Food Business Ideas (how to start a food blog)
Ready to start a food blog? Today is the day to get started. Today I’m sharing a few food blog niche ideas and showing you how to start a food blog.
These are niche blog ideas that I have researched. I strongly considered creating a website in the below niches, but I don’t have enough time. So, I’m sharing my food niche ideas with you just like I do in my niche site series.
There are countless possibilities for the food blog niche ideas. Anything you can think of can be turned into a blog niche site. Food trucks, knives, dark roast coffee, paleo diet, toaster ovens… the possibilities are endless. In this blog, I am just giving you a few business ideas to get you started.
Now, let’s dive into a few food blog niche ideas. This is where you start. This is how to start a food blog.
Food Business Idea #1: Vegan Soup
My wife and I are vegan. So, in the winter in Maine, we eat soup like everyone else in the Northeast trying to stay warm.
The problem is, we can rarely find any variations of vegan soup in the grocery store. Almost every soup at the store is made with chicken stock. Even vegetable soup, it’s made with Chicken stock! Who does that?! So, this past winter, we spent months Googling various vegan soup recipes trying to make our own concoctions.
This piqued my interest. So, I went back to Long Tail Pro for my niche research. I found that 8,100 people per month are searching for “Vegan Soup” and almost NO ONE is ranking for this keyword! It has a Long Tail Pro keyword competitiveness score of 29. That is really low for a root keyword with only two words like “Vegan Soup”.
I looked deeper and found more relevant keywords with high search volume and low competition including:
- Vegan cookbook
- Vegetarian split pea soup recipe
- Vegan Mexican soup
- Vegan soup brands
- Best vegan soup recipe
People are searching for Vegan soup and there are very few reputable websites creating content in this niche. There is a clear niche website opportunity here.
Based on these keywords I know people want vegan soup, and they want recipes to make their own vegan soup.
How to make money with this food blog niche idea
Brainstorming for this idea, I thought of how to start a food blog with the vegan soup food niche idea. With this in mind, I came up with the following revenue-generating ideas (this is what I would do):
- Cookbook – write a vegan soup cookbook with the best simple recipes to make vegan soup at home.
- Affiliate program – find the best vegan soups online. I know for a fact there are some on Amazon. Find your favorites and join the Amazon affiliates program. Begin recommending your favorite soups and get an affiliate commission when people buy the soup through Amazon.
- Advertise – use Google ads or sell ads on your website.
- Soup subscription box – I’ve seen hot sauce subscription boxes and barbeque sauce subscription boxes. Why not create a vegan soup subscription box? Send the subscriber five of your favorite vegan soups each month. Or, create something like HelloFresh and Purple Carrot. Send ingredients to your subscribers each month with a recipe to make your favorite at home vegan soups.
- Your soup – once you start building a following, create your own soup brand! There are not many variations of vegan soup out there. We always buy the brand “Amy’s Organic Soups” from Whole Foods. Other than that, I can’t name a single vegan soup brand.
There is a clear food niche idea here, you can start a food blog about vegan soup.
Someone please take this food niche idea and run with it. I could use some new vegan soup recipes!
Idea #2: Vegan Breakfast
Another vegan idea. There is an opportunity here because vegan is a niche. Rather than focusing on all foods, which is really broad, I get narrow and specific and look for specific foods within a specific diet.
I find opportunities here, in the vegan niche, because this is the dietary restriction that I follow. I urge you to look within your diet, you will find opportunities there. There is a lot of opportunity in the diet niche. If you are currently on a diet or have certain dietary restrictions that you follow, that can be your business.
For this food business idea, I want to dive into the vegan breakfast niche. There are seemingly a lot of opportunities for someone to come in and create an online business about vegan breakfast.
Why is this a viable food business idea?
This business idea came from a coaching call with one of my members in The Entrepreneur Ride Along Membership. He had the same dietary restrictions as me, so naturally, on our one-on-one coaching call, we looked into the vegan niche. Specifically, we were simply looking into starting a vegan food blog. Possibly in the niche of healthy vegan desserts.
What we found was unexpected. We found over 49,000 people per month are searching for vegan breakfast.
How specific is that! It’s a food niche idea within the vegan niche.
