I just watched a program on the BBC about the ridiculous amount of food that we waste – and rather oddly it struck an idea for a niche business.

We all waste food in our homes on a regular basis; a loaf of bread that doesn’t get finished here or a just-after-its-sell-by-date carton of juice. Supermarkets and restaurants are perhaps even more obvious culprits – frequently chucking out fruit, veg, bread and anything else that starts looking a little tired.

And, of course, much of what gets chucked out is perfectly edible. Where picky consumers are involved, aesthetics wins out.

But this starts even before it gets to the shops, with mountains of fresh produce and ingredients never even making it as far as the grocery store shelves simply because it doesn’t conform to specs. Apparently, courgettes (zucchini) for example must be between 17 and 21 centimeters – otherwise they’re simply composted, tilled back into the ground or fed to livestock.

So how about a niche market that sells exclusively misshapen veg, under-sized eggs, dented canned goods and overly bent bananas?

The goods could be sourced at a discount from producers and suppliers keen to get rid of stock that is rejected by the big retailers and then sold on to eco-savvy and cost-concious consumers, also at a discount.

If you know of a business that’s already doing this – let me know.

One the themes of this site is that you can build a business around just about anything – and the bigger the idea, the better.

If you’re not convinced, check out Bompas & Parr. Known primarily for creating jellies and jelly moulds, they describe themselves thusly:

The work of Bompas & Parr operates in the space between food and architecture. Our projects explore how the taste of food is altered through synaesthesia, performance and setting. Currently the focus of our research is jelly: jelly is the perfect site for an examination of food and architecture due to its uniquely plastic form and the historic role it has played in exploring notions of taste.

That research carries over into culinary events too; including Scratch ‘n’ Sniff Cinema, an Architectural Punch Bowl (where they flooded a building with over four tonnes of punch) and an Aerobanquet featuring ‘inflight entertainment, a plane crash with explosions, and dessert served out the back of an ambulance’.

If your idea is big enough, you can do just about anything.

Site: www.jellymongers.co.uk/

Companies being ‘inspired by’ well-known brands is nothing new – although they don’t often make it a selling point.

London-based Stolen’s, Monday Supper Club, features a menu explicitly ‘inspired by’ high-end London restaurants.

“Why do we steal? Hungry for variety, we recognized that there is a huge amount of talnt out there. Combining their gifts with ours enables us to bring you an even bigger spectrum of taste. A celebration of even more creativity if you like.”

Catering for up to 15 guests, the supper club menu changes every week and frequently gets a little preview on the company blog. They also run a Thursday market stall for lunches, can deliver and host private parties.

Site: www.stolen.it Via: Springwise

In celebration of St Patrick’s Day, this week we’ll be focusing exclusively on interesting businesses and entrepreneurs from the island of Ireland, both North and South.

The Good Little Company, Downpatrick

Sausages are not an obvious product to create an innovative business around but through creative branding – and a mission that goes beyond just selling sausages – that’s exactly what The Good Little Company has done.

Based in Northern Ireland, The Good Little Company makes and sells sausages and describe themselves as, “a small company full to the brim with personality, enthusiasm, tastiness and goodness.”

And personality is a good word for it.

It is something that comes across strongly in their use of animated characters and ‘storytelling’ in their marketing – creating a look and feel that has more in common with a children’s animated series than a sausage manufacturer.

Which, in turn, helps reinforce their wider goals like the use of sustainable packaging, using outdoor bred pork and delivering a high-quality product (“a super sausage that would defy its brothers’ and sisters’ reputation and take a stand against evil porky tubes of unknown origin”).

The Good Little Company has also partnered with Christian Aid to donate enough supplies to grow 2 weeks worth of food for every packages of sausages bought. To date they have donated in excess of 2 million meals.

“We are a little company on a big mission — to produce food so good that we’re happy to feed it to our own families and to help take care of other people’s families too. This means using the best ingredients, the most sustainable materials and generally just making sure that we our little company has a positive impact on the world.”

A fantastic example of how creativity and social good can be built into any industry – creating a strong, lively brand in the process.

Site: www.goodlittlecompany.com

So what happens when an event sales manager and an IT professor / consultant encounter a delicious French fancy on their travels?

They spend the next five years launching a niche bakery business of course.

After becoming smitten with French macarons on a trip to Paris, husband and wife team Katharine and Justin Greis decided to track down the delicate pastries when they returned home to Chicago – only to find they couldn’t lay their hands on them.

Suitably motivated, they set out to create and sell their own under the brand Panna Dolce and have notched up some impressive sales since launching in December. I decided to get in touch to find out what motivated them and what they’ve learned so far.

