How To Start A Healthy Snack Food Business

Updated: January 18th, 2023

How To Start A Healthy Snack Food Business

When it comes to starting a healthy snack food business, you may find yourself in a place where you have to make some big decisions.

You may be asking yourself:

  • What's the first step in establishing my business?
  • How much will it cost to start my healthy snack food business?
  • How do I price my healthy snack food business?
  • How do I market my healthy snack food business?
  • ... so much more!

We walk you through all of the steps; from idea → starting → launching → growing → running your business.

The purpose of this guide is to act as an outline for the steps you'll need to take to get your business running successfully!

💡 Introduction To Starting A Healthy Snack Food Business

Is the healthy snack food business for you?

There are quite a few factors to consider when starting a healthy snack food business.

Let's look at the pros and cons of starting your healthy snacks:

Pros:

  • Flexibility One of the biggest advantages of starting a healthy snack food business is that you can either offer part-time or full-time services. If you like the work and have some initial experience, you can start small and manage all aspects of the business on your own. Or, if you prefer to manage the books and instead delegate the kitchen work to someone else, you can build and manage your own team to do so.
  • Ability to start your business from home: It's not necessary to have an office space to get your business started! You can do everything from the comfort of your own home, at least in the beginning!
  • Rewarding work: If you're someone that truly enjoys the art of food + bringing joy to people's lives through food, starting a healthy snack food business can be really fun and rewarding.

Cons:

  • Food prep + delivery logistics can be challenging: If you plan to source local, fresh, organic ingredients, you need to stay on top of the inventory process.
  • High overhead costs: You will need to anticipate high overhead costs in order to acquire the right supplies + food to get your healthy snack food business off the ground.
  • Crowded space: There is a lot of competition when it comes to healthy snacks, so it's important that you spend a good amount of time analyzing the market and demand in your area.

Search Interest

Let's take a look at the search trends for healthy snacks over the last year:

How To Name Your Healthy Snack Food Business

It's important to find a catchy name for your healthy snack food business so that you can stand out in your space.

Here are some general tips to consider when naming your healthy snack food business

  • Avoid hard to spell names: you want something easy to remember and easy to spell for your customers
  • Conduct a search to see if others in the space have the same name
  • Try not to pick a name that limits growth opportunities for your business (ie. if you decide to expand into other product lines)
  • As soon as you have an idea (or ideas) of a few names that you love, register the domain name(s) as soon as possible!

Why is naming your healthy snack food business so important?

The name of your business will forever play a role in:

  • Your customers first impression
  • Your businesses identity
  • The power behind the type of customer your brand attracts
  • If you're memorable or not

It's important to verify that the domain name is available for your healthy snack food business.

You can search domain availability here:

Find a domain starting at $0.88

powered by Namecheap

Although .com names are the most common and easiest to remember, there are other options if your .com domain name is not available. Depending on your audience, it may not matter as much as you think.

It's also important to thoroughly check if social media handles are available.

As soon as you resonate with a name (or names), secure the domain and SM handles as soon as possible to ensure they don't get taken.

Here's some inspiration for naming your healthy snack food business:

  • Foodbes check availability
  • Cubed Food check availability
  • Rubicon Snacks check availability
  • Snackszilla check availability
  • Nest Snacks check availability
  • Baconic Corner check availability
  • Intelligence Food check availability
  • Snacksarc check availability
  • Earth’s Bounty check availability
  • Developed Snacks check availability
  • Healthynetic check availability
  • Taste Buds check availability
  • Agile Snacks check availability
  • Foodlytical check availability
  • Power Snacks check availability
  • Activator Healthy check availability
  • Snacksgenics check availability
  • Spire Healthy check availability
  • Pure Food check availability
  • Healthyaro check availability
  • Catered Care check availability
  • Port Food check availability
  • Reactor Snacks check availability
  • Sea Vegan check availability
  • Wise Healthy check availability
  • Food City check availability
  • Real Foods check availability
  • Soft Healthy check availability
  • Sprint Snacks check availability
  • Citizen Fast Food check availability
  • Healthy Click check availability
  • Healthyhut check availability
  • Foodgenix check availability
  • Pinnacle Food check availability
  • Pasta Street check availability
  • Vice Food check availability
  • Transition Food check availability
  • Tiny Tarts check availability
  • Obelisk Food check availability
  • Foodtastic check availability
  • Beacon Food check availability
  • Task Food check availability
  • Snacksoryx check availability
  • Good Clean Chow check availability
  • Cubed Snacks check availability
  • Street Food Stuff check availability
  • Globe Healthy check availability
  • Fooddo check availability
  • Freeze Healthy check availability
  • Curious About Green check availability
  • Smart Snacks check availability
  • Venture Snacks check availability
  • Byte Snacks check availability
  • Pursuit Snacks check availability
  • Healthylia check availability
  • Snackslia check availability
  • Eat Simple check availability
  • Eat Pretty Food check availability
  • Foodoryx check availability
  • Foodbia check availability
  • Quick Sneaking check availability
  • Healthyiva check availability
  • Up Healthy check availability
  • Snacksoont check availability
  • Arrange Healthy check availability
  • Cut the Wheat check availability
  • Ware Healthy check availability
  • Wise Food check availability
  • Fast and Fresh check availability
  • Controller Snacks check availability
  • Syndicate Healthy check availability
  • Health Dash check availability
  • Green Spice check availability
  • Snackscog check availability
  • Tacos Parked check availability
  • Plan Food check availability
  • Frozen Gourmet Pro check availability
  • AfterschoolSnack check availability
  • Nutrition Spot check availability
  • Frozen Feeding check availability
  • Fast Fresh check availability
  • Inexpensive Bite check availability
  • SurplusFood check availability
  • The Vigorous check availability
  • The Healthful check availability
  • Safety Co check availability
  • The Excellent check availability
  • The Fresh check availability
  • SugarySnack check availability
  • DentalHealth check availability
  • Term Medical check availability
  • Nutritional Lunch Spot check availability
  • EnergySnack check availability
  • The Little check availability
  • Healthy Nutrition Co check availability
  • The Psychic check availability
  • The Traditional check availability
  • Cold Grocery Pro check availability
  • The Suitable Meal check availability
  • Afterschool Bite Collective check availability
  • CheapFood check availability
  • Night Biscuit check availability
  • Weak Wellness Co check availability
  • Frozen Fuel check availability
  • The Cheap check availability
  • Sugary Smoothie check availability
  • The Optimal check availability
  • Day Collation check availability
  • Healthcare Group check availability
  • Foodstuffs Collective check availability
  • Feeble check availability
  • Nourishing Nutrition Co check availability
  • Foodstuffs Place check availability
  • Mere check availability
  • Human Medical Place check availability
  • Traditional Biscuit Trading Co check availability
  • Favourite check availability
  • The Behavioral check availability
  • Bite Trading Co check availability
  • ReproductiveHealth check availability
  • Grocery Spot check availability
  • PoorFood check availability
  • Nosh Place check availability
  • Substantial Stand check availability
  • Nutritional Healthcare Collective check availability