We also found people were searching for specifics within the vegan breakfast niche, which we saw as an opportunity for content creation. Here is what we found people were searching for:
- Vegan breakfast meal prep
- Healthy vegan breakfast recipes
- Vegan breakfast muffins
- Vegan breakfast bars
- Vegan breakfast sandwich (1,900 people per month searching for this)
And almost NO ONE had a site dedicated specifically to the vegan breakfast niche.
If I chose this niche to start a business, I would be laser-focused on vegan breakfast. I would become the go-to expert on everything vegan breakfast. And I’d probably gain 100 pounds cooking vegan breakfast sandwiches, but it would be totally worth it.
How to make money with this food blog niche idea
There is a TON of opportunities to make money in the food niche. Looking once again at how to start a food blog with the vegan breakfast niche idea, I came up with the following revenue-generating ideas (this is what I would do):
- Cookbook – cookbooks make a killing on Amazon. I just counted, I personally have over 20 vegan cookbooks sitting on my bookshelf right now. Check out the image below, it’s a snippet of JungleScout, a tool I use to estimate my competitors’ monthly sales on Amazon. People are making over $10,000 per month just selling a cookbook! This is where I would start. I would write a vegan breakfast cookbook. Just something simple with my top 30 go-to vegan breakfast recipes. I would sell this to my email list and sell it organically on Amazon. Amazon KDP is part of the print on demand niche, you can self publish your book and sell it directly through Amazon without holding inventory.
- Coaching – you can be a coach for anything. Especially in the diet niche. Why not be a vegan coach? Help people adopt the vegan diet and live a healthier lifestyle. You don’t have to specifically be a vegan breakfast coach. Vegan breakfast is your means to connect with people in the vegan niche, then you sell them on your vegan diet coaching.
- Group coaching – I LOVE group coaching. It’s a great way to maximize your time and effectiveness as a coach. Similar to the coaching method I mentioned above, you can attract a vegan audience by publishing content about vegan breakfast. Then, sell your group coaching program where you bring together a group of new vegans every week for five weeks to discuss living the vegan lifestyle and cooking healthy vegan food.
- Cooking class (can be virtual) – you are going to learn to cook if you are in the vegan food niche. Host a cooking class! You are going to become known as the cool breakfast vegan cook. People will want to learn from you. So, teach them your magical ways! Host a paid class, people will pay to learn a few recipes from you with step-by-step live instructions. This can be virtual or in person.
- Sell vegan food – now that you are the vegan breakfast expert, why not sell your own vegan food? Sell your own vegan breakfast burritos. Sell vegan supplements. Just start your own vegan food brand!
- Affiliate – pretty much any website can have an affiliate aspect. Start recommending the best cooking products (pots, pans, spatulas, etc…) and the staple vegan breakfast ingredients that people need to buy. Earn a commission anytime someone uses your affiliate link and purchases your recommended products on Amazon.
Idea #3: Any Diet
In Step One, I talk all about how any diet could be a business. I want to share a snippet from the book with you to give you more food business ideas.
Every diet you have ever followed could be your first business. Kevin Davis, for example, combined his years of experience treating patients as a physician assistant and years of experience on the popular keto diet to build his business, OurKetogenicLife.com, an entire website teaching about the keto diet and how it can improve energy and weight loss. From Kevin’s experience and personal success using the Keto diet, he wrote and published the popular ketogenic lifestyle book Just Tell Me What to Do and is now a highly sought-after (and highly profitable) one-on-one keto diet coach.
In my analysis of the keto niche, I found that 1,830,000 people per month search for the root niche of keto diet. Subtopics include keto dessert recipes (22,000 searches, 37 KC), keto diet for beginners (22,200, 48), and seven-day keto diet plan (1,000, 40). Additionally, I see a number of other topics that meet the criterion of keywords with KCs of nor more than 35 and at least 100 searches each, including keto diet crock pot recipes (210 searches, 27 KC) and several businesses selling books about the keto diet, keto membership groups, and a keto group coaching course. There is an opportunity in this niche.
