How do I get my products into grocery stores and restaurants?

As a farmer or value-added food producer, you might be thinking about expanding your food business by selling to grocery stores, wholesalers, foodservice institutions, or restaurants, but you probably aren't sure how exactly to go about doing that. As I've stressed before, do your research! Below are some things to consider:
1. packaging
2. pricing
3. delivery
4. invoicing
5. quality assurance

To help food producers develop a plan to address the above issues (including many more important issues) and enter the foodservice market, Penn State will be holding MarketReady classes in April, 2012 in Allegheny and Chester counties. MarketReady is a program developed by the University of Kentucky that addresses the market development risks and relationships small farmers, ranchers, and value-added food producers must manage as they seek to develop relationships with restaurants, grocery, wholesale, and foodservice buyers.



To learn more about the classes and to sign up, please click here.

As an ag entrepreneur, how easy or hard was it to sell to the foodservice industry? Do you have any tips?