Read our full guide on naming your healthy snack food business ➜

Case Study

Spyq Sklar, founder of Cat Sushi explains exactly how they came up with their business name:

My name is Spyq and I am a co-creator of Cat Sushi.

Cat Sushi is a flaky, tuna based treat that cats love. It is our flagship product that eventually led to us forming our current company Presidio Natural Pet Company, where we design and manufacture ultra-premium, natural, and healthy food products for pets.

One of our loyal customers actually came up with the name. We still give them free cat food.

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Spyq Sklar, on starting Cat Sushi ($30,000/month) full story ➜

Players

Big Players

Small Players

Learn more about starting a healthy snack food business:

Where to start?

-> Healthy snack food business plan
-> How to finance a healthy snack food business?
-> How much does it cost to start a healthy snack food business?
-> Pros and cons of a healthy snack food business
-> How to get clients for a healthy snack food business?

Need inspiration?

-> Other healthy snack food business success stories
-> Examples of established healthy snack food business
-> Marketing ideas for a healthy snack food business
-> Healthy snack food business slogans
-> Healthy snack food business names
-> Healthy snack food business Instagram bios

Other resources

-> Profitability of a healthy snack food business
-> Healthy snack food business tips

🎬 How To Start A Healthy Snack Food Business

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How Much Does It Cost To Start A Healthy Snack Food Business

If you are planning to start a healthy snack food business, the costs are relatively low. This, of course, depends on if you decide to start the business with lean expenses or bringing in a large team and spending more money.

We’ve outlined two common scenarios for “pre-opening” costs of starting a healthy snack food business and outline the costs you should expect for each:

