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if you want to make money with your
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freeze dryer you need to follow these
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steps in order to give your freeze
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drying business the best chance of
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success we're going to cover all the
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specific steps you need to determine
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what products to freeze dry how to
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research the competition and choosing
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the right business license that paves
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the way to a successful business from
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the beginning so if you're looking at
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buying a freeze dryer or you already
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have one and you want to make a business
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out of it subscribe to this channel
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you'll be notified of more freeze drying
0:26
videos and that's what we're all about
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on this channel now my name is David
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I've been a freeze Dred business owner
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on the side of my full-time job earning
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upwards of 50 to even 100K per year and
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I've made it to be a sustainable
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business that works well with my
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full-time job and my work life balance
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with my family all right so back to the
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heart of this video now the reason I'm
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focusing on this is because there's a
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lot of things that I did research-wise
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ahead of starting my freeze drying
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business back in 2020 now this was at
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the heart of the pandemic I had bought a
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freeze dryer but before that I had
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researched what types of competitors
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were out there who selling what what
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type of products seem to be the most
1:02
popular and that's why I would encourage
1:04
you that right now this freeze drying
1:07
craze is very popular it's very trendy
1:09
and a lot of people get into it thinking
1:11
hey I'm going to make a lot of money
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because I own this freeze dryer but then
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they wonder how do I run the freeze
1:16
dryer what type of candy should I run
1:18
should I even do candy should I do fruit
1:20
should I do any types of other things
1:22
then also you're maybe even shocked with
1:24
the type of restrictions that your
1:26
county or your state has for running
1:28
freeze-dried products so you really do
1:30
need to do a lot of research and that's
1:32
what this video is going to be about so
1:33
the first part of market research is you
1:35
want to identify with your company what
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type of consumer are you going to be
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targeting are you going to be targeting
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freeze-dried candy consumers because
1:43
that's very popular and it's also very
1:45
competitive now as the market gets more
1:46
saturated with people doing freeze-dried
1:48
candy you're going to have to come up
1:49
with something that's more unique one of
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the benefits of starting a business
1:53
right now is there's a lot of people
1:54
that have already done different types
1:56
of candies that you can glean off of and
1:59
learn from and not make the same
2:01
mistakes that they had to do even myself
2:03
when I first started and that's why I
2:05
even started this channel cuz I wanted
2:07
to create videos to give you information
2:09
and give people that wanted to start a
2:10
business this information now sweets
2:12
that you can start moving to is things
2:14
like sugarfree type candies you can also
2:16
look at gluten-free candies dairyfree
2:19
type candies I'm just spitballing here
2:21
but look at different things that maybe
2:23
could differentiate you and tailor to a
2:25
specific audience as well as having
2:27
those standard types of candies another
2:29
category of a consumer that you could
2:31
start researching is the Outdoor
2:32
Enthusiast now because I live in Idaho I
2:34
focus on that consumer very much because
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all of the freeze-dried snacks as well
2:39
as fruit are very lightweight and easy
2:41
to travel with when they're backpacking
2:43
or going river rafting or riding
2:45
mountain bikes things like that and you
2:46
can do the same thing another consumer
2:48
that you might want to look at is the
2:49
health conscious consumer someone who's
2:51
looking at conserving produce conserving
2:54
all of the food waste that they
2:55
typically have and you can provide them
2:58
shelf stable Pro produce that's
3:00
lightweight and can easily store for
3:02
years on end but also is healthy because
3:05
it still is retaining almost 90% of its
3:08
nutritional value with freeze drying
3:10
versus other food preservation methods
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all right let's talk about competitors
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for one second because it can cause a
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lot of stress and anxiety for you as
3:16
you're looking at starting a freeze
3:18
drying business because you start
3:20
looking at people who are at Costco
3:22
they're at some large Distributors you
3:23
even see local people already selling
3:25
freeze-dried candy or freeze-dried fruit
3:28
whatever they're selling let that in you
3:30
it's actually encouraging because now
3:32
you know that freeze dried products in
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this freeze dried industry is here to
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stay and people are buying and people
3:37
are getting into that space that's why
3:40
you want to start a freeze drying
