Dave Hirschkop, founder of Dave’s Gourmet, understands what goes into building a specialty food brand. His fascination with the CEO mindset has led him to a new passion: distilling the wisdom of his peers to help the specialty food community succeed. He’s interviewed dozens of CEOs and founders of CPG companies from $5 million to $100+ million in revenue. During the SFA webinar, “Lessons from Successful Specialty Food CEOs,” taking place this Thursday, Oct. 13 at 1 p.m. ET, Hirschkop will share his learnings.
SFA News Daily recently spoke with Hirschkop.
What piece of advice you would give budding specialty food brands?
They need to make sure they don’t only have a great product but a great product market fit. A great product that is packaged, positioned, or priced poorly might not sell well. Also, the consumer decides what is a great product for them, not the producer.
Do you feel there is one attribute that successful CEOs share?
They are learning machines. They are constantly seeking out the best advice and people and implementing the best ideas (no matter their source).
What are the most common mistakes you see specialty food brands make?
The three most common might be that they don’t have enough capital/cash flow, that they are not willing to change what is not working in favor of better ideas or better people, and that they overestimate how much consumers like their product relative to other brands.
What would you like attendees to leave the session ready to implement in their business?
I would like for attendees to write down one or two ideas that they think would help their business, put the next steps in their calendar, and take the first step towards implementing them that day.
Related: Q&A: Developing a Successful Product With Mattson's Stuckey; Video: Entering the Foodservice Channel