Scaling promises to bring not just more revenue, but more profit, more cash flow, and a sense of ease in doing business. And it seems every business owner is eager to get there. In this season opener, Sarah Delevan is answering the #1 question we get asked inside The Good Food CFO Community - “How do I scale my business?”

Profitability is the goal of every business. But at times it can feel like you are doing everything right, everything traditional business media says that you should be, and yet your business is still running out of cash. In this episode, Sarah breaks down a different way of thinking about your finances and improving your cash flow and profitability.

Nikki McNeil is a Co-Founder at Vividly, a trade spend management software which aims to deliver clear value through efficiencies when analyzing trade spend dollars. Whether you’re a founder managing trade spend for one partner or hundreds, having the right system in place can ensure you stay on budget and receive proper payment from all of your distributors and retailers. In this episode, Sarah got to sit down with Nikki to discuss managing trade spend, and what kind of systems you can put in place to support you and your team at any size.

Sourcing the best ingredients for your good food product has many implications for your business. Eran Mizrahi co-founded Ingredient Brothers to support founders in this process.

In this episode, Sarah and Eran connect over their shared buyer and finance experience, building a relationship with your purveyors, and Eran shares an approach to strategically reducing ingredient costs that was spot on and totally new to us!

Traditional business media celebrates big revenue, new accounts, and most of all growth and scale. Cutting revenue in the short term, letting go of accounts and scaling back are the exact opposite of that. So of course right-sizing your business can make you feel bad, and like you’re moving in the wrong direction.

We need to look at the benefits of doing things differently, the benefits of doing what is right for YOUR business, rather than what is generally celebrated in the public eye without context.

In this episode, Sarah shares the reasons behind right-sizing and pulling out of retail, and we hear from 2 founders that chose to right-size, and their reasons behind the move. Sarah also discusses how right-sizing can impact your bottom line in a positive way, and gives us an update on our founders’ stories.

In 2022, Francesca Pittaluga launched Ciao Pappy, drawing from her 14-year career in luxury fashion. Her inspiration came from a passion for high-quality food, a love for the California and Italian coastal lifestyles, and a dedication to her Italian father's culinary traditions.

In this episode, Francesca joins Sarah to talk about her transition to the Food Industry and the lessons she’s learned along the way. You’ll also hear about her approach to giving back, as well as her mindset around setting goals and taking Ciao Pappy into the New Year.

Retail is a complex and, at times, difficult sales channel to navigate for Good Food Founders.

In this episode, Sarah and Chelsea discuss two articles that put the Brand/Retail relationship at the forefront.

First, in the news segment, Sarah shares a Civil Eats article that highlights why mid-size farms and brands are disappearing from retail shelves. Then in the main episode, Sarah and Chelsea discuss a Grub Street article that has been on Sarah’s mind since January 2023.

Emily Dyer-Schiefer traded her chef's knife for a business blueprint, and she hasn't looked back since. Tired of the conflicting advice and clichés saturating the food business landscape, Emily founded two platforms designed to streamline success. Whether through bite-sized lessons at Food Biz School or a dive into strategy at The Kitchen Think, she's committed to helping foodpreneurs build strong, thoughtful businesses that defy the status quo.

In this episode, Sarah gets to connect with Emily after years of following each other’s careers online. They become fast friends as they discuss all the common pit-falls they have encountered while working in the food industry and supporting Good Food Founders.

Sarah Delevan is an avid reader, committed to reading at least one book a month. Those around her know when the current read is a good one, because she won’t stop talking about it! This inspired us to create The Good Food CFO Book Club.

In this episode, Sarah and Chelsea share all the details on the Book Club, and announce the very first book, Stolen Focus by Johann Hari.

When it comes to building a business, it can be tempting to skip to the tactical work that feels like action, but we really need to make sure we get a few foundational pieces of strategy in place first to get all those tactical decisions optimized and working together as part of an integrated plan so have the ability to be proactive and cohesive vs feeling like things are disjointed.

In this episode, we are taking a step back and doing just that. Sarah is joined by Katie Mleziva, a Food Brand Strategist with over 20 years of experience in Brand & Marketing Strategy. Katie walks us through her step by step process to develop a brand strategy that is authentic to you and your business and will connect to your audience.