You literally consume food everyday, but have you ever thought about the business behind the food industry? With the relatively low barrier to entry, many entrepreneurs attempt to start food-related businesses without properly understanding how the industry works. Meet Edible-Alpha, the business podcast all about food.

Helmed by the Food Finance Institute and hosted by Tera Johnson, Edible-Alpha teaches existing and would-be food entrepreneurs the ins and outs on how to succeed in the industry. Through interviews with successful business folks, you can think of Edible-Alpha as a food version of NPR’s How I Built This.

Discover Pods exchanged some emails withe the producer of Edible-Alpha, Zac Smucker-Bryan, about the podcast, their favorite episodes, and the challenges of making the podcast. See below for our Q&A.

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher


Discover Pods: How’d you get into podcasting?

Zac: I didn’t start podcasting until my current job with the Food Finance Institute. I am the Institute’s 2nd employee, and the Founder, who is also the host of the podcast, mentioned that she wanted to do a podcast in the interview, though it wasn’t on the actual job description. Similarly, the host had never done a podcast before, though she had co-hosted a local business radio show for a few years. I recorded a few albums with a band in college and have worked as a musician before, so audio recording doesn’t scare me, but I hadn’t done it before. I started reading up on it and taking advantage of the recording space at the University of Wisconsin, trial by fire.

For some more context, Tera and I were interviewed on the PowerPress podcast.

DP: In your own words, why should listeners tune into Edible Alpha?

Zac: This is a podcast about how to make money in food, regardless of your product or business model. We interview people all over the country who have proven themselves by building and funding profitable food businesses. These conversations provide the context aspiring food entrepreneurs need to be successful.

DP: What do the lay-people listeners likely not know (or could potentially learn) about the business side of the food industry?

Zac: We talk a lot about scale on the show. There is a (relatively) low barrier to entry to make food, but turning it into a profitable business is a lot harder. Many people underestimate the amount of money they need to raise to even get off the ground and break even, much less grow to continued profitability. We talk with people who have done it about what it really takes and get specific with numbers.

DP: What are some of your favorite episodes so far?

Zac: One of my favorite episodes is with the Founders of Quince and Apple, a national brand of small-batch, well-balanced preserves that are often paired with cheese and charcuterie. Lots of good lessons about scaling, dominating a niche, and understanding their target customer. Lots of laughter too.

Our most popular episode was our first with Matt D’Amour of Yumbutter, now Tribe 9 Foods about how they built a national brand from the ground up. We are going to release a 2nd interview conducted recently with him to showcase that business’ progress and opportunities as they have grown.

DP: What’s the most difficult part of podcasting for you?

Zac: For me, the most difficult part of podcasting is finding the time and optimizing the workflow with all of the guests. Podcasting is a relatively small part of what I do (though it is one of my favorite parts) and I want to do it well. Between scheduling guests and recording time, writing show notes/editing, the editorial back and forth with all of the players, gathering other referenced materials (links, photos), then posting, distributing, and promoting etc. It takes several hours of my workweek every week to stay on top of it, and we only post two 1-hour episodes per month.

DP: What podcasts are you listening to now?

Zac: I think The Daily (NY Times) has revolutionized the news podcast by taking advantage of all of the intimate, deep strengths of the medium. I listen to Recode Decode and The Digiday Podcast to stay abreast of different innovative models in digital media (more on that below, given what we are building with Edible-Alpha™ as a brand). In terms of other food business podcasts, Taste Radio by BevNet is probably the best out there for national brands. I also listen to Spanish language podcasts (News in Slow Spanish, Radio Ambulante) to keep my basic Spanish comprehension from deteriorating.

DP: Anything else you’d like to add?

We pair our podcast with a newsletter called Edible-Alpha Insights, and that has made for more engagement & downloads. We use the podcasts as part of our educational mission in training consultants around the country to work with food businesses. The podcast and newsletter are part of a larger suite of tools we are developing for a stand alone website called Edible-Alpha that will be a digital resource hub providing people with actionable insights, training, resources and tools so they can build and fund the next generation of profitable food, beverage and value-added farm businesses. That site is in development but should be launched in its first iteration later this year.