  • The estimated minimum starting cost = $12
  • The estimated maximum starting cost = $27,209
Startup Expenses: Average expenses incurred when starting a healthy snack food business. Min Startup Costs: You plan to execute on your own. You’re able to work from home with minimal costs. Max Startup Costs: You have started with 1+ other team members.
Office Space Expenses
Rent: This refers to the office space you use for your business and give money to the landlord. To minimize costs, you may want to consider starting your business from home or renting an office in a coworking space. $0 $5,750
Utility Costs For Office Space: Utility costs are the expense for all the services you use in your office, including electricity, gas, fuels, telephone, water, sewerage, etc. $0 $1,150
WiFi & Internet: Whether you work from home or in an office space, WiFi is essential. Although the cost is minimal in most cases, it should be appropriately budgeted for each month! $0 $100
Total Office Space Expenses $0 (min) $7,000 (max)
Inventory Expenses
Upfront Costs For Inventory: This includes all upfront inventory you will need in order to launch. Be sure to compare prices of wholesalers to ensure you're getting the best deal and margins remain high. $300 $5,000
Inventory Storage: If you decide to have a physical space for your healthy snack food business, whether it be used for inventory or as a showroom, you may have monthly rent payment or a large down payment associated with renting/buying the space. $0 $5,000
Package Design: Packaging refers to wrapping and protecting products during distribution, shipping, and sales.Your package design is your customer's first impression of your brand, so it's important you spend some time and energy to get this right from the start.Many businesses design their own packages using design software and tools. There is always the option to outsource this to a design expert, but that route tends to be much more expensive. $50 $3,000
Shrinkage: Shrinkage refers to the loss of inventory at any point between the purchase from your supplier and the purchase by your customer. Although you will try to avoid this at all costs, this does happen sometimes (especially in the learning stages of your business), and it's important to plan ahead financially in case this happens. Fortune states that retail shrinkage costs U.S. retailers approximately 1.4 percent of their total sales. $0 $1,000
Distribution costs: Depending on what distribution plan you choose, expenses such as renting vans, hiring delivery drivers and gas costs can add up. If you are looking to save money upfront, you may want to consider conducting distribution on your own. $0 $750
Total Inventory Expenses $350 (min) $14,750 (max)
Software Expenses
Design Programs & Software: These programs might include the Adobe family of design tools: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and others. This is typically a monthly subscription ranging from $10-$50/mo. $0 $50
Email marketing tool: If you plan to grow your email list and email marketing efforts, you may want to consider investing in an email marketing platform (ie. Klaviyo, MailChimp). We put together a detailed guide on all of the email marketing tools out there + the pricing models for each one here. $0 $100
IT Support: IT support installs and configures hardware and software and solves any technical issues that may arise.IT support can be used internally or for your customers experiencing issues with your product/service.There are a variety of tools and software you can use to help with any technical issues you or your customers are experiencing. This is a great option for businesses that do not have the means to hire a team of professionals. $150 $2,000
Accounting & Invoicing Software: It's important to have an accounting system and process in place to manage financials, reporting, planning and tax preparation. Here are the 30 best accounting tools for small businesses. $0 $50
Project Management Software: You may want to consider using a project management and collaboration tool to organize your day-to-day. This can also be very beneficial if you have a larger team and want to keep track of everyones tasks and productivity. For a full list of project management tools, check out this full list here. $0 $25
Internal Communication Tool: If you plan to have multiple members on your team, you may want to consider an instant message tool such as Slack or Telegram. The cost is usually billed per month (approx $5/user/month) or there are freemium versions available on many platforms. $0 $20
Social Media Management Tools: If you plan to do social media marketing for your healthy snack food business, you should consider investing in a social media automation or publishing tool. This will save you time and allow you to track performance and engagement for your posts. Here is a list of 28 best social media tools for your small business. $0 $50
Payroll Software: The main purpose of payroll software is to help you pay your team and track each of those payments (so that you don't have to do it manually). If you do not have any employees or have a very small team, payroll software may not be necessary at this stage. Here are the 11 best payroll tools for small businesses! $0 $200
File Hosting Service: It's important to make sure the information for your healthy snack food business is stored and protected should something happen to your computer or hard drive. The cost for this is affordable and depends on how much data you need to store. To learn more about the different options and pricing on the market, check out this article. $0 $299
Total Software Expenses $150 (min) $2,794 (max)
Website Costs
Domain Name: Your domain name is the URL and name of your website - this is how internet users find you and your website.Domain names are extremely important and should match your company name and brand. This makes it easier for customers to remember you and return to your website. $12 $200
Business Email Hosting Service: An email hosting runs a dedicated email server. Once you have your domain name, you can set up email accounts for each user on your team. The most common email hosts are G Suite and Microsoft 365 Suite. The number of email accounts you set up will determine the monthly cost breakdown. $1 $15
Total Website Costs $13 (min) $215 (max)
Advertising & Marketing Costs
Customer Research & Surveys: Many healthy snack food business's conduct industry and consumer research prior to starting their business. Often times, you need to pay for this data or hire a market research firm to help you in this process. $0 $300
Affiliate Marketing Commission & Fees: If you want to increase revenue for your healthy snack food business, affiliate marketing is a great way to promote your product to a new audience. When determining affiliate commission rates you will offer, you will want to take into account the price and margin for your product to ensure affiliate marketing is worth it for your business. According to Monitor Backlinks, the average affiliate commission rate should be somewhere between 5% to 30%. To learn more about how to set commission rates, check out this article.. $0 $250
Influencer Marketing: Partnering with like-minded influencers is one of the most effective ways to grow your social media presence. Many small businesses simply gift a free item in exchange for an influencer post, or pay the influencer directly. $0 $750
Press: If your business and story is unique enough, press and media attention may come to you, but odds are, you may need to do your own outreach and budget for this. We put together a guide here that discusses different press opportunities (both free and paid). $0 $500
Google Ads: With Google Ads you have the ability to control how much you spend by simply setting a monthly budget cap. Additionally, with these ads you only pay for results, such as clicks to your website or phone calls! It's okay to start with a small budget at first and make changes accordingly if you see valuable returns. $0 $300
Facebook & Instagram Ads: With Facebook and Instagram ads, you set your budget and pay for the actions you want (whether that be impressions, conversions, etc).You can learn more about pricing based on your impressions here. $0 $350
Total Advertising & Marketing Costs $0 (min) $2,450 (max)
Total Starting Costs $12 (min) $27,209 (max)

Raising Money

Since the startup costs to start healthy snack food business range between $12 - $27,209, there are ways you can raise money to cover these costs.

Here are a few ways you can secure additional funding:

Case Study

Crowdfunding Campaign Example: Sat Nam Babe

I used iFundWomen to launch my company with a crowdfunding campaign, raising approximately 70% of what I needed to launch my business.

Crowdfunding is an excellent way to raise capital and test your market in a controlled and safe environment (aka friends and family) without draining your savings.

I raised about 40% of my goal within the first 48 hours because I was prepared, promoted heavily and had 100% of my energy in the game.

I can’t recommend this avenue enough because since most companies fail, why would you want to drain your savings or take out a bank loan when you can get early buy-in, early-stage customers and early feedback through crowdfunding?

