can best serve the omnichannel shopping experience, this education session discussed best practices to consider for each channel, and how retail and online can complement each other.
The Learning Center resources can be viewed on-demand and are free to members and cost $19 for non-members.
Related: SFA's Top 5 Webinars of 2022; Diving into SFA's Monthly Trend Reports