Rachel Zemser was one of those people I kept hearing about over the last few months. Several people I spoke with suggested I should reach out, and it felt like fate that right before I was about to reach out she had actually signed up for ReciPal.

Since then, we've brainstormed how to make nutrition analysis simpler for food startups and scientists alike, she had a great article on finding a co-packer, and we finally met in person at the Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco.

We're lucky to have someone like Rachel in food community, especially since she recently published The Food Business Tool Kit For Entrepreneurs, which she created after receiving so many questions from startup food companies on topics such as:

• First steps for launching a food product
• Manufacturing options
• Food safety
• Labeling requirements
• Ingredient sourcing
• And many, many more

All these technical topics are well organized in an easy to read eBook, and I highly recommend reading it before and during your journey of starting a food business. I recently read through it and was impressed with the quality, depth, and breadth of the content - it's applicable to almost any food business and will lay out everything you need to know in getting started.

Aside from the book, Rachel is available as a food industry consultant. Having a B.S. and M.S. in Food Science, a Culinary Arts degree, and over a dozen years in the food industry, she's probably overqualified to help you develop a food product and get it to market, so good luck getting her to accept you as a client!