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Jennifer Coulombe , on starting Sat Nam babe ($500/month) full story ➜

Licenses and Permits

When starting a healthy snack food business, it's important to identify the type of space that you will be preparing your products.

MVP stage

Before launch, you may want to consider preparing products in your own kitchen (or a friend) to test different recipes and processes so that you can ensure everything is in place once you launch.

In this stage, as long as you are not selling products- the experimental phase can be done in the comfort of your own home without a heal department to approve the kitchen.

Health Department Approval

Once you're ready to launch the business, there are a few boxes to check in order to ensure you are health & safety approved.

The most common question is whether you can operate a healthy snack food business from home or if you need to rent a kitchen facility to prepare and make your product.

As long as you are FDA approved, you have the ability to operate out of your own kitchen. However, you may need the proper equipment in order to make that happen, and a commercial kitchen facility may be better suited for you.

For a full list of FDA requirements to get your food business set up, read more ➡️ here.

Case Study

Michael Martinez, founder of Eat Clean LLC explains his experience renting a commercial facility:

The business was started with three of my long-time friends and just $3,000 (which was all that I had in my savings account at the time). That money was used for kitchen hours in a commercial kitchen, food and our original website.

By our third month, we were delivering to over 100 customers each week and we then had to lease a space and build our own kitchen. Initially, our customer base was family, friends, local gyms, and sports teams.

The space we leased was a pizza restaurant that we had to tear down and build it to our requirements. Later on, we then leased the two locations next to us for additional space to prepare our meals.

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Michael Martinez, on starting Eat Clean LLC ($300,000/month) full story ➜

Determine Which Business Bank Account You Need

There are hundreds of banks out there, and it can be overwhelming to find one that's right for your business.

Here are some factors you may want to consider:

  • Location - Is your bank close enough that you can easily make deposits or get cash?
  • Low Fees - Make sure to understand any and all fees associated with setting up and maintaining your bank account. Ask for a list - banks usually try to keep this hidden and in the fine print.
  • Online Banking Services - Make sure you can easily navigate through your online portal and you have easy access to everything you need.
  • Line of Credit - What do your options look like (even if you don't need this now, you may need this down the road).
  • Every bank has something that differentiates them from the rest, so make sure whatever that is applied to your needs and values.

Check out this list of the 13 Best Banks for Small Business in 2020 and what makes them so unique.

When it comes to setting up your business, you may find yourself in a place where you have to make some financial and legal decisions.

The first thing you'll want to decide on is whether you want to be an LLC, S-Corp, or C-Corp.

These three options are found to be the most common when starting a small business, and all serve to protect your personal assets and also provide you with certain tax benefits.

  • LLC: All income and expenses from the business are reported on the LLC personal income tax return.
  • S corp: Owners pay themselves salaries + receive dividends from profits.
  • C Corp: C Corps are separately taxable entities that file a corporate tax return (Form 1120). No income tax is paid at the corporate level and any tax due is paid at the owners individual expense.

Depending on where you're conducting business, you'll also want to consider securing the proper permits, licenses and liability insurance.

Learn more about securing the right permits and licenses ➜

Need to start an LLC? Create an LLC in minutes with ZenBusiness.

Write a Business Plan

Writing a business plan from the start is critical for the success of your healthy snack food business.

Why?

Because this allows you to roadmap exactly what you do, what your overall structure will look like, and where you want to be in the future.

For many entrepreneurs, writing out the business plan helps validate their idea and decide whether or not they should move forward with starting the business.

You may want to consider expanding upon these sections in your business plan:

  • Executive Summary: Brief outline of your product, the market, and growth opportunities
  • Overviews and Objectives: Overview of your business, target customers, and what you need to run your business
  • Products and Services: Specifics on the products and services your business will provide
  • Market Opportunities: Analysis of customer demographics, buyer habits and if your product is in demand
  • Marketing: Outline of your marketing plan and how you plan to differentiate yourself from other customers
  • Competitive analysis: Analysis of your competition and the strengths and weaknesses therein
  • Operations: Hierarchal structure of the company and what it will take to run the business on the day-to-day
  • Leadership Team: Detailing roles and responsibilities of each manager based on their specific skill-set
  • Financial Analysis Understanding of all expenses, operating budgets, and projections for the future.

Learn more about how to write a business plan here

Revenue Expectations

We've interviewed several different founders in the healthy snack food business and asked them how much $ they're making today.

ABS Protein Pancakes

  • $300K/year in revenue
  • Sells healthy breakfast foods
  • Solo founder
  • 1 employee

Holmes Mouthwatering

  • $1.2M/year in revenue
  • Sells elevated, homestyle applesauce!
  • Solo founder
  • 3 employees

CandyCan

  • $180K/year in revenue
  • Sells functional keto candy!
  • 2 founders
  • 2 employees

Neuro

  • $6M/year in revenue
  • Sells functional gum and mints
  • 2 founders
  • 12 employees

Natura Wellness

  • $1.8M/year in revenue
  • Sells healthy drinks
  • Solo founder
  • 8 employees

Funky Fat Foods

  • $240K/year in revenue
  • Sells nutritious snacks
  • Solo founder
  • 1 employee

How To Find A Supplier For Your Healthy Snack Food Business

Here are the steps to consider when finding a supplier:

Know your product

One very critical step to finding the right supplier is having an initial idea of what your product will look (and taste) like.

