When I ask my culinary and pastry arts students what they would like to do, the most popular answer is: travel — preferably to Italy. (I wonder if this is because they have grown up with families who love to eat.)

Fancy Food Show, NYC 6/27-6/29, 2010

I suggest instead that they explore NASFT, the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade. It is an association of independent, innovative businesses committed to bringing great new foods to market; a diverse community of passionate and creative entrepreneurs, who fuel the innovation and authenticity found in food today.

Since 1954, NASFT has sponsored trade shows like the Fancy Food Show, the premier marketplace for reaching the specialty food trade. These shows attract from 19,000 to 32,000 attendees, who are owners of specialty food stores, and those working in wine, gift and departments stores; supermarket purchasing personnel; restaurant people; mail-order food and cookware, and other related businesses.

The expected 24,000 attendees of the upcoming New York Fancy Food Show (June 27-29) will come to buy from 180,000 products including: confections, cheese, coffee, snacks, spices, ethnic, natural, organic and more from 2,500 exhibitors representing 81 countries.

Many forget that the FMI Show, All Things Organic, United Produce Expo and Conference and U.S. Food Export Showcase joined the Fancy Food Show to make it five shows in one.

Many of the exhibitors are entrepreneurs who created their own recipes and started their own companies–after going culinary school or on a hunch.

Within this vast sector are many opportunities to network, to job connect, to find work with importers and exporters, buyers and sellers.

NASFT also is an organization that tries to nurture and support small and emerging food businesses by providing educational forums, business builder 1 to 1 networking opportunities, even the Sofi awards, which as one judge pointed out, are: “A great way to see what’s next.”

I say to my students, “check the website to find job listings.” Every new product needs help getting to market, from the start in the kitchen to the finish line presentation. Better yet, I tell the students to simply go experience this incredible marketplace of sights and smells, and get inspired.

Next Monday I’ll write about opportunities in eco- and culinary tourism. In coming weeks, I’ll suggest finding employment as a chef in a U.S. embassy or consulate,  as a teacher in a culinary schools in another country or as a food travel writer.

There is always a FOOD JOB to explore.

Everyone agrees. Networking is one of the most positive and effective ways to find a job or expand your business. Networking is the process that leads to building the relationships to support your goals.  It takes time, planning and follow-up. Like planting a garden, the results are not always immediately apparent. The fruits are not always harvested at the end of a conference or after a chance meeting or even when you get the job you wanted more than life itself. In fact, the process of networking never ends.

For me, networking has offered a lifetime of incalculable rewards—both of giving and receiving. I was struck by such a feeling this week when I served on a food careers panel at the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) with Andrew Smith, the editor of the Oxford University Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. I had met him several years ago when I attended a talk he gave for The Culinary Historians of America. Ron Tanner was on the panel too. He is vice president of the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade (NASFT). I met Ron through the Fancy Food Show where I used to sell my little single subject cookbooks.

The meeting at ICE was designed for the students and faculty. I wanted something from them. I wanted to teach a course on Food Jobs at ICE so I asked the President of ICE if he would take me on.  I also wanted Ron’s help in announcing the publication of my book, FOOD JOBS, on the NASFT web site, which, in my opinion, is the best of all the daily information web sites. I asked him (nicely!) for this favor and he willingly granted it.

Andrew Smith teaches culinary history at The New School in Manhattan. He also wanted something. He wanted ICE students to attend special events at The New School.

Ron Tanner wanted two students to help out at the next Fancy Food Show. He asked, and several students accepted the invitation, for what in this case is actually a paid position.

In return, several students asked the panel for specific help.  One wanted to know how to pursue a career as a food historian. A young student wanted to know how to write a proposal for a cookbook. I immediately e-mailed her some information.

Another student raised her hand and asked me why I wasn’t listed on Wikipedia. I told her that you are not permitted to write an entry for yourself. She offered to compose the entry for me. I accepted her offer. Now she’s decided to ask others in the culinary world if she can write their biographies for Wikipedia too. This could be the diving board to propel her into a whole new interesting (and well-paid) career.

Andrew Smith is  also is the past Chair of The Culinary Trust, the philanthropic partner of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP). Ron is on the Board of Directors of this organization. I was one of its founding members and worked on several committees before being appointed president. We on the panel hoped the ICE students would join our association. We provided many incentives on why to join and asked them to look at our association’s website.

The time I devoted to IACP flowered into innumerable friendships, memorable conversations and countless unexpected opportunities. Every segment of the food community has similar organizations and all are easily accessed online.

When I look at my ever-expanding network of cherished friends, I realize I am part of a lovely, celebratory, constantly hungry crowd of food lovers. This makes me rich beyond my wildest dreams.

When I asked colleagues to describe their careers for FOOD JOBS, every single one agreed to do so. Not one asked for a fee of any kind. Their generous contributions will, I hope, inspire and help many food lovers get started in their chosen corner of the vast food universe.

This brings me back full circle: It is important to remember that networking is different from selling. The object is the relationship: you are not trying to get someone to buy your product or services in 20 seconds or less.  The value of networking is reaped over time and returned dividends in both imaginable and unimaginable ways.

If you buy a lottery ticket and you don’t win gazillions of dollars, you won’t think it is your fault that the prize went to another person. It was not because you were having a bad hair day or the person who sold you the ticket didn’t give you a kiss.

