Consulting

We have been the food business for a combined 25 years, and can offer baking, cooking, catering, and business consulting to our customers on an individual basis for $50/hr. We've helped clients with pricing their products, baking in weights, and facilitating development of wholesale accounts.

Additionally, we are currently enrolling clients in the classes listed below. Contact us by phone or email if you are interested in taking one of our courses.

South Side Cooking Co-op

Coming Soon

Mission: Launch women, minority and entry level entrepreneurs into economically sustainable careers in food production and manufacturing through hands on mentoring in the areas of product development, production, marketing and basic business financial information.

Individual Classes

Moving from Kitchen to Commercial

This class informs participants about to run a legal and legitimate business operation. Topics covered include obtaining a tax number, sanitation certification, insurance needs, business licensing, attorney services, becoming a corporation, registering your name and logo, paying taxes, creating a business plan, record keeping and setting up a web site.

Is It Time to Go Out On My Own?

This class takes an in-depth look at the pitfalls of hidden costs, hiring labor, managing time, managing an inventory, negotiating a lease or rental agreement, securing loans and competition.

Your First Sales Call

Live demonstrations are used to illustrate both productive and non-productive sales calls. The class looks into how you can identify possible customers, how to make a presentation, and most importantly identify what makes your product(s) unique. Why will customers choose you? What about demos and samples? What is the real cost of marketing? How do you do a follow up without turning the customer off? How can you utilize social networking sites to your advantage?

Your First Sale

You made your first sale…now what? First and most importantly-learn to analyze if you made money on the transaction. This class explores some of the implications behind your first sale such as; "can I achieve a consistent product?", "can I produce enough/fast enough?", "Do I need employees yet?" and "Where is my time best spent?". Find out if you are ready for growth, how many customers can you actually handle?

Help! Where do I find...

Now that you are growing learn to anticipate the questions ahead of time. How do you package your product? What about storage if all of your items don’t sell? How much inventory do you need on hand? Are you big enough to handle receivables? What is cash flow anyway? When do you invest in a delivery vehicle? Where can you get the best prices for my ingredients?

When Do I Go It Alone?

How do you make a financial plan that is realistic? What are the REAL costs of going it alone? Where will you locate? Why? How much space do you need? Do you need to take out a loan? Equipment-new or used? Repairs? How do you handle the unexpected, such as your best client cancels their order...or worse...their relationship with your company? How do you handle mishaps such as misplaced orders, damaged deliveries, late production runs or employee no-shows? Are you prepared to hire and fire? What are the legal implications? If you are truly ready how do you do a high impact-low budget roll out?

Partnerships: Heaven or Hell?

Explore if taking on a partner is right for you. This class looks at how to assess if your business values are compatible. How do partners define long term goals? Who makes decisions over what areas? Who actually does what? Money?- Where is it coming from? How do you handle disagreements? What kinds of contracts and legal advice should you use? How do you handle a partnership break up? How do you decide if you need to add more partners?