Sketching is one of the most simple ways to get started in the design phase.

What's great about sketching is that you can practically do this anytime, anywhere - even on the back of a napkin.

You can also experiment and test out your own recipes just to gauge an idea of what you want your product to look/taste like.

Decide your supplier type

You'll want to identify the type of supplier you are looking for.

Here are some questions you may want to ask yourself prior to searching for a supplier

  • Are you looking for a manufacturer to produce your product idea?
  • Do you want to find a supplier that can simply purchase existing products for you?
  • Do you want a drop-shipper to supply and fulfill orders?
  • Do you want a domestic supplier or an overseas supplier? Read more about the pros and cons of each here

A great place to start is by simply searching in google for healthy snacks suppliers.

Manufacturing Your Product In House

It's also very common to manufacture your healthy snacks on your own - either from your home or in a commercial space.

In order to get the product right, you may want to consider experimenting with different designs and recipes until you find the perfect one.

Some founders choose to manufacture their product in-house so that they can control quality, manage costs, and easily handle production/logistics.

Down the road, you can always choose to outsource your healthy snacks.

How To Price Your Healthy Snacks

One of the most challenging aspects to starting a healthy snack food business is determining how much to charge for your healthy snacks.

When businesses under-price their product, this can be extremely detrimental to their bottom line and reputation.

Often times, businesses under-price their products to drive demand and volume, but that last thing you want is for customers to view your product/service as "cheap." Additionally, this can have a big impact on the type of customer you attract, which can be difficult to recover from.

On the other hand, when businesses over-price, this tends to be just as damaging to the business.

When customers buy, it's likely that they will explore the internet and look at other competitors to ensure they're getting the best value + deal. This is why it's so important that you research your competition and understand where you land in the marketplace.

Here are some factors to consider when pricing your product:

Understand your customer

It's important that out of the gates, you identify the type of customer you want to attract and how much they're willing to pay for your service. One great way to do this is by surveying your customers. Here are some important items you'll want to takeaway:

  • Customer demographic: Age, gender, location, etc.
  • Buying habits of your customer: What they buy + when they buy
  • Level of price sensitivity with your customer

All of these segments will help you identify the type of customer you're attracting and how to price your product accordingly.

Understand your costs

When pricing your healthy snacks, it's critical that you first identify all of your costs and consequently mark up your healthy snacks so you can factor in a profit.

The actual cost of your healthy snacks may include things like:

  • The actual cost to make the product (ie. raw materials, supplies, manufacturer).
  • Shipping + overhead fees
  • Rent
  • Operating costs to run your business

You may want to consider creating a spreadsheet with every single expense involved in operating/owning your business. This will give you an idea as to what you need to generate in order to at the very least, break-even and will help you price your products to factor in a profit.

Create revenue goals

When determining the price of your healthy snacks, you'll want to create goals for revenue + how much profit you want your healthy snack food business to make.

This process is simpler than you may think:

  1. Think about your breakeven cost (by completing the above step).
  2. Create a revenue goal based on your break-even cost
  3. Evaluate the # of items you plan to sell in a given period (make sure this is a realistic number)
  4. Divide your revenue goal by the number of items you plan to sell

This figure will help determine your estimated price per product in order to meet your revenue goals.

Evaluate your competition

The last piece in determining how to price your healthy snacks is by simply looking at your competition.

The best way to do this is by finding like-minded businesses that offer product(s) with similar perceived value. Then, you can compare prices of the different businesses and determine where your healthy snacks fits best in the marketplace.

All of these factors play an equal part in pricing your healthy snacks, so it's important you evaluate each one individually to come up with an accurate price that will help optimize your business from the start.

Case Study

Lauren Costanza, founder of Bluminary provides us with a detailed spreadsheet of all of her costs associated with running her business:

I knew this would be a self-funded adventure, and I set aside $3,000. During the first three months, I had a detailed spreadsheet where I tracked where the money was going and what was going toward products versus researching and developing new products.

The spreadsheets involved columns and rows of numbers to craft a budget and gain an understanding of how much would need to be invested at each stage of the process - from gathering supplies to building a website, and shipping materials.

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Lauren Costanza, on starting Bluminary ($500/month) full story ➜

🚀 How To Launch Your Healthy Snack Food Business

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Build A Website

Building a website is imperative when launching your business, and with the right tools in place, this can be a simple task to check off the list (without having to hire someone).

  1. Pick a domain name that's easy to remember and easy to type
  2. Choose a Web Hosting Plan (ie. Shopify, Squarespace)
  3. Make sure you choose the right theme and design
  4. Implement the proper page structure (ie. about page, contact page, pricing etc)

To learn more about how to build a stellar website with little stress, we give you all the details on this step-by-step guide.

Case Study

Founder, Marc Debnam on recommending Shopify

The best move we did was to switch to the Shopify platform in 2016. Everything became simple.

Shopify is an easy to use software with great add-on apps so you can build your ecommerce business exactly how you like it.

And it intergrates with our accounting and logistics platforms. Xero, Auspost, DHL. As well as most sales and marketing channels.

It freed up so much time working in the business, allowing us time to focus on growth and brand awareness.

