How to Market a Food Product Online

Unless you have been hiding under a rock for some time now, you will probably be aware of just how busy the eCommerce and delivery sector of online food business has become. Everyone wants a piece of that particularly lucrative pie.

How Do I Start an Online Food Business?

Speaking of pie, though, the first thing you think of when you think of eCommerce and eCommerce sites is not likely to be food.

You probably have images of boutique clothing stores and companies selling new or modified products that solve problems and alleviate pain points.

However, if you have a food product or business currently, you should strongly start considering the possibility of establishing it online too.

When you consider humbling statistics such as the average value of weekly online sales from stores that primarily sell food items was £141.9m in 2019 and the average value of online grocery retail was £10.5bn for the same year.

That’s not to say that you should just try your hand at having an online grocery store.

There is a multitude of other ways you can sell food items online. For instance, if you own a restaurant and are looking for ways to expand, you can start offering a takeaway option for customers who don’t want to sit-in and eat.

The fact is, almost every part of our lives, in some shape or form has gone digital and as we are ordering just about everything else in our lives from online platforms, it follows that in the future, food will be bought more online than in physical stores.

How do you get started with your online food business, though?

Surprisingly, given how huge the online food market is, there isn’t much in the way of decent resources online that can help you sell food online.

We hope we can change that with this helpful guide.

Get to Grips with the Law

As with any other type of business, before you start moving ahead with your food eCommerce site, you need to familiarise yourself with all the related laws and regulations.

What is right and wrong will depend very much on where your business is based and where you are selling your food items.

So, always check that the laws you are reading related to where you are based, as the laws in the United States for selling food are very different to the laws in the UK for selling food.

Another aspect of the laws related to food businesses that you need to think about is whether you intend on preparing and selling food from your own home or if you are going to use a professional kitchen.

For example, the rules will be different for you if you are making muffins or fudge from your own home than they would be for a business selling jarred sauces from their restaurant’s kitchen.

Some of the basic rules are:

Registering Your Food Business

You need to register your food business 28 days before you start trading with your local authority if you intend to sell food online.

You are required to give basic information related to your business practices and activities as well as the address or addresses of where all food operations are carried out.

This includes any offices you use, even if you don’t handle your food products at those premises.

You may need to undergo an official inspection from your local authority. More information about this can be found out here at www.food.gov.uk/business-industry/hygieneratings/food-law-inspections if you’re UK-based.

Your Responsibilities

In addition to the above, as noted earlier, there are certain responsibilities you have when selling food online, as directed in Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 of EU Law (but make sure to check each regulation for the region you want to sell your food product):

• You need to ensure the food you are selling or supplying is safe for human consumption and won’t cause health issues
• You can identify the companies and businesses you have obtained the food-producing animals, ingredients or food and companies you supply your food products to. This is what is known as traceability and you should be able to give this information easily when it is demanded.
• All food presentation, advertising and labelling should not be misleading

We specialise in bringing your food to international markets so if you want experts in international food marketing get in touch with us today.

Find A Suitable Supplier

It doesn’t matter what you’re selling or planning on selling, you need to find a reliable and suitable supplier.

Even if you are looking to sell pre-cooked products or preparing it all yourself, this is still something you need to think about.

One of the major challenges you are going to come across when finding an appropriate supplier is determining their legitimacy.

For instance, if you are going to use your home kitchen to prepared food you intend to sell online, a wholesaler like Cash & Carry, Costco or similar would be a suitable and legitimate supplier to source the ingredients from.

Collecting up tomatoes, lettuce apples and oranges from your neighbour’s allotment or garden would not be trustworthy, reputable or even reliable by the food industry.

Unless they were already pulling all stops to meet the various legal regulations and guidelines.

If it is a smaller food manufacturer or fruit and vegetable seller, for example, and you are not so sure about their reputation, you could ask to see credentials and evidence of the legitimacy of their business.

Understand Your Target Niche

Everyone has and needs food. However, does that necessarily mean that everyone can be one of your customers?

No, because everyone has different tastes and preferences when it comes to food. Although you may be tempted to take a blanket covering approach and to not have a specific target audience or niche.

If you are looking to have the most successful online food business possible, though, it is better to focus your efforts and operations on a specific area of food or even a specific type of food.

Think about the kind of customers you would like to sell your products to. Are the families that want to eat more healthily? Or are they professionals who work many hours and don’t enough time to prepare and cook meals?

Figure out the type of people you are looking to make and sell food for and target them.

Work on Your Branding

The next part of the process is to work on the branding of your business and products. This is much easier to tackle once your niche and target audience has been established.

The brand that is best for your business is one that encapsulates what you are selling and who you are selling it to. As people can buy food from many places, you need to show them why they should choose your company over other options.

For example, McDonald’s is highly successful and because it has strong branding, you associate those golden arches or the name with the food you love from there.

The same could be said for Coca-Cola. It’s no coincidence that as soon as you see those red and white logos you want to open a cool can of Coca-Cola or Diet Coke.

When it comes to the brand name, you need to not only think about what you are currently offering but also what you might offer in the future.

For instance, if your focus is on highly nutritious and fresh natural fruit drinks, you might be tempted to pick a name that focuses on that.

However, what happens when you then decide to start selling snacks or other items that also are prepared using natural and nutritious ingredients but are not fruit drinks?

You would need to go through the rigmarole of completely changing your branding, which is not always a sensible move.

The colouring, as we’ve already noted with regards to Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, is crucial in your branding.

You want something memorable, and that people will easily associate with your company, who you are and what you are offering. If this is a struggle, a food branding agency (hint, hint – us!) can help.

Food PR

Once you’ve figured out your branding, it might be worth doing some food PR to speed up the process of getting your business name and your offering out there.

While this type of food marketing can be done yourself, it can also be a huge time-sink with all of the communication, connections and expertise required to do it correctly.

Ideally, you want to do what you’re best at within your business and outsource those things to specialists like Greenseed (Contact Us for more info on global and UK food marketing)

Get Yourself a Website

Having a web presence is an important and direct way to sell your food products online.

It opens your business up to potential customers far beyond the more local market you may need to focus on without one.

It is also relatively inexpensive, as many can be set up for free, with only a small investment being required for things like promotion, SEO and other marketing necessities.

How can I promote my product for free?

Promoting your food business  online doesn’t need to cost the world, especially if you are a bit savvy about it.

Below we have put together a brief list of options to help you push your food business without spending a penny.

• Improve the SEO – If you try and work on the SEO of your site so that it ranks better in search engines, this can be an awesome way to make more customers aware of your products
• Make full use of Social Media – Facebook, Twitter and Instagram business pages are free to own and run. Although it requires time, when you interact with your target audience and customers effectively with social media, your products will sell better
• List Your Business on Google My Business – Especially if you have  a bricks and mortar food store too. It’s amazing how many people don’t take full advantage of this effective marketing tool.
• Answer questions on Google. If there is one people love it’s finding the answers to their questions through Google. If you do this well you can increase the interest in your business and sales.

Hopefully, all of these tips and strategies have gone some way to helping you understand how to market your food product or services online. If you need a more in-depth strategy consultation contact us now