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So You Want to Start a Food Business...

Vinegar-based hot sauces with different flavors and levels of heat. Salvadoran corn tortilla pupusas stuffed until they are thick. Warm, healing, homemade soups delivered to your door. Fresh noodles made with local eggs and flour. A line of healthy and tasty superfood energy balls. Filipino barbeque.

While those might not seem to have anything in common at first glance, other than various levels of deliciousness, one thing they all share is that the food entrepreneur wanna-bes, from Clinton to Bridgeport, who want to sell those items, took part in the Food Business Accelerator.

The program is run as a partnership between to New Haven-based non-profits, CitySeed, which works toward building economic opportunity in the food system, and Collab, which supports entrepreneurs.

Caroline Smith, a Collab co-founder and co-director, says the food accelerator is a branch of a program CitySeed started with Sanctuary Kitchen, working with immigrant and refugee chefs.

“They noticed some of their chefs were interested and excited about starting their own business,” Smith says. “Two years ago, they started the pilot Food Business Food Accelerator, specifically for the Sanctuary Kitchen program. But, building off of that, they thought this kind of programming should be spread to any entrepreneur in greater New Haven and Connecticut. So they reached out to us.”

The expanded program is a 12-session training course that begins with identifying value propositions and customers, and ends with a pitch day. Applications for the third round of classes are due Thursday, Nov. 21, for classes that start in early January. Anyone interested in starting up a food business is welcome to apply.

Too Much?

Seth Wallace, a licensed nurse, and his husband, Kevin McGuire, knew they had a great idea. McGuire—an accomplished chef who is well known for his work at area restaurants including Caseus, Olmo, Ordinary, and now Hamilton Park—had become obsessed with Filipino barbecue.

“Before the accelerator, we knew we had delicious food. But that is not enough to launch a business. We knew that,” Wallace says.

The two of them discussed the possibility of applying to the accelerator, but Wallace was working two and sometimes three jobs, and McGuire had a demanding job as well.

“It felt like going out on a limb,” Wallace says. “We felt like, maybe it’s too much right now.”

While that may have been true, Wallace’s philosophy was this: Don’t be your own limiting factor.

So, they applied and were selected. Wallace was nervous before the first session. Scared, even. Would they be stuck in classes with a bunch of competitive, entrepreneurial Type A’s?

“But when we walked into the first information session, all we found was a bunch of friendly faces,” he says. “Caroline and Margaret [both from Collab]. And Amelia and Sumiya” [both from Sanctuary Kitchen].

Everyone in the class was tasked with giving a pitch.

“They covered the idea of a value proposition, as in ‘What value are you adding?’ We had never done that,” he says.

Wild Energy

“For the first time, we looked at someone, and said, ‘We are a Filipino barbecue start-up,’” he says.

The very act of uttering those words out loud, to a group, was powerful, he says.

“The energy in that room was wild. Everyone was in different places with their ideas. It was a really big reach for all of us,” he says.” And the support was tangible—for us as a queer and trans couple, for other folks who were of different races and different backgrounds and from different countries. There was an Arabic translator. There was a Spanish translator. There was childcare provided. We were talking barbeque. Vegan food. Talking about cooperative business models. Working with undocumented folks and supporting them. All these conversations were happening. Just in those introductions.”

McGuire and Wallace found that the more they learned and the more they talked about turning their obsession into a business, the more real it seemed.

“It’s one thing for us to cook it in our house,” he says. “It’s another thing to say it and have people hear us talking about it becoming a thing.”

As part of the class, the couple got their Serve Safe Certification, required to run a food business, and they were provided with other training, certification, and information. They also connected with mentors. Those relationships continue to sustain them.

“That is one of the things that was the most meaningful, the relationships,” he says. “Now I go down to the local farmers market and I see Ed [Eduardo Juan Delara-Alarcon] who sells his empañadas. I go to the fundraiser at the library, and I find it’s moderated by Eric [Rey], who’s running a soup delivery service with his brother. We are all still connected. In our community and on social media. Whenever I post an event, among the first responses and shares I get are from my teammates.”

Anyone Can Apply

Smith says anyone who has a food idea and at least some sense of how they want to proceed with it, should consider the program.

“Anyone can apply! We have an interest in a diverse cohort and a focus on individuals that have traditionally not had access to these kinds of resources,” she says.

Ventures can be early, early stage or more advanced. They can be full-time, or not. It’s nice if there is a specific revenue projection. But, if not, that’s OK.