With my basic technical skills, I built a great site. The one we still have. I experiment with apps that just plug in and if they add that’s great if they don’t we move on.

-  
Marc Debnam, on starting Stonemen ($80,000/month) full story ➜

Traditional Launch Strategies For Your Healthy Snack Food Business:

There are various different ways you can launch your healthy snack food business successfully.

Here are a few different strategies to get customers excited about your healthy snack food business:

  • Set up a Facebook page for your business. This is a great way to establish an online presence
  • Host an event in a fun location with drinks & food. This is a great way to get exposure in the local community.
  • Get Press! Pitch your story to the media and you may just land in an amazing publication
  • Live sales to get customers excited
  • Send a hand-written letter in the mail with a discount on your services to the local community/neighborhoods.
Case Study

Cameron Manesh, founder of Cameron's Seafood was able to land in the New York Times just by sending a cold email:

I started calling all the large newspapers pitching their food critics, their startup business writers and even pitched the angle of immigrant-run companies.

My first hit was with the New York Times. "I googled “New York Times Food" and learned Florence Fabricant was their critic. I then googled “Florence Fabricant email” and asked her to sample our food.”

I read she is a stern critic so we were worried but to our surprise she loved the food and when the article came out we did close to $40,000 in sales in three days and could barely handle the volume. That was an intense week but made it happen.

To read the exact email we sent to get in the NY Times, check out the full story ➡️ here

To contact the press, I recommend:

  • Targeting macro press (i.e. USA Today).
  • Google indirect competitors or vertical companies (ie. Hello Fresh) to see who wrote their articles
  • Google the writers contact info and send an email introducing company
  • Offer samples, be personal, discuss your food, follow up!

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Cameron Manesh, on starting Cameron's Seafood ($300,000/month) full story ➜

Make Sure You Get The Package Design Right

The way you package your healthy snack food business is often the first impression your customer has - so it's important to get it right.

You may want to ask yourself these questions:

If my product is on a shelf next to hundreds of other similar products:

  • Will my healthy snack food business stand out?
  • Will the branding/packaging create a connection with my customer, and hence, lead them to buy?

There are hundreds of tools you can use to help with packaging and design:

  • Canva - Allows non-designers to create beautiful Instagram/Pinterest posts, flyers, business cards, etc.
  • Stickermule - High quality custom stickers you can include on or in your packaging.
  • Noissue - Custom tissue paper and compostable mailers
  • Rollo Label Printer - A great tool to print all shipping labels at home
Case Study

Packaging and Design Example

Louisa Bakker, founder of Funky Fat Foods altered the packaging of her product based on a customer review:

We received feedback that the taste, packaging, and branding were all things that could be improved.

We have this memorable moment where I sent the MVP bars to this lovely famous keto couple called Keto Connect, hoping to receive their honest feedback by email.

Little did I know that their review would be uploaded on their Youtube channel (last year among their 400k subscribers now its doubled). It went viral, but they weren’t impressed with the product.

In the end, I want to create the best high-fat snacks. I want people to enjoy their active life eating good food. All the feedback, good and bad, served as extra energy to take back to R&D, improve the product, and, at the same time, rethink the overall strategy.

The evolution of our labels:

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A before and after shot of our packaging.

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Louisa Mesquita Bakker, on starting Funky Fat Foods ($20,000/month) full story ➜

Consider Selling On Amazon

In addition to selling your products directly on your site, you may want to consider selling on Amazon to reach a wider audience and attract new customers.

Here are some pros and cons of selling on amazon:

Pros

  • Easy and seamless process to get your product listed on Amazon
  • There are roughly 100 million thoroughly committed prime customers, so you're bound to tap into new business
  • Can help grow your business exponentially and reach new audiences

Cons

  • You may encounter some "copycats" and counterfeit products
  • Amazon owns the relationship with the customer (you lose control over product reviews + customer service)
  • If you already have a low-markup, amazon may not wrth your while and you could end up losing money
  • Commissions and listing fees are high - it's easy to lose control of your offering

Follow these instructions to get your product listed on Amazon or check out the video below on how to get started:

Case Study

Selling On Amazon: Sheath Example

Amazon has also been a great platform for us to gain new customers as well as offering options to our existing customers who take advantage of Amazon prime.

The annual growth in Amazon sales is less noticeable, however, as we have much less control over it compared to our other sales channels.

In fact, our Amazon growth has been relatively stagnant the past few years, but we are actively developing new methods to rectify that.

We hope to one day have amazon rivaling sheathunderwear.com in sales, the current goal being $1 million sales monthly on each platform.

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Robert Patton, on starting SHEATH LLC ($300,000/month) full story ➜

🌱 How To Grow Your Healthy Snack Food Business

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Build A Blog

One of the most effective ways to build brand awareness and grow your business is through consistently blogging.

We've outlined some useful tips for you to consider when creating content:

Consistency and Quantity

Quality is important, but it should be the standard for any content you publish.

What’s more important is consistency and quantity.

Consistency is as simple as committing to publishing and sharing a certain number of posts per week. For me, that’s three per week right now.

This kind of commitment is key, because one day, a random post will blow up, and you will have never expected it.

Oversaturation

The easiest mind trap is to think "I’m posting too much", and “I need to give my readers/audience/this platform a break”.

This is nonsense.