3:41
business and in fact when I talked about
3:43
the freeze dryer company Harvest right
3:45
there's a lot of other brands out there
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they wouldn't be investing in building
3:49
freeze dryers if they didn't see an
3:50
opportunity in this freeze drying space
3:52
and there's so much more and I'm going
3:54
to talk about that in a future video all
3:56
right so diving into the local
3:57
competitors a simple research search on
4:00
Google could find Facebook pages
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Instagram pages and even websites that
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your local competitors are doing some
4:06
people are more mom and pop and maybe
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that's you so you may not even have a
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website but if people do have a website
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you can find that in your local area
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just type into Google you know the name
4:16
freeze dried candy and then the actual
4:19
location the city county or even state
4:21
that you want to look at and that'll
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pull up the search results for those
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ones if you want to try to find a little
4:26
bit more of the smaller type of
4:28
competitors go on to Facebook or
4:30
Instagram or even Tik Tok and search in
4:33
the search bar and you'll be able to
4:34
find some local pages that are on there
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when you're doing market research for
4:38
your competitors you're going to want to
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look at their prices now the reason
4:41
looking at the prices is important for
4:43
you is not necessarily to lowball them
4:45
or go under them but you want to kind of
4:47
see what they're setting their prices at
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so you can know whether you should set
4:52
the same price for similar products or
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maybe they are selling it at a too low
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of a price and you know what your value
5:00
is and you're going to build a better
5:02
product or better quality and provide
5:04
better service I don't price my product
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super low because I strive for Quality
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Candy Quality Ice Cream quality
5:12
everything and so I really want to put
5:15
my value in my price and make people
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aware that that's why I'm pricing the
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product the way it is and just like I
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mentioned when you're doing research on
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your competitors to find them build a
5:25
spreadsheet or some type of document so
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you can know where they're actually
5:28
doing that so maybe note all those local
5:31
markets all of those different maybe
5:33
retail shops locally that you've seen
5:35
freeze-dried product and so that way you
5:37
kind of know the genre of the retail
5:39
shops the opportunities where you didn't
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see a freeze-dried company in an event
5:44
and then you can apply for those and
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know tactfully where you can start
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selling right off the bat all right
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let's talk about the business license
5:51
side of things now I talked about this
5:53
in my Ultimate Guide to starting a
5:55
freeze drying business video but I
5:56
wanted to read it in this video because
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it is very indic indicative of your
6:00
success in your freeze dry business most
6:02
people are starting a business as a
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cottage food operator that means that
6:06
you can run the business out of your
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home your garage your shop usually the
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states and Counties have that kind of
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delineation because they want to
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encourage local products and they like
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having local people kind of like
6:20
starting something from scratch like you
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have your you know Grandma's cookies
6:24
recipe and you want to start making that
6:26
available to more people than just your
6:27
friends and family that's why the
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purpose of the cottage food laws were
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established so you can set up a cottage
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food license all it is is going to
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Google you can type in cottage food laws
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for Idaho Cottage food laws for Montana
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things like that or better yet you go to
6:42
your Central District Health or your
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county or your state and ask them what
6:46
the cottage food law application process
6:48
would be like now once you have that
6:50
license you can run your business out of
6:52
your home and that makes it really
6:54
really convenient for you and flexible
6:55
to be able to run your business because
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if you have a commercial space like I
6:59
have have right here I've got a travel
7:01
and you have to determine whether you
7:03
want that in commercial versus cottage
7:05
food but in cottage food uh you don't
7:07
have to worry about that so that makes
7:08
it really nice and I started in cottage
7:10
food in my business but I found a local
7:12
spot that was convenient for my home and
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I could quickly come down here do the
7:16
food prep at night like I am doing right
7:19
now and then I could go right back home
7:22
and be there with my family my full-time
7:24
job things like that so as a cottage
7:25
food operator it's very flexible
7:28
conducive for that and there's less
7:30
regulations you're not regulated by your
7:32
commercial side of running food safety
7:35
and things like that so it is kind of a
7:37
great area but it can be very beneficial
7:40
because you don't have to go through all
7:41
those procedures and overview from your
7:44
District rep something like that another
