The food industry is colossal and offers substantial room for any prospective business person to break in. The amount of time it takes from commencement of the business to realization of profits can be so incredibly short. All things being equal operating at a loss is largely avoidable due to the potency of lines of business in this domain. This is mainly premised on the availability of a voracious market which is ever-growing. It would be folly to not mention how fierce competition is in the food businesses arena – you must be highly competitive! One other indispensably important thing to consider is the need for top-notch quality of your products. If you compromise on quality then you’ll definitely set yourself up for dismal failure. Let’s discuss 10 food business ideas that one can start.
Farming
This is where it all starts because we can’t talk about food without first of all producing it. There are numerous fields of agriculture but the two broad categories we can mention here are livestock production and crop production. The produce that comes from these segments is what constitutes the wide expanse of the food business industry. Choosing the right livestock or crop farming business will rake in huge returns for you because livestock and crops are highly sought-after. Examples for crops include starting onion farming business plan, starting tomato farming business plan, starting cabbage farming business plan and starting a potato farming business plan. For livestock, examples include starting tilapia fish farming business plan, starting pig farming business plan, starting broiler poultry farming business plan and starting dairy farming business plan.
Food Processing
Food processing is a very wide and diverse domain when it comes to the options to choose from. The beauty of food processing is that it produces higher value products that’ll fetch higher prices as opposed to the raw foods. For instance, tomatoes can be processed into tomato pastes, peanuts into peanut butter, wheat into flour and so on. So you can carve for yourself a very agile niche by focusing on food processing eg starting peanut butter manufacturing business plan.
Retail
Retail is also one of the biggest sectors of the food businesses arena. Actually several other food businesses feed into the retail businesses space. What to retail is also a wide and diverse spectrum which calls upon you to take a pick. You can retail fresh farm produce, processed foods or both amongst others. The scale of operation can also vary from small to large scale i.e. tuck-shops to supermarkets.
Restaurant
This is very common type of food business to embark on. Most people are given over to eat out for numerous reasons. Any well-constituted restaurant setup virtually anywhere can always thrive. Endeavouring to discuss the niching approaches would require an article on its own – they are plenty. You can niche by focusing on the general fast foods restaurant business or you can niche by focusing on the high-end markets. Even the actual types of foods you’ll offer can in essence be a niching approach. With the growing craze for organic foods some people now exclusively niche by offering organic foods. So this is very good choice when it comes to food business ideas.
Coffee Shop
The coffee shops industry is steadily growing across the world because of the wide products that can now be offered. Earlier we just talked about restaurants which are a hit amongst most people. Alternatively people can opt for a coffee shop for a wide range of reasons. This makes starting a coffee shop business a very profitable venture owing to the availability of a huge market. The offering of light food stuffs makes people prefer to meet-up at a coffee shop if they aren’t in the mood for heavy foods.
Butchery
Meat makes up a key component of most meal dishes of which there are many types of meats. It’s no wonder why livestock farmers are making huge profits because meat is an on demand commodity. Butcheries are definitely a wise business investment just so long you always have the most sought-after and high-quality meat and meat products in stock.
Catering Services
There are a lot of events that would need catering services from private to public events. Some of the most common ones are weddings, corporate functions and entertainment events. Such events are always being held so making a name for yourself can guarantee you contracts regularly. If you want to expand your revenue bracket you can also include the hire of catering equipment. This is because some clients can prefer to just rent your equipment whilst having their own labour.
Food Delivery Services
Food deliveries are a wide-ranging line of business because there are many options to focus on. One can settle for doing food deliveries from suppliers to wholesalers. One can also choose to focus on doing home deliveries of various types of foods. Due to the proliferation of the internet and social media, setting up and running such a business is now quite easy.
Food Truck
So here’s the thing, often time people build or establish restaurants or coffee shops in certain locations. It’s a given that they can experience regular and consistent customers inflows. However, what happens to people who stay far from them? What happens to outdoor events such as concerts, sporting events and so on? This is where a food truck business comes in to close the gap. Food trucks can be quite lucrative due to the flexibility to go where the customers are plus relatively lower operating costs.
Content Creation
You can take a slightly different approach by choosing to create content on food and make money from that ultimately. There are numerous ways to do this e.g. blogging, vlogging, podcasts, and reality TV shows, just to mention a few. The idea is to create content that lures and establishes a huge following from which you’ll land ad placement deals. In this scenario your content will be on food-related issues.
With these 10 food business ideas you can never go wrong. It’s still important, as always, to do market research prior to commencing any business activity. Take cognizance of the fact that most of these lines of business are characterised by fierce competition. So you must be very witty and enterprising in your marketing approaches. Overall, the market is always vast and readily available.
