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)
Vetting a Co-Packer & Best Practices for Growth Workshop
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
Curtis Hansen, Director of Marketing for Indiana Packers Corp. makes a point during Six Keys to a Killer Pitch Deck workshop
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:
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
A member of the Forbes Agency Council and quoted in the New York Times, USA Today and Adweek, Patrick Nycz is the author of Moving Your Brand Up the Food Chain: Marketing Strategies to Grow Local and Regional Food Brands. He is an FMI Emerge mentor, an American Advertising Federation’s Silver Medal Award winner, and the Founding President of NewPoint Marketing, a full-service food industry marketing firm focused on food industry brands On a mission to grow.
Patrick’s vision for NewPoint emerged from his team’s success using this proven model for food industry clients and is fueled by NewPoint-funded food buyers and food manufacturers research around tracking consumer, industry, and ongoing food trends.
Stephanie Bossung
Food industry marketing expertise—from retail to food service and food-service equipment— is a natural outcome of having deep knowledge in every facet of a business’ operation. With 10 years in branding and business development, preceded by 15 years in mass media and promotions, Stephanie is an FMI Emerge mentor, holds an executive-level expertise in sales, marketing, media, and production management.
This exceptionally diverse skill set adds value for NewPoint clients by providing a full complement of perspectives on food-industry brand management endeavors.
Wired for a hawkish attention to detail, while also maintaining a high-resolution view of the big picture, Stephanie is uniquely able to provide astute branding direction and simultaneously apply the business principles necessary to squeeze more bang out of every marketing buck.
Brant Baumann
Brant brings 20 years of experience to NewPoint as a chief brand communicator and marketing-plan contributor.
At the core of his skill set is an ability to hold an outside, investigative perspective on a business in a way that effectively uncovers and isolates that business’ true unique selling proposition—one upon which can be built a marketable brand that is compelling, creative and “sticky.”
Over his tenure, he’s applied these services to a broad and diverse range of business applications along the food supply-and-service chain—from the more conventional food and food equipment manufacturers to the more ancillary enterprises that partner with them, such as the Purdue University College of Agriculture.
Kristy Blair
Since starting her 20-year career in commercial graphic design at one of the foremost catalog retailers in the world, Kristy’s visual branding skills have organically narrowed into the food-industry niche.
In that time, she’s directed graphic identities for snack food and restaurant startups, print materials for multiple agricultural seed companies, display graphics and merchandiser signage for major food-equipment manufacturers and everything in between.
Today, as one of the key brand architects for NewPoint clients, she continues to lead our visual research & development team, always working to find the innovative median between the best practices worth honoring and the accepted rules worth breaking.