“The way we try to gauge it is, essentially, would our programming be able to support them in the stage where they are?” she says. “We are looking for people who have formulated an idea and experienced some kind of validation. Maybe they want to start a food truck or a catering business. Maybe they have sold something or put on an event. Maybe they’ve done a catering gig. They should have some sort of inclination as to why this should work. Maybe they’ve gone to culinary school or worked in a restaurant. Or they cook in their home kitchen all of the time. We think about how we can elevate and respect all kinds of experiences, including lived experience.”

Once the group is selected, the program helps participants break down barriers to food entrepreneurship. Those barriers traditionally include childcare, transportation, and the need for translation services. Smith says the program is designed to address all of those, since they come up so often.

“We provide childcare. We provide transportation. We provide translators. We’ve talked with a bunch of entrepreneurs who said those were the barriers. ‘I have a kid.’ ‘It’s not in my language.’ ‘I can’t get there.’ We also decided to make it at night in the middle of the week. If we offer it at noon on a Friday, that can be difficult for people working one or two jobs,” she says.

The program also is designed to overcome psychological barriers.

‘Not me.’ Yes, You

“We’ve heard a lot of our entrepreneurs say something like ‘The word entrepreneur doesn’t belong to me.’ They think an entrepreneur is Steve Jobs or Elon Musk. But, ‘not me.’ Really, at its core, this is a leadership development program, where we can help them identify those limiting beliefs and low expectations, particularly the ones that social injustice can perpetuate,” she says. “We have conversations about how race and gender intersect. We leave space for people to talk, not just about whether they made a sale that day, but about ‘I had a weird conversation and I’m not sure how I feel about it.’”

Smith says those conversations sometimes feel the most critical.

“In the end, it affects how we measure success,” she says. “Of course, we measure it in traditional ways, including revenue created and jobs created. But we also measure it in competence acquired and connections made. And that is accomplished by addressing those psychological barriers.”

Successful entrepreneurs are the ones who excel when it comes to teamwork, experience, a unique value proposition, an understanding of the competition, and access to resources, she says.

So far, she’s thrilled with the ideas and plans that have come of the program. One food entrepreneur from Clinton is hoping to sell delicious superfood energy balls.

“She was having a hard time finding snacks she liked that were both delicious and gave her energy, given her dietary limitations. So she started creating these. She loved them. The kids loved them. Now her goal is start selling them,” Smith says. “She was part of a market showplace, and she got great reviews there. She uses really high-quality ingredients.”

Smith says another example the New Haven-based soup subscription business being run by Eric Rey and Alejandro Pabon-Rey.

“They just got all licensed up. It started as just an idea, and now they are selling the soup,” she says. “

She also loves Kawit!, the Filipino barbeque business being launched by Wallace and McGuire.

Next Steps

Wallace says the name of the business comes from the city in the Philipines where McGuire’s family comes from. He says McGuire learned to cook in the U.S. Navy and has been cooking ever since. Their work so far has been focused on pop-up events, catering, and other one-offs. While working on these, they’ve shared their expertise, for example, about how to run a pop-up that will have people lined up outside the door. And they received help from their teammates in return.

“Dave [Bonet] from Dave’s Angry Sauce—he’s great. We were at a fundraiser for CitySeed together and Dave sat there and taught me how to do Instagram stories. We support each other in so many ways. Especially in such a small community like New Haven, it really makes a difference,” he says.

After a series of successful events, they are taking a break right now and assessing next steps. They’d like to open a brick and mortar operation, but are going to do so only if the logistics makes sense. Fortunately, they have a better understanding of those logistics after attending the accelerator.

“Our next event is scheduled for January. It’ll be at Ordinary downtown. And we are expecting a full calendar of events next year,” he says. “But I can’t emphasize enough that the Food Accelerator was what took us to the next level. We would not be where we are right now if not for that program, in terms of what it did for us and how it got the community ready for us.”

He encourages others to apply.

“No matter what your idea, they will see you were you are and walk you through to next steps. Articulating. Organizing. Planning,” he says. “These are crucial life skills, even if you don’t end up opening a business.”

Smith adds that Collab and CitySeed could not do what they’re doing without the help of their community, which includes a wide range of supporters and collaborators such as the International Association of New Haven, Liberty Bank, The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, Yale Law School’s Community & Economic Development Clinic, mActivity, Legal Food Hub, and others.

“We are so excited to do the program again. If, when people look at the application, they’re overwhelmed, that’s OK, and they should get in touch with us. That’s really normal. We don’t want that to stand in the way,” she says. “We host office hours and we can meet people one on one and go through the application. They can send us drafts. We want to be as supportive as we can. We don’t want the process to be intimidating.”

Want to start a food business? Visit cityseed.org/food-business-accelerator for more information and for the application to the accelerator program. The deadline is Thursday, Nov. 21. For more information about Kawit! visit www.kawitfood.com. For more information about Sopa! visit www.sopanewhaven.com.