2018 Emerging Food Brands Conference Recap + Thank you!

Emerging Food Brands Win the Day!

It has been an incredibly busy two weeks since our Emerging Food Brands Conference. Thank you to all the food companies, the experts, Indiana State Department of Agriculture‘s Indiana Grown program and both our Purdue University partners: Purdue Food Sciences and the Purdue Foundry for supporting this event. Special thanks to ISDA’s Bruce Kettler for saying a few words to open the Buyer’s Roundtable lunch discussion.

I have had this Bob Hope quote on my wall for many years. It reminds me every day that focused, hard work can pay off:

“I’ve Always Been in the Right Place and Time.
Of Course, I Steered Myself There.” -Bob Hope

That quote sums up how I felt about each food company that took valuable time out of processing, marketing and selling their products to attend this show. If you are going to beat the odds, you need to steer yourself into the right place and time.

The 2nd Emerging Food Brands Conference was held Oct 2nd at Purdue University in West Lafayette. The event included:

• 64 Food Company/Brand Represented (see the full list with links below)
• 14 Retail and Foodservice Food Buying Groups
  • Baesler’s Market
  • Carmel Market District

  • 

    Eskenazi Health

  • F. McConnell & Sons
  • Fresh Thyme
  • Ideal Food Group
  • Indianapolis Fruit Company
  • Kroger
  • Lucky’s Market
  • Martin’s Supermarkets
  • Piazza Produce and Specialty Foods
  • Purdue Dining & Catering
  • Purdue University Markets
  • Sysco Foods of Indianapolis
• 4 Workshops
  • Finance and Investing for Growth
  • Social Media Marketing
  • Vetting a Co-Packer & Best Practices for Growth
  • Six Keys to a Killer Pitch Deck & Your Buyer Selling Story
• 2 Roundtable Discussion Panels:
  • Financing Growth Round Table with:

    

    • Andrew Bluestein, Bluestein Associates
    • Andy Miller, Ouabache Investments
    • Jacob Schpok, Elevate Ventures
  • Food Buyers Roundtable Lunch & Learn
    • Rick Hopkins, Carmel’s Market District
      Charlene McKinney, Lucky’s Market
      Eric Wine, Fresh Thyme
      Bob Baesler, Baesler’s Market
      Tom Coleman, Purdue Dining and Catering
      Brian Moore, Sysco Foods of Indianapolis
• 1 Emerging Brands Happy Hour & Talk with Brian Farkas
  • 1869 Tap Room Purdue Union
  • Hosted by Purdue’s Brian Farkas, Head & Professor Food Science

The Attendees Wrote The Script

The content of the workshops and roundtable discussion panels was generated by questions the 64 food company/brand attendees provided during registration

Simply put, if you were an Emerging Food Brand coming to hear about topics ranging from financing growth to social media to how to find the right co-packer to doing business with a retail or foodservice food buyer – there was an excellent chance that if you asked a question, you got it answered.

Can I Have A Copy of the Workshop Presentation?

Attendees providing the questions for the panels and workshops means that each presentation and panel discussion is just a slideshow of questions. So to answer the main request I’ve been getting—yes I can send you a copy of the presentations, but they are all just a bunch of questions. All that is except for Six Keys to a Killer Pitch Deck & Your Buyer Selling Story. You can find that here.  In the coming weeks, we will be posting each presentation and the answers given by each panel and expert. So check back often!

Survey Results – How Did We Do?

Each Emerging food Brand company/attendee ranked each program from 1 to 5. Below are the survey results. Not

surprisingly, the Happy Hour won the day.

• Financing Growth Round Table = 4.26 / 5
• Finance for Growth and Investing Q&A= 4.63 / 5
• Social Media Marketing = 4/5
• Vetting a Co-Packer & Best Practices for Growth = 4.3 / 5
• The Killer Pitch Deck & Your Buyer Selling Story = 4.16 / 5
• Network & Industry Support Tables = 4.2 / 5
• Lunch & Learn Buyers Roundtable = 4.4 / 5
• Sampling Tables = 4.1 / 5
• Happy Hour & Talk with Brian Farkas = 5/5

Who’s Who in Emerging Food Brands

Finally, here are is a list of all the Emerging Food Brands represented:

• Aahaa Chai
• Amazing Hazel’s
• Apricot Sun Mediterranean Food Bar

  

• Ariston Specialties
• Artastery Gourmet Spices
• Autumn Berry Inspired, LLC
• B. Happy Peanut Butter
• Bee Coffee Roasters
• BeeFree LLC
• Best Boy and Company
• Bettini Pasta
• Big Brick House Pasta
• Bohman Bee Company
• Bonus BBQ, LLC
• BONZ LLC
• Bricker Culinary Creations, LLC

  

• Brooke’s Naturals
• C&G Salsa Co.
• Cibo Vita
• Café Baby
• Circadian Coffee Company
• Circle City Kombucha
• Copper Moon Coffee
• Cornerstone Bread Co.
• Culver Duck Farms, Inc.
• Dillman Farm
• Emily’s Foods, LLC
• Foods Alive
• Fresco Spice Blends
• Fresh Pop’d Popcorn Company
• Frozen Garden
• Gluten Free Baking Company
• Gorilly Goods
• GREEN SENSE FARMS Holdings, Inc.
• Groomsville Popcorn
• Hartwell’s Premium
• HercuLean Meal Prep

  

• Hidden Pond Farm LLC
• Honey Creek Legacy
• Jen’s Country Kitchen BBQ Sauce
• Mathoo’s Eggrolls
• Mimi’s Gourmet Pasta Sauce, Inc.
• Nate’s Candy Jar
• Newfangled Confections
• NutraMaize
• Olde Time Lollipops Candy and Fudge Factory
• Pastries Chefs
• Revival Food Co.
• s.a.l.t. sisters
• Sandy Beach Barbeque Co.
• Sandy’s Cookies
• Shoup’s Country Foods, Inc.
• Simple Taste Gluten Free Bakery
• Sisters of St. Benedict DBA Monastery Baked Goods
• Skyline Kitchen Inc (TeaSquares)
• Supernola
• Tell City Pretzel
• The Carthage Mill LLC
• Triple B Tilapia
• Triple XXX Root Beer Corp
• Urban Ladle
• Whirlybird Granola
• Wick’s Pies
• Windy Prairie Farm LLC

The NewPoint team has been fielding a lot of suggestions for next year – if there is a next year! One thing is certain…it is going to have to be very different than this year and last year.

Following the “attendees write the script” theme that ruled the programming this year, we ask you: what area of your business do you need the most help in or what would you most want to learn about?

Happy to have that conversation! Send me an email at Patrick@NewPointMarketing.com!

Keep moving your brand up the food chain!

Thank you,
Patrick Nycz
Founding President
NewPoint