More Food Blog Niche Ideas
Dieting and dietary restrictions are very prominent niches. If you are currently on a diet or have certain dietary restrictions that you follow, you can make that your food niche idea. Just off the top of my head, I can think of a few food niche ideas for dieting:
- Keto
- Weight Watchers
- Paleo
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Pescatarian
- Lactose intolerant
- Peanut allergy
These are just a few diets. There are so many variations of different diets, programs, and dietary restrictions. If you are following one, or face any restrictions in your diet, this can be a niche.
You could sell a cookbook for vegetarians, you could teach people to cook for their lactose-intolerant children, you could blog about Keto snacks, you could be a Paleo coach, or you can start an affiliate site recommending the best Weight Watchers food.
There are so many niche options related to dieting!
Idea #4: Look Around You (Vitamix, Loose Leaf Tea, Coffee)
In Use Your Job to Quit Your Job I tell readers to stop and look around for business ideas. To help with brainstorming, I ask the reader to answer the following questions; trying to provide five answers to each question.
- Look around the room you are sitting in now and list five things you see.
- Step into another room and list five things you see.
- Look out the window or step outside and list five things you see.
This is one of my favorite sets of questions. I have used this set of questions to help hundreds of entrepreneurs start their first business. I love the look of surprise when a client’s eyes light up, sparked with a brilliant business idea after looking around at the objects in the room. Pay close attention to your surroundings. Your first business might be sitting right in front of you.
Use this to find your food niche idea. From looking around my room kitchen, I see a few potential food business ideas.
The Vitamix blender is a good example. I know this is a viable food blog niche idea because I bought my Vitamix blender through an online business in the Vitamix niche and later learned that the business generates six figures in income. Over $100,000 per year from a blender; now that is a niche business! This food business idea is actually a niche within a niche. It’s not just a business about blenders, it’s a business about a specific type of blender. Remember, the riches are in the niches. There is still plenty of opportunity in this space, so I could go out and create my own Vitamix blender business. In general, there is a lot of opportunity in the kitchen gadget space.
Loose leaf tea is another great example. I just recently started learning about loose leaf tea and began using it in my Ninja coffee and tea maker. This could be a business. I am quickly learning there are a lot of variations in tea and brewing techniques and that there is a whole market of tea people who swear by loose leaf tea. This is a niche opportunity; I could build an entire business about one specific type of loose-leaf tea.
Coffee could be your first business. You can find a niche in the coffee space, like the French press coffee maker. Cooking, or any hobby related to cooking, could be your first business. Pick any kitchen or cooking utensil, like the cast iron skillet, and you could have your niche business.
Look around you right now, whether you are in your house, your car, or the office. There is a business idea sitting right in front of you.
Conclusion: Final Food Niche Ideas
This is how to start a food blog. You start by finding your niche business idea. In this blog, I have given you four viable food business ideas you can use to start your business today.
The food niche is really big. There are a lot of ways you could create a niche around food. This is one of the most basic online business ideas for beginners. This can be your food blog niche idea.
A few of my coaching clients started their first niche sites by focusing on selling donuts. This is where a lot of successful entrepreneurs start.
Take Pat Flynn, for example. Pat started a niche website about food trucks, foodtruckr.com, teaching people how to start a food trucking business; it generates another $2,000 per month in passive income. He had no experience as a food truck owner before starting the businesses, but he was able to generate substantial revenue in the food niche (Pat has since sold this website).
Again, with the food niche idea, you want to find a niche within a niche. Don’t start a niche site about food in general. That is too broad. Here are a few food niche ideas:
- Vegetarian soup
- Vegan cheese
- Grilled meat
- Cooking fish
- Healthy fruits
- Healthy carbs
- How to make bread
- Food for toddlers
- Food for broke college kids
Similar to the diet niche you could sell a cookbook, you could have an affiliate site recommending the cheapest food to buy online for college kids, you could create a membership site about vegan cheese, you could package and sell your own vegetarian soup, or you could teach people how to cook bread. There are so many niche options related to food.
Keep track of what you eat and cook, is there anything you ate today that you could start a niche site about?
Ready to Start Your Business?
If you find yourself saying “I want to start a business, but I don’t know what to do,” this is the book for you.
In Step One you will come up with over one hundred and fifty business ideas, you will conduct market research to narrow your list of ideas down to one viable idea, and you will validate the idea so you can hit the ground running and launch your business.
Ready to start your business? Pick up your copy of Step One today, and get started building your business.