There is no such thing as oversaturation. Well, there is, but it is just someone else’s opinion.

For every person that tells you you are posting too much, there is another person that wants even more of your content.

You should ignore people’s opinions on how much you post.

Patience & Persistence

Keep posting, keep trying, and keep putting out good content on the regular. Your time will come, and when it does, it will change everything.

The only thing you have control over is your content.

You can’t control how people will react to it. You can’t control pageviews, likes, or shares.

So the only metric you should focus on is how much content you can put out in a week, month, etc.

Where to share your blog content

Mailing List

I know it sounds obvious, but the best places to share your content is on your mailing list. It is guaranteed traffic and it is a great way to get rapid feedback from your most loyal readers.

Send newsletters often. I have done once a week since starting, and I’m moving to twice a week soon.

Work on increasing your mailing list as well. Look into ways to increase your conversion rate to your mailing list. I added a flyout popup thing to my site and now I’m collecting ~30 emails per day.

An email newsletter is one of the most powerful assets you can have and it is worth its weight in gold.

Reddit

Reddit is one of my favorite places to promote content.

It is a very scary place because you will often get banned or heckled, but it can really pay off.

Create social media accounts for your blog, the main ones I use:

Twitter Facebook Instagram LinkedIn

Set up Buffer and share all of your blog posts to all of your accounts. All of these little shares really do add up.

Automate this as much as possible. I automated all of my social media for Starter Story.

Facebook Groups

When I started out, I put together a spreadsheet of relevant Facebook groups for my niche, and I would post to these groups whenever I had a big story I wanted to share.

Add an exit-intent popup to your online store

A great way to double, or even triple, your email opt-in rate and to grow your list is to add an exit-intent popup to your site, and offering a discount or content upgrade for subscribers.

Here's an example of what that might look like:

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Case Study

One thing that I spent years NOT doing, that I now kick myself about, is adding an "exit intent pop-up" to our site, which lets people enter a sweepstakes to win a Xero Shoes gift certificate.

That one idea has added over 100,000 subscribers to our email list, which is one of our most effective marketing channels.

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Steven Sashen, on starting Xero Shoes ($4,000,000/month) full story ➜

Improve Your Email Marketing

Different types of emails

Here are the most common types of email campaigns you can send to your customers and their benefits:

  • Welcome emails - the perfect way to provide information from the start with a clear CTA. Make sure to tell your customer everything they need to know about your product or service.
  • Newsletters - a great way to give customers updates or send out your latest content
  • Product launch emails - the quickest (and easiest) way to increase sales is by selling to current customers. Make sure they're the first on the list to know about your new product
  • Promotional emails - promote discounts, deals coupons etc. Try and make this feel exclusive and for a limited time only
  • Abandoned cart emails - give your customers a reason to complete their purchase!

Here's a great resource for finding curated email designs, for all types of email campaigns!

Case Study

Newsletter Example - Food Industry Tips and Tricks

We have a lot of content to share and it is very well received. Most clients need to see your brand a few times before they purchase, and email is great for that. Email is also an effective reminder for past clients to order again.

We have close to 5000 subscribers and we aim for 2 emails per month. Most of our subscriptions came through the website.

So far we have been focusing on practical life hacks and tips on how to stay focused and disciplined. Many of our subscribers are past clients that took a break.

Our open rates are good, we’re averaging 24% - 53%, much higher than the 10% industry average. We need to work on our click rates which are at around 1.2%.

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Here's a look at one of our email newsletters. Here's another one.

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Andrei Calinescu, on starting One Life Meals ($130,000/month) full story ➜

Social Media Advertising

Social Media Advertising is one of the leading ways to get the word out when it comes to healthy snack food business.

There are various different Social Media platforms available to you. Some may be more critical for your marketing efforts than others, however, it's important to have an understanding of what's out there and available to you.

Let's talk about a few of the main platforms and what makes them unique:

  • Facebook Advertising - more than 2 billion monthly users. Facebook is the best for lead generation + capturing email addresses for e-commerce businesses.
  • Instagram Advertising - approximately 500 million monthly users and has a higher audience engagement rate than any other platform. Instagram ads are best for linking to a product page or landing page and reaches the 18-29 age group most effectively.
  • Twitter Advertising- Small businesses typically use twitter ads to drive brand awareness, but the platform is meant more for organic engagement (and is not as heavily used for paid advertising)
  • Pinterest Advertising - 175 million monthly users and most effectively reaches the female audience. Pinterest is great for promoting products without "promoted". The promoted pins have a way of blending right in.
  • LinkedIn Advertising - 227 million monthly users and is geared towards the B2B market and generates the highest quality leads. Great platform for recruiters, high-end products and services that will help businesses

It's important to first define your goal/objective so that you don't waste time and money into the wrong platform:

Here are some different questions to ask yourself as it relates to your goals:

  • Do I want to simply drive brand awareness?
  • Do I want to drive users to my website to gather information?
  • Do I want to increase sales and get my customer to take action?

From there, choose the platform that targets your audience best and start experimenting!

Learn more about social media advertising ➜ here.

Case Study

Founder Andy Hayes talks about mastering FB ads and the pixel:

The biggest bang for your buck will likely be mastering Facebook and it’s platform - which we all know is pay for play, so you’ll have to come up with a small amount of budget to start for marketing.

