Beaufort County Community College has upcoming free business workshops to help you understand the fundamentals, as well as technological developments in the field. Our food business series at the Harbor District Market will tune in to the special needs of that industry. Annette Dunlap will lead this special series. Dunlap is the creator and managing director of AB Dunlap Consulting, a company that specializes in community development, small business, agriculture and food. She retired from the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, where she worked as an agribusiness developer. Prior to joining NCDACS, Annette owned a management and marketing consultancy, focusing on financial institutions, medical practices, and locally owned businesses. Annette holds a B.A. from the University of Arizona and an M.B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis. Annette is a published author of three non-fiction books and over 100 newspaper and magazine articles. She lives with her husband in southeastern Cumberland County, where they raise cattle.

Getting Started in a Food Business

Do you have an old family recipe that you would like to develop into a business? Love baking, and think you can generate some income from your goodies? “Getting Started in a Food Business” is an introduction to taking your recipe from the kitchen to the marketplace. In this three-hour workshop, you will learn: The types of recipes you can make yourself to sell to the public; how to get inspected to go into production; guidelines for packaging and labeling; ideas for finding the right kind of market for your product; basics of product pricing; and what to do if you cannot process your product yourself. Topics covered include: regulatory basics, what to expect when you’re inspected, packaging and labeling basics, marketing basics, and financial basics. This workshop will run from 2 to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, March 10.

Tips for Growing Your Food Business

In this workshop, we go into a deeper dive into finding and developing retail markets, marketing planning, and cash flow analysis. Upon completion of the workshop, attendees will have learned: Opportunities, challenges and limitations of targeting supermarkets; ways to identify non-traditional retail markets; how to approach decision-makers; how to create a pro forma spreadsheet; how to calculate a gross and net profit; and how to make business decisions based on financial data. Topics covered include: resources for placing products inside major supermarkets, tools for locating non-traditional retailers, how to prepare a presentation package to meet with decision-makers, purpose and value of a pro forma, data to include in a pro forma, calculation of gross and net profit percentages, and decision-making based upon financial performance. This workshop will run from 2 to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, March 17.

To register, call 252-940-6375 or visit www.ncsbc.net and select “Training” and “Beaufort County Community College Small Business Center” from the dropdown menu.