[NB: Huge thanks to Justin for taking the time to share his thoughts with us.]

So tell us a little about where the idea for Panna Dolce came from.

Katharine (my wife) and I fell in love with French Macarons in 2003 while I was working in Paris. Katharine came to visit and we spent the afternoon at the classic French Macaron cafe called Laduree.

When we returned to the states we searched all over to find bakeries and patisseries that could emulate the kind of macarons we had in Paris. At the time very few people came close to the classic French recipe and even fewer were able to ship as the macarons were very delicate. I recall we ordered from one bakery and the majority of the macarons arrived in pieces.

We set out on a mission in 2004 to create an internet-based company specializing in French Macarons and a few other delicacies. It was easier said than done…

Katharine (the baker) experimented for months, trying to get the recipe just right. A year later she perfected the recipe but the macarons were too delicate and did not pass the shipping test. We dealt with issues of freshness, packaging, logistics, branding and marketing while building the website and business behind the scenes. We worked on the idea part-time as this was not our full time job.

It became a hobby of ours and we baked up batches at every opportunity. Five years passed and we finally got the recipe right and worked out the logistics and business automation of the website. We selected Volusion as our eCommerce solution as it had the right blend of flexibility and built-in functionality that enabled us to run the business rather than fight with code and security patches. Lauren Robin joined the team and brought restaurant industry experience, which was invaluable.  The three of us work very well together and complement each others’ skill sets, which has been one of our critical success factors.

We went live on 12/12/2009 and it has been amazing. We have supplied macarons to parties, weddings, showers, boutique grocery stores and direct to customers from our website. We have leveraged social media and other networks to create relationships with our customers and fans. What’s most amazing is we have been able to turn strangers into tangible sales through our social network. Sites like Yelp, Metromix and Google Maps have also helped us spread the word and credentialize us through reviews and feedback.

Perhaps the most amazing thing is this is none of our full time jobs. Katharine and Lauren are event planners and I am technology consultant. Kat and Lauren bake everything to order in commercial kitchen and fulfill orders daily after work and on a pre-defined schedule. It makes for a very busy weekend, but when you do what you love, it never feels like work.

You say on your site that you’re ‘obsessed with sugar’, what is it about macarons, cookies and brownies that gets you so excited?

Macarons are amazing little sweets. They are light, delicate and VERY difficult to make. Many trendologists have said that macarons are the “next cupcake.”

I don’t think they are far off base… Macarons are unique and can be customized to suit your flavors and tastes. You can eat a few macarons in one sitting and not feel like you just ate a tub of butter.

What gets us excited is the possibilities of creating new flavors and taste combinations. We always experiment with new flavors textures. From melding sweet and savory such as sweet black sesame to specialized extracts such as vanilla rose, the possibilities are endless. We enjoy working with brides and party hosts looking for something unique and just for them.

It is always fun to watch someone bite into a macaron who has never tried one before. The slightly crisp outter shell gives way to a soft cookie shell with buttercream, ganache or preserve fillings is just amazing. People’s eyes light up and they typically gasp and say they had no idea that macarons were so good. We pride ourselves on new innovative flavors such as Almond Butter and Strawberry Jelly and Key Lime to decadent classics such as chocolate buttercream.

You’re currently selling online and through select retailers – how do you go about getting the word out?

We heavily leverage our social network and online media (twitter, facebook, flickr, blog). When we do something we create a buzz and stay close to foodies and friends in the industry for feedback and PR. We got a great response that way… We also contacted some of the retailers directly and partnered with them to sell our products in stores. All they had to do was try our products and they were hooked.

Did you consider selling through an existing marketplace like Foodzie?

We knew we had to create an online presence of our own. Panna Dolce is more than just macarons, it’s a brand that stands for uncompromising quality. We considered other online mediums, but wanted to control the brand and do certain customizations ourselves we could only do on a site of our own.

Sites like Foodzie are wonderful and I would think we may consider offering our products as an alternative outlet, but we really wanted to maintain control of the brand and user experience.

What have been the biggest challenges so far in getting Panna Dolce off the ground?

Controlling growth! We have had wonderful success in a very short period of time and we are trying to be smart about how fast to grow and which outlets are best for us. We learned quickly that it’s not about selling in every store outlet you can, it’s about being true to your product and brand to deliver on your promise to the customer.

What’s in store for Panna Dolce in the future?

We are introducing a new line of macarons in March called PD Signature that are truly unique to Panna Dolce. They use hazelnut, cashew, pecan and walnut flour rather than the typical almond flour. We will continue to sell online and look for select retail outlets interested in our products.