Yet, if you randomly apply for a job through a want advertisement and you don’t get it, you begin to think there is something wrong with you. There isn’t. It could be that your chances of even getting a response to your inquiry are about the same as winning a lottery. It has been estimated that the likelihood of getting an answer or better yet, the opportunity to have an interview is less than one percent. In other words, there is a one in a hundred chance for you to get your foot in the door. If hundreds of qualified applicants answer an ad for a job, your chances are even slimmer. Alas. All too often it is whom you know…

So what do you do? Today, take the important step of establishing or reigniting your network. Ask for help. Maybe your friend has a friend who has a friend. Figure out how to meet the people are who are in a position to be your mentor and guide you with your career.

If you want a culinary career but are not sure how to get started, volunteer at food events. Attend conferences. Launch a blog. Explore how to write an article for the magazine or web site that occupies the niche in the hospitality industry in which you are interested. Be nice!

O.K. this may be pie-in-the-sky.  It is expensive to go to conferences. Even if you are quite impoverished, you can contact the organization that interests you and offer to volunteer in exchange for getting in. Ask to have your travel expenses covered. You may not get a fistful of money but that doesn’t mean you are not being paid.

Once you are hired you have to think up a project — some work that is not part of your official duties. You have to take your courage in your hands, introduce yourself and ask for what you want. If you don’t ask, there is virtually no possibility somebody will come along and offer it to you.

You never know when the next opportunity will come your way and you must always be ready to welcome it — fearlessly! Keep your business card where you can reach it easily. Don’t’ fumble. Don’t mumble. Follow up.

My tip: Be a pal. A job offer will follow. You can count on it.

A student asked me about the risks of opening a specialty food shop and I was able to tell her about my friend Elaine.

Elaine Yannuzzi was one of the most successful specialty food store owners on the East Coast.  She founded Expression unltd. in Warren, New Jersey. At the time there was a wildly enthusiastic interest in what was quaintly known as “GOO’ER-MAY” food. It was fueled by Julia Child, who reigned supreme with The French Chef on public television.

The golden girls of The Silver Palate cookbook (and store) were gaining attention. Martha Stewart was looming on the horizon and dozens and dozens of small kitchen stores were popping up everywhere. Many offered cooking classes, French mustard, Italian olive oil, Belgian chocolates, freshly roasted coffee beans and imported cookies.

Expression unltd. was different.  What made it different is that it made heaps of money.  When the thriving business was sold, a few million dollars flowed into Elaine’s bank account. How did she achieve so much success? She had nerves of steel.

When she walked along the aisles of the Fancy Food Show in New York City, vendors prayed Elaine might stop at their booth.  When she did, she was utterly charming.  She tasted the vendor’s olive oil,  pronounced it excellent. She pulled out her own order form. “I’ll take 66 cases,” she’d say.  Fairly swooning with joy, the vendor beamed.“ He didn’t see the freight train coming.

Next she’d stop at the booth of a Stilton cheese wholesaler. “How much do you have in stock,” she’d ask sweetly. “We’re expecting a new shipment next week,” might be the answer.

“Then I guess you’ll be wanting to get rid of your old inventory?,” she’d muse. “Hmm,“ he’d be wondering where this conversation was going. Then she’d pounce. “As it is nearing its expiration date, I’ll take 78 wheels at a 60 percent discount.”

Stilton cheese lasts almost forever so the customer is more likely to expire before the cheese does.

The cheese seller would be unable to breathe for a moment. But after making a quick calculation and arriving at the conclusion it would be good to make a quick, modest profit, he’d swallow hard, and agree.

“Free freight.” She’d respond primly-Mary Poppins-like as she entered the order on her form. “Gulp!,” the vendor could be heard to gasp.

“And I’ll need a sampling allowance…and an advertising allowance…and 120 day billing!,” Elaine would finish before moving on. Thus she had bought a huge, HUGE quantity of cheese at a price that was, to put a good face on it, pretty close to grand larceny.

When the delivery truck disgorged all the mountains of Stilton, she’d put an ad in the local paper. (Because she was a regular advertiser, the ad was billed to her at a deeply discounted price.)

=STILTON CHEESE=
Regularly $30 a pound
Special Sale
Only $25.95

And the customers lined up to buy it — and all those 66 cases of olive oil that had been “negotiated” on similar terms.  If you’re good at arithmetic, you’ll be able to figure out the profit.

As the BNET Business Network reported, “Slowly, Elaine’s burgundy-and-gray, barn-shaped store in the middle of nowhere became a local and regional tourist attraction and an “in” shopping spot. Epicures from as far as 100 miles away would come to pick up mushroom brushes and elite cookbooks, along with salmon puff pastry, goat cheese, reindeer meat, and margarita-flavored jelly beans.”

Elaine would say, “Whereas the typical food store enjoys stable sales for most of the year, with a “blip” upward just before Christmas, Expression unltd. has stable sales for the first 10 months and then “wild sales for the last two.” That is because, she says, the store so successfully promotes the idea of “food as a gift, food as a special event, food as something that you entertain with at holiday time.”"

The moral of this little story is that to achieve success in the specialty food field, or indeed any other venture, you have to learn the ropes and understand how the system works from the inside. Otherwise, every mistake will be a costly one. And, good fortune results from the finer art of buying and selling more  than the ability to decorate the store nicely.