Resources

A unique 5-day FREE email course to help you discover how a comprehensive Product & Customer Profitability Analysis can enhance strategic decision-making, boost profitability, and streamline operations in food manufacturing. Click below to learn more.

Beginners' Guide to Financial Statement: One page summary by the SEC of what each of the 3 main financial statements is and how to read them (Balance Sheet, Income Statement and Cash Flow Statement)

Main Finance Terms: Quick article with the main finance terms that every executive should know by the Harvard Business School

Finance Terms Dictionary: Comprehensive Finance terms dictionary by Investopedia

Key Financial Ratios for Manufacturing Companies: These are basic financial ratios important for any manufacturing businesses, including food manufacturing, by Investopedia 

Access to Capital 101: insightful webinar on the different options available to help businesses raise funding, especially for small or starting businesses, by SCORE.

SCORE: is an organization associated to the SBA who aims at fostering small business communities through mentoring and education. They have a network of volunteers and offer mentoring for businesses for free! Their template resources are great, including business plans, financial projections, and a business loan estimator tool. This can be useful even if your business is not so small anymore and you are looking for any sort of information, from better understanding a specific topic all the way to preparing to raise equity capital.

Cash flow templates: there are plenty of free and sometimes paid templates you can download from the internet to prepare cash flow forecasts. This link from Smartsheet has a compilation of several templates for different timeframes.

Capital Budgeting & other Financial Planning Templates: The Corporate Finance Institute (CFI) offers several free resources including articles, guides, templates and courses in corporate finance in general. This is an article on capital budgeting best practices and a templateyou can use to evaluate and rank your different capital investment projects.

What is Trade Promotion Management in the CPG industry: Guide on TPM providing a complete overview on the topic by PSignite

Best practices on Trade Management Webinar: This is a good overview introduction to trade management in general and how companies should think about it. It also explores the differences between retail and foodservice trade and documentation flow, which are a challenge for food manufacturers. By iTradeNetwork and IFMA

Revenue management differences between retail and foodservice by McKinsey & Company

Cost accounting overview by Investopedia

Cost Management in Manufacturing best practices by NetSuites

Complete guide to costing by Deskera

FRED: source for economic data, including inflation series

IFMA - International Foodservice Manufacturers Association: dedicated to the Food away-from-home who aims to empower, educate, and connect professionals in the industry. They do a great job at providing information that keeps you up to date on trends in the industry, including quarterly performance reviews on broadline distributors, and other valuable resources like guidebooks, playbooks, and webinars.

PLMA – Private Label Manufacturing Association: International non-profit organization dedicated to promoting store brands. They host an annual event in Chicago and Amsterdam, besides offering conferences, executive education, professional development, market research, category and channel sales data, consumer surveys, and publications.

National Restaurant Association: They offer resources on everything you can think of restaurant related. The association has a commitment to strengthen operations, mitigate risks, and develop talent within the restaurant industry. They also advocate for the industry at various levels to protect its interests and vitality.

NFRA - National Frozen and Refrigerated Foods Association: NFRA’s mission is to promote the sales and consumption of frozen and refrigerated foods and to provide a forum for industry dialogue. They run yearly campaigns aimed at increasing awareness of consumers and at driving category growth. Check their resources page if you are looking for insights on how consumers buy and use frozen food.

IDDBA - International Dairy Deli Bakery Association: They promote the growth and development of the dairy, deli, and bakery categories. Besides organizing a massive trade show every year, they produce monthly industry trend reports, webinars, and original research. I also recommend looking at the professional development resources if you are looking for advancing your career or hiring within the industry.

SFA - Specialty Food Association: Non-profit involved in the specialty food trade, representing artisans, purveyors, importers, entrepreneurs, distributors, retailers, and others in the industry. They offer a ton of resources for entrepreneurs trying to grow in the segment.

FMI - The Food Industry Association: Supports the food retail industry to promote a safer, healthier, and more efficient consumer food supply chain. They cover all sorts of topics relevant to the retail food industry, including biotechnology, crisis management, food inflation, private brands, etc. 

Statistical reports by Statista: provider of worldwide industry statistical data and reports, including Consumer Goods & FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods).

IBIS World reports: reports organized by NAICS (North American Industry Classification Index)

Datassential: Specialized data and intelligence service in Food & Beverage

The Food Institute: great source of food industry news in general but also for finance related topics, including a session dedicated to earnings releases where you can get insights on what listed companies' executives are seeing in the market.

Food Dive: has a news session dedicated to ‘finance and deals’ in the F&B industry. 

Food Processing: comprehensive portal with everything food processing related. I like how they organize the topics in the menu session so you can choose exactly what you are interested in.