From Kitchen to Market: Selling Your Gourmet Food Specialty [Paperback]

Stephen F. Hall (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1996

Learn the secrets of successfully launching a gourmet food product in the $30 billion specialty food marketplace. From Kitchen to Market delivers proven strategies for successful packaging, pricing, positioning, and promotion. You'll get "inside" industry tips to maximize product exposure and profits.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

How many of us have toyed with the idea of selling our favorite family recipes? The growing number of specialty food products on the market strongly suggests that people are doing more than just toying with the idea. Hall, a food industry consultant, has created a thorough guide to food marketing that is sure to help food entrepreneurs at all levels, from the rank beginner to the most experienced. Hall clearly points out possible pitfalls and concerns as he takes the reader step by step through the entire marketing process, offering guidelines on market research, packaging, pricing, and advertising. Interesting vignettes on actual successes and failures allow a realistic view of possible scenarios. The appendixes, which make up a good portion of the book and list trade shows, journals, associations, sample forms, and so forth, are a terrific quick resource that significantly enhance this already strong and well-written guide. Strongly recommended for public and academic libraries.
- Margaret B. Bartlett, Rochester Inst. of Technology, N.Y.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Hall tells readers how to break into the specialty food industry. It’s all between the covers of this excellent guide." -- -Bookviews.com --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Dearborn Financial Publishing; 2nd edition (June 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1574100254
• ISBN-13: 978-1574100259
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #585,062 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolute must for aspiring food wholesalers!, June 8, 2003

By 

Travis C. Ward "C. William Anderson" (Silverton, OR United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: From Kitchen to Market (Sell Your Specialty Food: Market, Distribute & Profit from Your Kitchen Creation) (Paperback)

Having owned a specialty food store, and having developed a unique food product that distributors were interested in marketing through convenience and other specialty food stores (including McDonald's Express) I can attest to the accuracy of most of this book.

If you are already producing a great tasting product in a restaurant or Deli and making a living, you probably are wise to concentrate on expanding your retail business. If, however, you are tiring of the daily grind of running a small retail business, but wish to concentrate on producing your product rather than serving it to the public, then you probably have considered wholesaling.

Your wholesaling options are numerous. For marketing through supermarkets I advise you to thoroughly read Packaged Facts book, How To Get Your Product Into Supermarkets.

First, though, you should try marketing through more specialized channels. Health Food Stores, C-stores and nearby deli's and local grocery stores. In such cases you will absolutely need this book and will find it saves you serious bucks and a lot of questions posed to distributors, health officials and your suppliers. I know, because I spent months researching the options and not finding half the information that this book so succinctly provides.

Note: I had so little success finding the information that I chose to team up with a businessman and I became vice president of Billy Bob's Pot Pies in Canby, Oregon. The ill-fated franchise attempt resulted in me returning to work in the Middle East so I could save enough bucks to start producing my meat pies for specialty markets....

41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical and Strategic, April 10, 2001

By 

Shermain D. Hardesty (Davis, Ca United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: From Kitchen to Market (Sell Your Specialty Food: Market, Distribute & Profit from Your Kitchen Creation) (Paperback)

I use From Kitchen to Market as the text for the weekend class that I teach through University of California Davis Extension, Getting Started in the Specialty Food Business. Hall's book is excellent; it is practical, not obtuse. He gets to the nitty-gritty of how to develop and launch a product. He also emphasizes the need to be market-oriented. You won't be guaranteed success just because you make a great tasting product; Hall discusses how you need to package,market and distribute your product effectively.

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Guide For Speciality Food Startups, February 11, 2001

By 

OpenMinded (Maplewood, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: From Kitchen to Market (Sell Your Specialty Food: Market, Distribute & Profit from Your Kitchen Creation) (Paperback)

After reading dozens of obtuse marketing studies on the speciality food business, I came across this book. What a delight! All the basic information an entrepenuer needs in one place. The author generously shares practical, authorative advice and guidance through very clear writing and diagrams. It's to-the-point and easy-to-read. The book is also well-organized, has a nice clean layout, and has great resource listings in back of book. Too good to be true? So far, it's been very helpful to me! Highly Recommended.