Meet your Mentor

Welcome to our course ‘How to Launch your Own Food Product’.

For most people, when they hear ‘launch your own food product’ they think about a retail product on the shelf in the supermarket but new food products can include new dishes on a menu or a new item to be sold at a market.

In this course we will explain the steps to follow when developing and launching your own food product successfully, and at each stage of the course give you the opportunity to develop, test and then launch your own product.

Each week is approximately 4 to 5 hours of work. We have purposely not put a lot of reading in each week because there is quite a lot of practical tasks that take time, hence the course running over 5 weeks, but you can go at your own pace and decide if you would like to speed up if it is taking you less time to complete the activities. What skills do I need to launch a new product?

Evaluating your own skills, especially if you are going to start your own business, is critical to the process, here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Do I have an in-depth knowledge of food, ingredients, and global cuisines?
• Do I have well developed practical skills to launch a new product?
• Do I have a passion for food, how well informed am I? For example, how often do I eat out? Do I experiment with ingredients? Do I travel?
• Do I research new trends and try out new ideas?
• Do I understand the science of food, food chemistry and nutrition?
• Do I keep myself updated on the food retailing market? For example, online trade press, food magazines, competitor shopping, the internet?
• Am I able to generate new ideas that work?
• Do I have excellent skills needed to launch a food product? For example, good communication skills, computer skills, ability to work independently and with others?

Understanding your own personal skills is critical to the success of launching your own product.

Enjoy the course with me!

Group Executive Chef