IAM767- Founder Focuses Her Expertise on the Food & Beverage Industry

As an accomplished strategic business development, marketing, and operations professional, Kim Bryden has focused her expertise on the food & beverage industry, and supporting small business growth at large, for more than a decade. Her management experience ranges from working in and alongside governmental agencies, to increasing sales as Top Fortune 200 retail management, to deploying agile, innovative marketing and partnership strategies at food tech start-ups. Since founding Cureate LLC in 2014, Kim has continued to build out this multi-sector, public-private partnership approach. Whether it's working with Anchor Institutions in Baltimore City on localizing procurement, reimagining retail experiences for corner store owners to grocery chains, to developing educational entrepreneurship curricula for economic development agencies, Cureate takes a 360-degree approach — and that growth mindset comes from Kim and her passion for learning.

• CEO Hack: Consuming content from my industry and beyond
• CEO Nugget: Develop the skill of active listening
• CEO Defined: (1) Having more ownership of my time (2) Developing businesses that are value-aligned

Website: http://cureate.co/

Instagram: instagram.com/cureateco
Facebook: facebook.com/cureateco
Twitter: twitter.com/kimbryden

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Transcription

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[00:00:02.20] – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

[00:00:26.10] – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Kim Bryden of Curate. Kim, it's awesome to have you on the show.

[00:00:38.89] – Kim Bryden

Thanks so much.

[00:00:40.70] – Gresham Harkless

No problem. Super excited to have you on and before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Kim so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. As an accomplished strategic business development, marketing, and operations professional, Kim has focused her expertise on the food and beverage industry and has supported small business growth at large for more than a decade. Her management experience ranges from working in and alongside governmental agencies to increasing sales at top Fortune two hundred retail management to deploying agile, innovative marketing, and partnership strategies at food tech startups. Since founding Curate in twenty fourteen, Kim has continued to build out this multi-sec sector public-private partnership approach. Whether it's working with the anchor institutions in Baltimore City on localizing procurement to reimagining retail experiences for corner store owners to grocery chains, to developing educational entrepreneurship curriculum for economic development agencies, Curate takes a 03:60 degree approach, and that growth mindset comes from Kim and her passion for learning. Kim, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Podcast community?

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[00:01:48.59] – Kim Bryden

Oh my gosh. I'm so ready. Thank you for having me.

[00:01:51.20] – Gresham Harkless

No problem. Super excited to to have you on because you're doing so many different things and so many phenomenal things to impact, you know, some of these entrepreneurs and business owners. So before we jump into hearing more about that, I want to rewind the clock a little bit. Could you take us through your CEO story? What led you to get started with your business?

[00:02:07.59] – Kim Bryden

Oh, yeah. So I have been in this food industry for, like you mentioned, over a decade now, and it started in government around licensing and regulations, and then I moved into grocery retail, in a management capacity, thinking about how, how, and why the reasons people buy and what changes consumer buying behaviour. How do you create a business that is of and from the communities you're a part of? Then that experience just led me to really think about how are people engaging with the things that they're buying and consuming, again, from a food perspective, not just in physical brick-and-mortar locations, but also online. Obviously, with the advent of technology and social media, people are shopping more with their eyes online and so that pushed me into the food tech world and understanding how technology platforms have created efficiencies and also opened up a lot of opportunities for more people to be seen and heard with their businesses.

Over time, I just started thinking about more and more how companies were being founded and funded and who had access to these amazing opportunities that, our new world has provided for us. And, I just hit a point in twenty thirteen, the last company I worked for, had raised multimillion dollars in order to skyrocket their growth, and that was all around, perceived value of what this business could become. I think we've heard the traditional story of, like, the unicorn if you will. And I just kept thinking, what is this perceived value? And it's a perceived value by whom and for whom. And a lot of times, that value is put on a business based on a subset of investors. Or you might hear like you're you're optimizing your profits for your shareholders. And I just kept thinking, I want to be working with businesses that, I don't know, have crazy ideas, have a business model, and care about stable cash flow. What? You know, like

[00:04:30.19] – Gresham Harkless

Who would have fucking And

[00:04:31.80] – Kim Bryden

so I just feel so strongly that food is someone's heart on a plate or in a package and also provides ample opportunities for economic development and growth, to create more agency and purpose in one's life. And, that's when I left that last role that I was in and started Curate because I just had this fire in my belly of how food could be this really strong economic engine and actually be again of and from you could create businesses that were of and from your community and that money could circulate back into the local community and local economy in which you are a part of.

[00:05:14.39] – Gresham Harkless

Alright. So I absolutely, love that and and love, you know, why you started everything. And I appreciate you for listening and paying attention to that fire in your belly and taking those steps in order to do that. Because I think so many times we forget, like, kind of the power we have and some of the decisions that we make. But I think you've taken it, you know, lots of steps forward, past that because not only do you recognize that, you recognize the power of food as you said, but recognize and are able to kinda educate and empower those people that are starting these businesses and organizations and those companies with the tools and the know-how in order to execute on that.

[00:05:50.19] – Kim Bryden

Exactly. We often say at Curate, you may make jam but not know how to run a jam business, and you've become us. Because so much about starting any venture is, for sure you have your product or service that is your unique value proposition. It is the main crux of what you do, but there are all of these other aspects to running a business that aren't actually about the product you're selling. And so we really dive deep with the small businesses we work with on the supply side of the coin. As you said, it's creating this empowered food and beverage supply. What does it mean to actually meet this changing consumer demand, and how do we do that?

