Launch Your Food Brand
Product Development & Pricing Basics for Packaged Food Startups
Have a food or beverage idea but are not sure how to turn it into a viable product? This practical 10-week course will help you develop a clearer, market-informed, and financially grounded product concept. You will explore how your product fits within the marketplace, who it serves, how it could be produced, and how to begin making informed costing and pricing decisions.
Course Description:
Learn how to transform a food or beverage idea into a well-defined, market-informed, and financially grounded product concept.
Designed for aspiring and early-stage food entrepreneurs, this practical course explores the essential steps involved in developing a packaged food product before making significant launch investments. Topics include product development, category and competitive research, target customers and consumers, branding and packaging fundamentals, production pathways, product costing, pricing, and profit margins.
Through interactive instruction, applied exercises, research, and instructor feedback, participants will develop the first phase of their go-to-market plan. By the end of the course, students will have a clearer product strategy, a preliminary pricing framework, and actionable next steps for continued business development.
No established business or prior food industry experience is required. Participants are welcome to bring an existing food or beverage idea, recipe, prototype, or early-stage product, or develop a new concept during the course.
What You Will Explore
Throughout the course, you will examine:
- Product development and concept refinement.
- Market, customer, and competitor research.
- Branding, packaging, and production considerations.
- Product costing, pricing, and profit margins.
- Go-to-market planning and launch preparation.
The final capstone presentation will bring these elements together, helping you communicate your product strategy, preliminary economics, key assumptions, remaining risks, and priorities for moving toward market launch.
By the end of the course, you'll be able to:
- Define and strengthen your food or beverage product concept.
- Understand your target customer, consumer, and competitive landscape.
- Develop early branding, packaging, and labeling direction.
- Identify realistic production options and estimate product costs.
- Build a preliminary pricing and profit-margin framework.
- Create actionable next steps for bringing your product to market.
Ideal for:
- Aspiring food and beverage entrepreneurs.
- Small business owners developing a packaged food product.
- Individuals with a recipe, prototype, or product idea they want to validate.
- Founders looking to make smarter decisions before investing in a launch.
Instructor
Crystal Black-Davis is a food industry executive, entrepreneur, author, and strategic advisor with nearly two decades of experience in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry. She is the founder and president of Savvy Food Consulting, where she advises emerging food entrepreneurs, established brands, and international food companies on product commercialization, U.S. market entry, business development, marketing, and growth strategy. Her work helps food businesses navigate the commercial realities of bringing products to market and building sustainable operations.
Previously, Black-Davis served as Executive Vice President, USA, and Vice President of Marketing for Loacker, the international premium confectionery company. In these leadership roles, she oversaw U.S. business operations, profit and loss (P&L) performance, strategic planning, brand development, and expansion across retail and distribution channels. Her experience spans both the strategic and operational aspects of the food industry, from evaluating market opportunities and consumer demand to managing pricing, sales, and commercial execution.
Black-Davis holds a master's degree in Gastronomy from Boston University, with a focus on food policy and sustainability, and an executive certificate in Food Industry Management from Cornell University. She also created The Kitchen CEO food entrepreneurship learning platform and book series and wrote Start Where You Are, a practical guide for aspiring and early-stage food founders. Through her writing and educational initiatives, she translates obscure, complex food-industry concepts into accessible, actionable guidance for entrepreneurs at different stages of business development.
As a long-time advisor to startup founders and executives, Black-Davis brings an industry-informed, applied approach to entrepreneurship education. Her courses emphasize critical thinking, market research, financial fundamentals, and practical decision-making, helping participants move beyond promising recipes and product ideas toward commercially informed business strategies. She is especially committed to making food business education accessible to people with limited industry experience or resources who are serious about exploring entrepreneurship or strengthening an existing food business.
You do not need an established business or a completed product to participate. You can start where you are and use the course to develop a stronger commercial foundation.
- Early-bird tuition: $250
- Standard tuition: $275
Classes combine interactive instruction and discussion with individual or group project work, peer sharing, feedback, and coaching. There are no traditional exams. Learning is demonstrated through short knowledge checks, weekly application activities, participation, and the Go-to-Market capstone project.
The program is offered at an introductory price of $250 through 11/30.
For more information and to register, please email amunizFREEHUDSONCOUNTYCOMMUNITYCOLLEGE.
Contact Information
Office of Continuing Education
161 Newkirk Street, Room E504
Jersey City, NJ 07306
(201) 360-4224
CEFREEHUDSONCOUNTYCOMMUNITYCOLLEGE