Online program teaches female foodpreneurs in Waterloo region how to grow their business

Since its inception in early 2022, the Food Venture Program (FVP) has offered online courses designed to help budding food entrepreneurs start a food business or grow elements of an existing one.

Its flagship program has graduated more than 600 food and beverage business owners across Canada, including some selling their food products in major grocery store chains.

Co-founders Sima Gandhi and Kiran Enns, a registered dietitian, started the company when Enns was looking for information to help her own business venture.

"I was looking for education to learn about food-product development and couldn't find anything," says Enns, who has an masters in science in applied human nutrition at the University of Guelph.

Gandhi noticed a similar gap: There was a lot of support for tech entrepreneurship but little for food.

Thus, FVP was born.

"Within two weeks of meeting Sima at U of G, we started this business. Entrepreneurs were coming to us looking for help with food-product development," Enns says.

Drawing on food-industry experts and post-secondary educators in the field, FVP offers classes such as uncovering hidden value in sustainability and circularity, farm to retail and starting a community kitchen, among others.

Waterloo region businesses such as Big Jerk Smokehouse and Island Son, which makes Bajan Tyga hot sauce, have taken the programs as their businesses have evolved.

It's important to recognize that geography is important: starting a food business in Kitchener is different from starting one in Cambridge, so licensing and regulations need to be taught.

12-week bootcamp

FVP programs are offered through small business centres, regional innovation centres and colleges and universities.

That includes the Women Entrepreneurship Centre (WEC). It's headed up by Sara Bingham and opened in spring 2020 as part of a national strategy for women entrepreneurs launched in 2018.

WEC's mandate is to serve women in southern Ontario with "start-my-business" bootcamps and "grow-my-business" accelerator programs. They also have a program specifically for Indigenous women entrepreneurs.

Beginning Jan. 10, Wilfrid Laurier University's Women Entrepreneurship Centre is offering FVP's bootcamp — a 12-week online course that helps women entrepreneurs develop and market their food products. (There may still be space available to register.)

Offering course online plays key role in success

The pandemic, of course, has played a role in the program's success. Bingham notes that women, who traditionally assume primary roles in managing a household and childcare, benefit from the flexibility of a program with online delivery.

Many participants would never have been able to attend the programs physically because of family commitments and travel, says Bingham.

Their monthly webinars featuring women entrepreneurs are open to everyone and have drawn participants "from every continent," says Bingham.  

Bingham says the programs boost revenue and also gives entrepreneurs valuable time because they've learned how to hire and implement systems that free them to work on other issues.

She adds that there's a longer-lived rationale for the piqued interest in food and food-product development: The idea of supporting local during the pandemic.

"We wanted to see our local favourites stay with us. Many of the (businesses) have and some haven't. I think food is a bonding thing we all have. We celebrate the community of food together," she says.

WEC programs a 'guiding light'

In Cambridge, Nadia Dragusanu owns and operates Café du Monde Crêperie, a café and food truck; she took a "grow my business" program through the Laurier Women Entrepreneurship Centre.

"The primary benefit for me was having an ecosystem of supportive female entrepreneurs," Dragusanu says.

"As a small business owner, I don't have a boardroom with colleagues to bounce ideas off or get feedback from, so participating in the program helped."

Immigration has also boosted new food businesses, adds Bingham.

"We've had a lot of newcomers coming into the programs in the area. They often come with exciting food ideas," she said.

As an example, she cites a baker who arrived in Canada from Nigeria in 2019 and opened The Cakery Zone in Waterloo in 2020.

As a startup business owner, Opeyemi Bamigboye took WEC programs which she called a "guiding light" when doing business in Canada was new to her.

"As a new immigrant, it was enlightening to me from planning to the legal side of starting my business," Bamigboye says.

The Cakery Zone started as online during the pandemic, but Bamigboye has since added a by-appointment studio aspect to the business. 

After the 12 weeks of the January bootcamp, Bingham "hopes to see some wonderful new food businesses" in the spring due in good part to a sharing of knowledge and support.

"Women entrepreneurs start with incredible passion for what they are doing and incredible knowledge," she says. "What's often missing is the support and community."