We’ve spent countless hours (and paid numerous coaches) before we cracked the code that works for us on Facebook, but it is working really well for us now.

Some of the most important things to know when it comes to FB Ads:

  • Start with retargeting (that’s showing ads to people who already know you but did not purchase). Master this - and start building information on your Facebook Pixel - before you do anything else
  • Once you have that down, try working with the 1% “Lookalike” audience to prospect for new customers. This may take awhile because your pixel audience is small, so try layering on interests - 1% Lookalike and your largest competitor, for example. Don’t use interest-only targeting until you master this.
  • Great photography and videography is key, as is smart copy. Research what’s out there in your industry and constantly test - what works for one company may not work for other people.
  • Make sure you have good offers. For example, we have a $5 trial for our subscription, which converts affordably - if we promoted our subscription with the standard $30 front charge, it wouldn’t be as cost-effective.
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Andy Hayes, on starting Plum Deluxe Tea ($75,000/month) full story ➜

Consider Working With Instagram Influencers

Partnering with like-minded influencers (within your industry) is one of the most effective ways to grow your social media organically.

Industry influencers already have an established and loyal following. With one post, your product immediately establishes a connection with a brand new audience. It's that powerful.

When finding influencers to promote your product, do your research and make sure that their following will actually be interested in your product.

It's easy to be blinded by any influencer with a huge following, but if those followers don't resonate with your product, there may not be any value there... so make sure you do your research!

Case Study

Evan Marshall, founder of Plain Jane discusses how "micro-influencers" have impacted his business:

Influencer marketing has been huge for us. Our approach is pretty simple. We give out samples of our products and ask people to post about us on social media aka a micro-influencer strategy.

We really like this approach because we get authentic stories and content. We cannot really control the messaging so the product has to speak for itself. We don’t really take product photos at all. Our customers take the photos and we ask to reuse them.

With any influencer strategy, you have to be very sure you’re targeting the right people and engaging with them. You can make sure you’re targeting the right influencers by looking through their posts and then looking through the profiles of their engaged followers.

It takes more time per influencer but the payoff is certainly worth it. Make sure their followers look like your existing customers.

It takes a ton of time and work to grow a social media following this way but it’s worth it. Other accounts have tried to grow themselves through botting or other manipulations. As a CBD company, we didn’t want to give Instagram any reason to shutdown our account so we’ve done everything through content and real engagement. It’s not magic to make this happen. You just have to post consistently and then reply or like every single comment you get. It takes months but it works

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Evan Marshall, on starting Plain Jane ($275,000/month) full story ➜

🏃🏼‍♀️ How To Run Your Healthy Snack Food Business

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Host A Social Media Giveaway

People love free stuff and love competition. Giveaways and contests are a great way to create awareness for your brand, grow your email list, and eventually convert leads into customers.

If your goal is to gather email addresses, make sure the entry criteria is to "enter your email." You can do this by leading customers to your landing page where they can then enter their email to be in the giveaway.

One of the most important aspects of promoting a successful giveaway is having an amazing prize. The better the prize, the more engagement you'll get.

This doesn't necessarily mean choosing an iPad or an expensive/trendy watch, but instead a prize that is actually relevant to your brand/target audience.

Provide Great Customer Service

Providing exceptional care and creating relationships with clients is a great way to build your reputation and retain customers.

Whether you are an online business or a physical business, it's highly important to communicate with customers and make them feel like they are the priority.

Just remember: customer service represents your brand, values, vision and YOU as a person.

Case Study

Lousia with Funky Fat Foods states just how important their customer service is:

We’re consumer-focused and take care of our customers as quickly and correctly as possible.

I believe what is also working for us, is our customer service and the relationships we have created with them.

Even today we see huge support from Instagram, as you can talk directly to your (potential) customers all over the world. Basically, just ask them what kind of content they’re interested in, and always reply to their questions.

We’ve recently started sharing our struggles and learnings via IG stories and see a growth in our engagement. We try to stay in as much contact with our followers as possible and strive to create good and engaging content through social media. As a result, we have been steadily growing our follower base organically.

We also run contests on Instagram in collaboration with other brands and send our bars to micro-influencers, which really help to increase awareness of the brand but there is still a lot of room to grow in this area.

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Louisa Mesquita Bakker, on starting Funky Fat Foods ($20,000/month) full story ➜

How To Retain Customers For Your Healthy Snack Food Business

Retaining customers is one of the most effective ways to grow your healthy snack food business.

Oftentimes, it's easy to find yourself focusing on generating new customers, vs retaining your current ones.

Look at it this way - you are 60-70% more likely to sell a new product to an existing customer than you are a new customer.

That's not to say that finding new customers and revenue streams is not important, however, the easiest (and most inexpensive) source of new revenue is right there in front of you.

Here are some ways you can retain customers for your healthy snack food business:

  • Responding to comments on social media
  • Send discounts (or freebies) to loyal customers
  • Provide valuable content, for free
  • Write a hand written thank you note
  • Provide awesome customer service and build relationships with customers

To find out more tips and tricks on retaining customers, check out this article ➜ here

Resources

We put together the best resources on the internet to help you start your healthy snack food business.

Tools

Books

Web Resources

Videos

Case Studies

meet the author
Pat Walls

I'm Pat Walls and I created Starter Story - a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. We interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started and grew their businesses.