Starting a business because you love your product, and the product development process, is commonplace amongst foodpreneurs, but how do you scale once you’ve proven other people think your product is as delicious as you do but you know you need help to go to the next level?

That’s precisely what Lucy Bennetto of Bennetto Natural Foods has been planning for the past couple of years. Bennetto Natural Foods premium, organic, fairtrade, climate positive, better for you and good for all dark chocolate was developed by Lucy as a kitchen benchtop hobby that got out of hand.

Today Lucy has a Board of Advisors who are balancing her creativity and sourcing talent with their financial expertise. The Board of Advisors meets multiple times every week and one of their current agenda items is raising capital. Once the capital raise is done, the first task Lucy will undertake is engaging a Chief Operating Officer with experience taking speciality food products next level in existing retail channels and into new markets. Once that’s done, Lucy will have more time to work, once again, on the parts of the business she loves the most, product development and ingredient sourcing.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

1. Raising money and which avenues to consider and why you should;
2. How a Board of Advisors helps balance the skill sets within a food business; and
3. The one thing Lucy wish she knew earlier on in her food journey that would have helped her scale sooner.

Links & Resources

• Bennetto Natural Foods Website
• Bennetto Natural Foods Instagram
• Masterclass and Scaling Workbook
• Waitlist for Foodpreneurs Formula®

If you haven’t listened to episode 32 (18.48 mins), Walking the trade show floor with a wholesale buyer to close a sale., listen here.

And, I invite you to come and join my community of female foodpreneurs, and catch up on the conversations, in Kiosk. For Women in Food and Drink, my free Facebook group.

This episode is brought to you by Foodpreneurs Formula®, my business acceleration coaching program for packaged food and drink brand owners ready to scale; and my free on-demand masterclass that gives you the framework to help you navigate your scaling journey.