Finally, we have also done a tremendous amount of gift, favors and wedding business… We will be doing some promotions for brides, especially as the spring/summer wedding season approaches.

Finally, what advice would you give someone who wanted to start a similar business?

Plan, Plan and Plan…but not for too long…in this market you have to move quickly. Make sure you have thought about the obvious fundamentals of business planning, but act boldly when the time is right.

Also, when it comes to your product and service, you must always put the customer first. Do not compromise on quality. If something is wrong, fix it. You never know who will turn around to become your biggest advocate if you provide unparalleled customer service.

Site: www.pannadolce.com

We do like our wine-based businesses here on Iddictive. In January we profiled the tech-wine mashup of 94 Wines and we’ve previously written about starting your own wine label at the Algodon estate in Argentina.

And although we’re a little slow in giving it some coverage, Crushpad takes the idea of starting you own label even further – enabling new niche brands and providing a potential template for other manufacturing based businesses to follow.

Based in San Francisco and launched in 2004, Crushpad is a custom wine making facility that lets anyone become a winemaker and even (potentially) start their own wine business.

“Crushpad is a state-of-the-art winery where you are the wine maker. You choose your level of involvement and we do the rest.”

Would-be wine makers choose from a selection of grapes from vineyards in California and Bordeaux and then work with Crushpad (through their online winemaking resource) to plan everything from the type of barrel to the fermentation technique used.

When the grapes are ready to be harvested, customers can (if they want) visit the winery to get stuck into sorting, crushing and pressing. Once the wine has aged (8-24 months), customers get a chance to taste the wine and make blending decisions before finally working with the Crushpad design team to select bottle type and design a custom label.

A batch of 25 cases will cost anything from around $6,000 to $11,000 depending on the choices you make – which works out at about $19-36 a bottle.

Customers can create wine for their own personal enjoyment, as a fundraising effort (Twitter has launched their own range, Fledgling Wine, to help support the Room to Read charity) or for use in an existing business like a restaurant or club.

Where it really gets intersesting though is in the potential to create your own wine brand for sale.

Needless to say, Crushpad have this covered too. Crushpad Commerce does all the heavy lifting (compliance, ecommerce, shipping etc…) enabling customers to get out and promote their new-born labels. To date they have over 100 customers running their own commercial wine brands with many racking up impressive reviews.

If you’re into wines this is a great way to start your own label with minimal investment and plenty of professional support. But it’s also a cracking business model for other manufacturers to follow.

Site: www.crushpadwine.com

Wine is not generally known as an industry at the forefront of new technologies. Likewise the Dutch are more normally associated with beer than wine. With that in mind, 94 Wines stands out as something a little different – a Dutch company combining wine with tech.

Launched in November 2009, 94 Wines offers a range of French wines in eye-catching numbered bottles (above). Consumers start by taking a short quiz about their wine preferences before being given a ‘wine ID’ to help guide them in their choices (apparently I’m best suited to 23, 51 and 52). You can also save your Wine ID for friends to view – ideal if you’re planning a dinner party.

Moving beyond their innovative branding, each bottle ordered can also be personalised with a digital message which is stored as a QR code on the label.

These codes can potentially be used to store all kinds of files from text to pictures and even video – so you could record a personal greeting on a bottle before sending it on to a friend. The files can be read using the camera of a mobile phone or by filling in a numerical code on the 94 Wines website.

As you might expect, 94 Wines also have a free iPhone app which includes a ‘WineID test, an advanced QR reader, an overview of the 94Wines assortment and the possibility to look at the profiles of your friends.’

From personalized selections, to personalized messages, to sharing it all with your friends – 94 Wines is certainly on track to achieve their goal of ‘making wines personal’.

And even with all this techno wizardry, bottles start at just €5.99. That’s a business I can relate to.

Site: www.94wines.com

Where there’s a niche there’s a business, or rather a near endless supply of business ideas. As odd as it may sound, this even applies to illnesses.

Diabetes affects some 170 million people worldwide, a figure that’s set to more than double by 2030 according to the World Health Organisation.

DiabeticHampers.co.uk hopes to better serve this growing market by providing a range of gift hampers featuring sugar free, low sugar and low GI treats including chocolates, biscuits (cookies), wines and even pampering ‘foot essentials’. Taking a look at a slightly different niche, the site has also introduced a gluten free hamper range.

For foodie entrepreneurs everywhere there are huge opportunities in serving consumers with specific dietary requirements – just like any other niche really.

Site: www.diabetichampers.co.uk