Tips on Selling Products to Grocery Stores

Guest post is provided by Food Trade Consultants, a consultation service offering seminars and packing of small orders to entrepreneurs in the food industry. Visit www.foodtradeconsultants.com for more information.

If you own a successful restaurant, you may be thinking about bringing in some extra cash by allowing customers to buy sauces and packaged foods in the grocery store. While they may be buying outside of your restaurant, selling food in a grocery store is a great form of marketing. It allows people to see and taste your product. The best thing about it is that they’re buying the advertising space, not you. Expanding your business by selling your product in stores can be the greatest investment you ever make as long as you know the ins and outs of the food trade industry.

Offering food in grocery stores can increase word-of-mouth marketing, as their dinner guests may ask where they got a particular sauce or meal from. Word-of-mouth marketing is considered the most difficult to earn, but most successful way to market any product. People trust their friends more than they trust an advertisement. And these dinner guests can get some sort of free trial from your recipe that someone else bought. Sounds pretty great doesn’t it?

Contacting a food trade consultant can help you along the way with selling your product in grocery stores. They can help you obtain a UPC code and make sure that your product is sold in compliance with FDA regulations. Be sure to sign a Non-disclosure and Service Agreement with any consulting or testing firm you decide to you. Intellectual property theft of trade secrets can happen to you if you are not careful to protect your recipe.