Go to Super Site 

Business-to-Fiery-Business Dot Com:

Using the Internet to Locate Crucial Contacts

by Dave DeWitt

A recent article in Business Week revealed that despite the hordes of consumers visiting sites on the Internet, most of the money changing hands is not consumer-to-business but rather business-to-business. There are numerous Websites that promote business-to-business trade, including brokering commodities, and it makes sense that they should prosper. It’s all about finding the crucial connections necessary for your business to succeed.

Imagine it is1990 and you have a great idea for a new hot sauce called Mangonero, but you need to find two ingredients, mango puree and habanero chile mash. What methods could you use to track down suppliers of these two crucial ingredients? You could contact local produce companies and see if they could help, or you could call that three-year-old consumer magazine, Chile Pepper, and hope they know of some sources. But your methods would be limited, and you would need persistence and luck to find suppliers. Ten years later, the process is a lot easier.

Manufacturers need suppliers, distributors, and retailers. Retailers need suppliers, manufacturers, and consumers. Suppliers need manufacturers, retailers, and other suppliers. Everyone needs promotion and advertising, and all of these companies need to build reliable contact lists. The Web’s food business-to-business-sites are the answer.

In order to find Websites of companies essential to the Fiery Foods Industry, I recently did a Web search under the descriptor "business to business food." I used the search engines www.dogpile.com and www.google.com, which search other search engines to find the best matches to your search criteria. They found hundreds of sites, so I went surfing and spent many hours exploring and bookmarking sites that were the most interesting and useful. I was amazed at the depth of information that I found. What follows are descriptions and comments about the premier sites for fiery foods business-to-business connections.

Ring of Fire www.webring.org/cgi-bin/webring?list&ring=chile 

Ring of Fire is a linked webring of 401 Fiery Foods Industry-related sites. The address above goes to their list of participating sites, most with a brief description of the site. There are growers, manufacturers, retailers, and hobbyists on the list. For a quick education on the Fiery Foods Industry in cyberspace, this is it. The list is random, but the sites are fascinating.

Food Ingredients Online www.foodingredientsonline.com/content/homepage/ 

Calling itself "A Professional Community," this ezine, updated daily, is a good introduction to how food ingredient suppliers fit into the entire picture of food manufacturing–on the biggest levels. First, there is a site search for products and services, then editorial with industry news and featured articles, a product center with a buyer’s guide and product showcase, deal of the day with food manufacturing equipment, editor’s choice of a new food ingredient, and the latest news headlines. This is one of the more educational sites I encountered.

ecFood.com www.ecfood.com 

This business site was started with the philosophy "that the Internet is the most cost-effective medium to conduct business-to-business transactions." People in the food business can buy, sell, auction, promote, and conduct all their e-commerce activities at ecFood.com. Buyers or sellers of food can go the Buyer & Seller Trading Services section. People interested in joining their brokerage program and representing ecFood.com can visit the Business Associate Trading Services. I went to the buyer and seller section and did a search for chile peppers and immediately located sources for New Mexico Chile Pods, Ancho Chile Pods, Smoked Serrano Chiles, Ancho Chile De-Stemmed, and Pepper-Flavored Mini Quiches. This site is invaluable for everyone in the Fiery Foods Industry.

DMOZ Open Directory Project http://dmoz.org/Business/Industries/Food_and_Related_Products/ 

The DMOZ project, operated by volunteer editors, is designed to be a complete directory of the World Wide Web. I located this particular part of the Open Directory and discovered that it’s a great way for food manufacturers, restaurateurs, and retailers to locate sources of all kinds. In the category Food and Related Products, here are the entries and the number of sources in parentheses:

  • Agriculture and Forestry (4,602)

  • Baby Food (12)

  • Baked Goods (14)

  • Beverages (128)

  • Brokers (16)

  • Condiments (20)

  • Confectionery (64)

  • Consultants (12)

  • Culinary Institutes (37)

  • Dairy Products (35)

  • Energy Bars and Gels (15)

  • Food Processing (115)

  • Food Processing Ingredient (26)

  • Food Service (15)

  • Foodservice Equipment (151)

  • Frozen (3)

  • Fruit and Vegetables (83)

  • Grain (27)

  • Importers and Exporters@ (35)

  • Meat (64)

  • Mushrooms and Wild Foods (6)

  • Noodles (5)

  • Nuts (4)

  • Oils (12)

  • Organic Foods (37)

  • Pasta (3)

  • Retailers (2,329)

  • Seafood (194)

  • Seasonings (22)

  • Snack Foods (26)

  • Specialty & Gourmet Foods (29)

  • Sweeteners (83)

  • Trade Associations (9)

Lycos Directory–Food and Related Products

http://dir.lycos.com/Business/Industries/Food_and_Related_Products/ 

Similar to the DMOZ directory is the Lycos one. Under the heading Food and Related Products, I found the following categories with the number of sources in parentheses.