[00:06:32.80] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. So, yeah, I absolutely love that. And it's so funny because I think the beginning of the book, one of the books that I often reference is the E Myth, and it talks about not pie, but I think it's not jam, it was actually pie. And now, realizing that running a business is so much more than kind of that pie and that most people don't understand all those aspects. So that's why I love, you know, your business and everything you're doing because it takes that, you know, to an entirely different level. So, I know you touched on a little bit and I did as well when I introduced you. Could you take us through a little bit more on how exactly you work with the clients you serve and how exactly that process goes?

[00:07:08.00] – Kim Bryden

Definitely. So at Curate, we have these three core tenants, and they all work together and sort of funnel into one another. So on that building and empowered supply, that first vertical is called courses. And so we are hired by economic development departments or workforce development nonprofits, anyone who sees entrepreneurship as a means for job creation or overall economic growth in a city metro area. And so we run cohorts of entrepreneurs through the curriculum that we've created. And again, like we're talking about the it's all, it's all about running the business side of a food business. We've seen over hundred and 150 businesses through our programs to date. So that's been pretty incredible. And over time, graduating different cohorts of businesses, we get a ton of inbound emails ranging from, you know, I'm in the farmers market, what's next?

Or maybe I'm in Whole Foods, like now what do I do? And so we started thinking about, okay, where are these larger areas of opportunity to shift the dollar back into these local small businesses that aren't maybe the traditional verticals you would think of? So a lot of times when people think about local food, they may think of farm-to-table in a restaurant or or that grocery store. So we decided, okay, if we're not thinking about restaurants and we're not thinking about grocery, who else has a sizable amount of budget for food procurement? And so we started looking at food service in universities, hospitals, pension centres, corporate cafeterias, this other supply chain that a lot of people maybe don't think about as often. And so that led to this second vertical of our business, Connect. Curate Connect is our proprietary procurement platform where we become the local purchasing team at these larger anchor institution accounts.

So they'll say anything to us from, we want more vegan products, you know, a very broad ask to something very specific, like, we need kombucha. And so we then act as that local purchasing team and bring those products into their operations to change up their product mix on their shelf and, ultimately drive sales for everyone. Right? Like, this isn't we're not a nonprofit. You know, this is a for-profit business, and we're trying to make money for all stakeholders involved. So courses are, again, building that empowered supply to meet this change in consumer demand that then happens with Connect. And then the last piece of it is consulting.

There are different entities who want us to help them reimagine their retail experiences. And, think about how, I mean, shoot, we're living in these new times of COVID-19, right? And so there's a lot of change happening in how people spend their money and where and, and what the face of cities or even suburban or rural areas look like. And so we've become a part of these different initiatives to reimagine, again, retail experiences and also like food systems at large. And how can we think about it now going into the next twenty-twenty decades and beyond?

[00:10:39.39] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

[00:10:50.20] – Kim Bryden

I don't know if it's a hack, but it is a thing that I have always done and will continue to do. And that is I don't I do not consume content that is just of my industry and I think it's really important for everyone to be an expert generalist in a way and understand how like, movements in blockchain or artificial intelligence or whatever. You might think it's a completely disparate disparate industry, biodiversity. But so much of our world obviously is very interconnected. And so I force myself to listen to podcasts, read news articles, and find books that are outside of just me staying in the food culture world.

[00:11:44.70] – Gresham Harkless

I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell yourself, you would tell a client, or even tell yourself if you were to hop into a time machine.

[00:11:55.29] – Kim Bryden

I guess something past Kim did that is really beneficial for present Kim, is that I think that this developing the skill of active listening cannot be underestimated. And what I mean by that is oftentimes when you're in a networking event on a panel discussion or on a podcast. Right? Like, there are so many spaces where you might be thinking about what you want to say next as opposed to really hearing what the person's telling problem I have. And so you have to be able to problem I have. And so you have to be able to know, yes, like, what is the goal or objective you might be having in that situation?

But you need to actively listen to what that person's problem actually is. Because at the end of the day, like, business is about solving problems and having someone pay you for your solution. But what if the problem they're having is, like, they want to impress their boss? Right? And that might be what your product or service has to do to help them achieve their goal of wanting to impress their boss. But they're not gonna flat-out say that. You know what I mean? You need to you need to pick up on those cues in a conversation in order to really feel what is it that that person wants in their life. Like, what they define, success as and what motivates them.

[00:13:34.50] – Gresham Harkless

I definitely appreciate that nugget. And so now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're all gonna have different quote-unquote CEOs on this show. So, Kim, Kim, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:13:46.89] – Kim Bryden

It means personally having more agency and ownership of my time, and sometimes that ideal can, you know, at times be in contrast with something like financial stability. Right? Like you're you're stepping into this one thing you value, and it's possible that these other things are a little bit more askew. That is something that I personally value a lot, but in the context of running an organization, I feel so strongly that the CEOs of now and in the future need to be developing businesses that are so values-aligned.

[00:14:29.70] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Kim, truly appreciate that perspective and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things that you're working on.

[00:14:44.50] – Kim Bryden

Oh, thanks so much. And truly, I am so eager to chat with anyone who's listening. You can go to our website, which is cureate.co It's c u r e a t e dot co. That's also our Instagram handle curate co c u r e a t e co. And, yeah, on the website, you can sign up for the tidbit newsletter that I referenced. It's also a podcast that you can find on iTunes and Spotify. Just different business lessons learned ranging from overall entrepreneurship top topics to very specific, food industry knowledge. So really eager to hear from you and, learn about your business endeavours.

[00:15:29.20] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much again, Kim. We would definitely have the links and the information in the show notes, and I appreciate you arming us with the knowledge so that we can, arm ourselves and see the change in our in our community. So I definitely appreciate that message and all the awesome things you're doing. I hope you have a great rest of the day.

[00:15:44.70] – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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