Cooking Up a Business: Lessons from Food Lovers Who Turned Their Passion into a Career -- and How You Can, Too Paperback – December 3, 2013

I am not sure which I am enjoying more - this very interesting book about food entrepreneurs or the food itself. Rachel Hofstetter's account of how roughly 10 food start ups made success from their idea is a fast paced, informative and thoroughly enjoyable read. Her criterion was that each company had to begin in the last 10 years and still be majority owned by the founders at time of publication.Hofstetter's background at a food editor at O and Reader's Digest has exposed her to possibly hundreds of interesting companies competing against the big food conglamerates that now dominant the shelves of our main stream grocers.She has chosen wonderful David vs Goliath anecdotes of start ups working both against the popular conventions of the market place and entrenched products by largely working with elbow grease, a belief in their products and incredible fortitude.The products range from wine, chocolate to granola, chips. burritos, baby food and flavored waters. In each case there are both competitors and an opportunity to redefine the space. Cameron Hughes' wine business is big and completely challenges the contradiction of cheap high quality wine. Evol's burrito's and prepared frozen plates both taste good and won't kill you with chemicals, nor will the innovative Popchips or new style microwave popcorn.The book focuses on the challenges of successful start ups. Each chapter both profiles the founder's and their product and provides some unique learning lessons for the reader ranging from patience, budgeting, research, marketing and of course hard work.It's meant to inform, inspire and make the reader feel good and it certainly does. It also succeeds in raising one's awareness of brands and health. Given the appalling job the FDA is doing at regulating and educating the public on the use of drugs, chemicals, pesticides and hormones in all strains of our food chain it's imperative for us to have more food entrepreneurs that bring us the food that tastes good and won't kill us and writers that can equally keep us informed on their progress and important trends.

Good book...lots of good information to be gleaned from everyone's story - although the different approaches sometimes gave conflicting advice (one says don't bite off more than you can chew - no pun intended - while another suggests saying yes to every offer and figuring out the logistics later). Still, one thing that doesn't change - you can create your dream.

This is a surprisingly interesting read. Each of the parties studied have been interviewed and described in generous and sympathetic detail. The author obviously has spent time with the entrepreneurs and gotten to know their intimate stories. Although the stories differ in content - all have a common thread of love of the food they develop and the strong motivation to see it on the shelves. Availability of the foods make it challenging for a reader to go out and make a purchase. I have already tried several of the items. So -ONE-- it is a fascinating story (or 10 stories) and TWO-- it introduces one to some new dining experiences.

Fascinating read of the stories behind the food products you see every day. You never imagine how much goes into building a company from scratch, especially when you start out with no experience or in a completely different career. My favorite story was Cameron Hughes Wine and how - after they had failed once - they tried again and literally took to standing in the aisles at CostCo convincing shoppers to try their wine. It's now a nationwide business! Every story in the book shows that all it takes is passion, tenacity and a dream!

I was presented the opportunity to take an entrepreneur course at the University of Baltimore (ENTR 300) this Fall 2015 semester. Little did I know of the value of this course when applied to the different types of business out there, in particular food. We were assigned many texts this semester and as a foodie I instantly gravitated to Cooking up business. A "how to" on health awareness and the redefining of the food industry and the dangerous products that line the shelves of grocery stores and families kitchen cabinets. This book inspires the entrepreneur to take an existing problem and find a solution for it rather than creating a new product. The search for a healthier food product is an admirable one.

This is a cute book but it wasn't quite what I expected based on the title. It is primarily full of profiles of businesses that manufacture food to be sold in grocery stores, with relatively little direct advice or mention of other models of food business (restaurants, food carts, caterers, etc.) Granted, I should've read the description more thoroughly and looked up the companies mentioned to see what sort of businesses they were. But even so, a good deal of the advice is anecdotal ("this is what worked for this one company") and some of the stories featured a lot of luck and missteps that you couldn't or shouldn't (respectively) repeat... one company, for example, was operating totally outside of health laws for awhile (and if he hadn't he may not have had the money to begin working within those laws- renting commercial kitchens, etc- later.)But still, an interesting read, and definitely a good one if manufacturing packaged goods is the sort of food entrepreneurship you're interested in.

I loved this book. It made me feel like the characters were my friends. I rooted for their success and moaned their obstacles. It was so convincing I wanted to go out and buy that bottle of banana vinegar even though I had no idea what I would do with it once it was in my kitchen. Several people on my Christmas list will be receiving this book from me this year. I hope this author writes another book soon.