Re:Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd no...
by ryanar on Saturday June 06, 2020 @11:36AM
(#23439874)
My feedback, product looks great, packaging looks great. I would not want to buy the Beef & Cheddar. Compare the label of Beef & Cheddar to Turkey & Cinnamon. Turkey & Cinnamon have four simple ingredients, Turkey, Yogurt Powder, Whole Wheat Flour, Cinnamon. Compare that to Beef & Cheddar, there are so many things in that ingredient list by comparison. When I think of food that is 'good for you' I want to see simple ingredients that I can pronounce, no food dyes or additives.
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Re:Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd no...
by awillen on Saturday June 06, 2020 @11:58AM
(#23440055)
Thanks for the feedback! All the extra stuff on the B&C comes from the cheddar cheese powder - for the most part they're natural ingredients (excluding things like the yellow color, etc.), but you're right, it doesn't look great.
Once we get low on my current supply of cheese powder, I'm going to look into getting a food dehydrator to make my own cheese powder.
Re:Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd no...
by grogenaut on Saturday June 06, 2020 @12:34PM
(#23440356)
Food dehydrators are a fun rabbit hole. Florists use them for wedding bouquets. You will also find a TON of info about scrappily acquiring them on prepper websites. I've seen several posts by Mormon families (food preservation and supply is encouraged by the religion), and a lot of the good ones get into taste, methods for preparing food, and doing it in bulk (which you'd care about). But the se sites will have a large cross with militia and shtf type folks. So conversations will go not where you think sometimes.
I think the most informative one I read was on something like shtf fourms. It stayed tame, other than everyone wanting to buy the dehydrator after the author was done.
Re:Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd no...
by elhudy on Saturday June 06, 2020 @07:43PM
(#23443357)
They're fun, but high-fat foods like dairy are mostly unsuitable for at home dehydration. Especially at a bulk level. I'm not an expert on nutrition labeling law but OP might have more luck listing "dehydrated cheddar cheese (ingredients, here)" with the ingredients in parenthesis. That signals to the consumer that even though there are a lot of big ingredients they are really just one thing.
Re:Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd no...
by vram22 on Saturday June 06, 2020 @05:17PM
(#23442296)
What are "se sites"?
Re:Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd no...
by grogenaut on Saturday June 06, 2020 @07:55PM
(#23443429)
Misspelled. Shtf. Shit hits the fan. Type of prepper who is worried about full failure of society and all services. Stockpiling ammo, guns, plate armor, etc.
As opposed to say someone who keeps a month of food, water, fuel, meds, entertainment on hand, which looks pretty normal now.
Re:Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd no...
by vram22 on Monday June 08, 2020 @02:49AM
(#23454203)
Got it, thanks.
Re:Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd no...
by awillen on Saturday June 06, 2020 @02:01PM
(#23441036)
Yeah, one of the suppliers I've identified for freeze dried foods is one of those survivalist prepper type stores. I'm sure my use case is not what they're thinking about :)
Re:Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd no...
by grogenaut on Saturday June 06, 2020 @02:32PM
(#23441298)
What size are you looking at?
Re:Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd no...
by awillen on Saturday June 06, 2020 @03:57PM
(#23441822)
At the moment I'm buying #10 cans (which are like 3 quarts I believe), though obviously I'll try to scale that up if sales merit it.
Re:Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd no...
by grogenaut on Saturday June 06, 2020 @05:18PM
(#23442300)
That'd be a pretty big dehydrator / freeze dryer to use. I'm I'm guessing at least a 3-1 if not 5-1 ratio on cheese.
Re:Ask HN: Side projects that are making money, but you'd no...
by awillen on Saturday June 06, 2020 @08:32PM
(#23443626)
Hmm, yeah, that makes sense - I'd still be interested to try it just to understand the process and see how it turns out. Ultimately if this gets big enough I'd want to find a co-packer for production, so it would be good to understand the whole process at a small scale before going that route anyway.