Learning to be a Food Entrepreneur Season 2 Episode 1

It has been a year and a half since Learning to be a Food Entrepreneur season 1 ended. During season 1 I wanted to start exploring my path as an entrepreneur, but did not know exactly where to begin. I decided to fill my days with what ever tasks I could, and researched cryptocurrency in an attempt to start gathering equipment I might need for a food business. At the end of season 1, I was headed to The Local Food Center in Missouri to learn more about what it took to run a food business. Season 2 is a four part series all about my experience at The Local Food Center during 2018. You'll hear about the challenges I faced, what I learned, what I built, my successes and my failures. In this first episode I give you an introduction to what the Local Food Center was, and what I was doing when I arrived. I tell you how I spent my time learning about my surroundings, the manufacturing equipment, the products we were manufacturing, and how the products were distributed. I also tell you about the inspiration behind me trying to automate data collection, production scheduling, and projections for our manufacturing process. I ended up at the Local Food Center through an Alumni from the University I went to. I decided to intentionally accept a substantially reduced income for the opportunity to learn from the founder directly and work as a Food Scientist/General Manager. I still have copies of our original contract haha! In Hindsight Arriving at the Local Food Center, I believe, was a good experience. It was a high paced environment, there was a lot to learn, and the pressure to succeed was on which are all ingredients that help me do my best work. I think where I could have improved in the early days at the Local Food Center, was getting to know the people who worked there a little bit better. I dove directly into the work, but did not spend as much time getting to know everyone. It wasn't until a few months after I arrived that the pressure let up a little bit, and I began getting to know people more in depth. I found that getting to know people is important for developing relationships as well as gaining buy-in for a desired change within the business, and getting quality, honest, constructive feedback from the people around you. Currently it is 2021 and I still rely on the experience I gained at the Local Food Center for interpersonal interactions and team building.