Following this list is a directory of links to dozens of supplier sites selected by editors and arranged alphabetically but with good descriptions. Another invaluable resource on the web, the Lycos Directory is a good place to start a search.

Yahoo Food Companies Directory

http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Companies/Food/ 

This directory has the largest number of categories to search, but no selected links like Lycos. The categories are:

  • Baked Goods (336)

  • Beverages

  • Brand Names (179)

  • Breakfast (42)

  • Catering (37)

  • Condiments (380)

  • Consulting (92)

  • Cooking

  • Cooking Software

  • Coupons (27)

  • Dairy (204)

  • Dairy Alternatives (12)

  • Desserts and Sweets (58)

  • Directories (41)

  • Distributors (207)

  • Eggs (31)

  • Food Safety (14)

  • Frozen (47)

  • Grains (71)

  • Magazines

  • Manufacturing & Processing (725)

  • Meat and Poultry (414)

  • Mixes and Kits (12)

  • Natural/Organic (85)

  • Noodles (43)

  • Oils (73)

  • Organizations (75)

  • Pizza (27)

  • Produce (682)

  • Restaurants (10992)

  • Retail (544)

  • Seafood (378)

  • Seasoning (125)

  • Snacks (643)

  • Soup (7)

  • Soy Products (20)

  • Specialty (562)

  • Staples and Ingredients (75)

  • Sugar and Sweeteners (131)

  • Trade Magazines (15)

  • Videos

  • Wholesalers

This directory is useful for manufacturers seeking both suppliers and disrtibutors. Retailers can use it to locate manufacturers.

FoodContact www.foodcontact.com 

This clever site allows you to browse through categories to find suppliers, or to search for them by the names of the products they supply. The categories are:

To use the FoodContact Food and Beverage Supplier Locator, you must fill out a form with complete business information on your company, and then a detailed description of what you are looking for. FoodContact the does the search and reports back to you. It’s certainly worth a try if you can’t find the right price for mango puree or habanero chile mash.

Additional Recommended Websites

Thomas Register of American Manufacturers www.thomasregister.com 

Food manufacturers needing equipment and supplies can use the handy search feature to locate everything from hammer mills to barbecue sauce bottles.

Agricultural Business Directory www.oneglobe.com/agriculture/bb_bzdir.htm#srchlink 

This site is handy for locating agricultural and grocery suppliers, but you should have your directory of SIC codes handy because there are no product descriptions here.

Thefoodsite www.dotfood.com 

Calling itself "The Website for the World’s Food and Drink Industries," this educational site is a division of Miller Freeman, the gigantic media company that owns Food Manufacture magazine in the U.K. and produces the Food and Drink Expo. This site is a good introduction to food manufacturing, retailing, and catering across the Atlantic Ocean.

Food Processing on the Web www.foodprocessing.com/ 

According to its blurb on the homepage, "Food Processing Magazine reports on strategy and technology developments in the food industry. Each issue investigates new and innovative technologies in ingredients, processing, packaging, automation and process control. We report

and comment on marketing, product development and business strategies. We address the information and networking needs of the cross-functional teams who actively create, manufacture and market food products."

Food Quality Magazine http://foodquality.com/ 

According to this ezine’s blurb, "A publication of Carpe Diem Communications, Inc., Food Quality is a dynamic magazine written to keep the food and beverage industry informed about the very latest technologies, techniques and legislation in food quality assurance and control. Food Quality focuses on the needs and interests of Quality Assurance, Laboratory and Plant Operations personnel within food companies and laboratories."

Europages Food and Related Products Directory

www.europages.com/cgi/epq.cgi?L=en&DID=02&DMH.x=10 

This amazingly complete directory reveals the complete European food world, with sources as varied as 744 companies involved with spices, sauces, condiments and food extracts and 769 suppliers of precooked and gourmet foods.

CMS Business and Industry Reports: Food and Drink

www.textor.com/cms/Business_and_Industry_Food_and_Drink.html 

On this site are listed more than 150 technical marketing reports such as Speciality and Ethnic Foods - Mexican/Tex-Mex Food, Snacks - Nuts, and Ethnic Foods - Caribbean. Be forewarned that CMS charges for these reports. We have not reviewed any of the reports themselves. A similar site is The Business Information Library at www.biz-lib.com/Business_and_Industry_Food_and_Drink.html).

FoodNet http://foodnet.fic.ca/ 

A must for Canadian food processors, this site is "A business tool designed for food processors. Provides the best links to policy, regulatory, food safety, trade information and other sites."

Top of Page