7:47
big perk on Cottage food is that it's a
7:49
very low investment because you don't
7:51
have to pay for a space leasing it or
7:54
purchasing it or you don't have to pay
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for a rental space like I have right now
7:58
now there are C to Cottage food one is
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you're limited to the menu that you can
8:02
do so that's why you need to do your
8:03
research on what is allowed under
8:05
Cottage food lot for the area that
8:07
you're in so for example in the state of
8:08
Idaho when I started my business in 2020
8:11
all the way up until late
8:13
2021 I was able to do ice cream under
8:16
Cottage food that was really unheard of
8:18
by the way a lot of states don't have
8:20
that flexibility so I really benefited
8:22
from that but they recently changed that
8:25
law so now I have to have a commercial
8:26
kitchen in order to do ice cream so
8:28
that's why you want to check to see what
8:30
menus you can do and the reason they
8:32
regulate that is because of food safety
8:34
concerns so if you're running it out of
8:35
your house you can do certain products
8:38
but anything that is temperature
8:40
controlled meaning TCS you have to hay
8:43
in a commercial kitchen typically and
8:45
that would include things like dairy
8:47
products for cold and things also that
8:49
you have to warm up or maintain a hot
8:52
temperature before you freeze dry
8:54
another con for cottage food is some
8:56
states actually cap the amount of money
8:58
you can make under Cottage food which is
9:01
I think is just crazy the state of Texas
9:03
actually caps it at $50,000 as of this
9:06
video now the last con is that
9:08
competition could be pretty fierce
9:09
especially right now because a lot of
9:11
people don't want to invest or have the
9:13
money to invest in leasing renting or
9:16
even buying a commercial kitchen space
9:19
so if you're in cottage food you're
9:20
going to have to deal with a lot more
9:22
competition at those local events retail
9:25
and also direct to Consumer
9:27
opportunities that you have now let's
9:28
talk about the commercial side now the
9:30
pros of this is the menu options go up
9:33
substantially for you to operate if you
9:35
want to do different types of meals if
9:37
you want to try different types of
9:38
products that include TCS type items
9:41
temperature Controlled Substances then
9:43
you can try yogurt you can try ice cream
9:45
you can try all different types of
9:47
things now one thing I found is that
9:50
vegetables actually is regulated by the
9:52
FDA so vegetables I wouldn't Venture
9:54
into because it's very regulated because
9:57
there's a lot of more room for
10:00
vegetables to be exposed and develop
10:04
types of bacteria and diseases from
10:07
exposure to not only moisture that you
10:10
would have to test pretty regularly but
10:12
also the sunlight things like that so
10:14
they're very regulated on that and you'd
10:16
have to do the FDA for vegetables but
10:18
everything else I think would really be
10:20
opening up the doors for you to develop
10:22
a niche and not have to go through what
10:25
everybody else is doing in past videos
10:27
I've thrown out the word Niche and what
10:29
a niche means is it's a specific Market
10:32
opportunity that you have so even though
10:35
freeze drying is the industry freeze
10:38
drying flowers is a niche freeze drying
10:41
tulip flowers is an even smaller Niche
10:44
freeze drying fruit is a large Niche but
10:47
freeze drying only organic fruit is a
10:51
very specific Niche when you do
10:53
commercial now you can open up your
10:55
expanded menu to very isolate and Target
10:59
specific customers bringing that back to
11:01
that market research so that you know
11:03
that you're very different than
11:04
everybody else but you could also layer
11:06
in some of the stuff that's selling
11:08
really well another Pro is that the
11:10
sales channels open up substantially
11:12
because now you can do wholesale most of
11:14
the time under the commercial space
11:16
you're going to be limited to more state
11:19
retail wholesale but man if you live in
11:22
states with high population unlike Idaho
11:25
uh man you really have a lot of options
11:27
to sell wholesale under the commercial
11:29
license industrial or being regulated by
11:31
the FDA would then open up the doors to
11:34
sell Interstate Commerce outside of your
11:37
state I've checked with my Central
11:38
District Health rep they have said that
11:40
I could sell between 10 to 15% of my
11:43
total overall sales Interstate still
11:47
being regulated under the local entity
11:49
so you can just talk to your Central
11:51
District Health rep every state is
11:53
different so make sure you talk to them
11:55
about that but ask them if you can have
11:57
a certain percentage before before they
11:59
actually tell the FDA to come regulate
12:01
you the third Pro to being in a
12:03
commercial space rather than Cottage
12:05
food is credibility and trust with the
12:07
consumer as well as wholesale customers
12:10
a large majority of consumers nowadays
12:13
are very aware of companies who are
12:16
selling products and taking the safety
12:19
measures within their food handling so
12:21
having a commercial space and going
12:23
through the food safety standards and
12:25
saying that you are commercially
12:27
licensed under your dist health or your
12:30
state is very powerful for you to add to
12:32
your branding and your marketing to say
12:35
that you can trust the types of products
12:37
that I'm putting out there to you as a
12:39
consumer but also for the wholesal to
12:42
say I'm I'm Distributing this to you but
12:44
you can sell confidently to your
12:46
consumer so that's a big huge plus
12:48
probably guess what I'm going to say on
12:50
the con side for commercial and that is
12:52
the investment that it takes to be in a
12:54
commercial space sometimes it's going to
12:56
cost you hundreds if not thousands of
12:58
dollars each month to run a commercial
13:01
operation so you got to have the sales
13:03
and the capital to be able to have the
13:05
cash flow to be able to run your
13:07
business and also generate enough sales
13:08
to where it pays for the space leasing a
13:10
space is going to be expensive buying a
13:13
space is going to be expensive but
13:15
renting might be more affordable and I
13:18
have some suggestions and
13:19
recommendations on where you can find
13:21
rentable commercial kitchens in a video
13:24
that I did on the 10 steps to being a
13:26
successful business and that's included
13:28
in the video description I talk about
13:30
churches schools restaurants bars things
13:33
like that where you can rent the space
13:35
and it can be an affordable options so
13:37
check out that video if you need ideas
13:39
on what to start selling with your
13:40
freeze drank business and finding the
13:42
right Niche that's unique to everybody
13:44
else then check out my next video on
13:46
discovering your Niche for your freeze
13:47
drying business right
