Jump on the locavore train! Read The Omnivore's Dilemma! Dial down the GMO crops and ramp up the Omega-3s! The specialty food craze has gone mainstream. And never before has the time been so ripe for you to take advantage of a trend driven by consumers who've done a righteous about-face on what they eat and who they buy it from.
Health food, organic produce, and other specialty foods are no longer the exclusive domain of hippies and the counterculture. Interest in the market is now driven by masses of people who are concerned about what they are putting in their bodies, and this makes specialty foods a top industry for starting a company in 2014.
"How many mothers today would buy a product without reading the label," asks Andy Heyer, founder and managing partner of Mistral Equity, a private equity firm in New York. "More consumers are seeking out more and more products that are better for them, and that's creating a lot more demand and a need for [specialty] stores." Seventy-five percent of consumers reported making specialty foods purchases in 2013, up from less than half of consumers from 2009. And buyers tend to be young demographic, primarily between 18 and 24 years old, located in the West and Northeast.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Inc.
