Growing My Social Capital

1. Domain Expert- UF Nutrition Major
• I contacted a nutrition major as my domain expert since she definitely would know more about nutritional facts for different foods than I would. In the domain of dietary restrictions, I believed that someone that was learning all about nutrition must give them a decent understanding of what these different diets/lifestyles often do to peoples bodies. I also thought this would be a good contact because when they graduate they could possibly refer clients to my business (if I were to open this bakery). I thought this would be a good future contact to have as we both went on to develop in our own fields. I've mentioned in previous posts that my bakery is more than just for people that have dietary restrictions, but for people that care about what they're putting into their bodies (including those people with dietary restrictions since they obviously are forced to care about what they're putting in their products). I just asked some basic questions about what the differences were between the three diets that I was focusing on was (gluten-free, sugar-free and vegan) and asked a little bit about any recommendations she might have for achieving these three dietary foods while also using the best quality ingredients. The student that I spoke to was very helpful and gladly told me some ways that I could make such different dietary foods without forgoing the quality of the food. In fact, it seemed like most of these diets force you to use only high-quality ingredients.
2. Market Expert- Chef Brookes
• I emailed a local chef from my hometown who owns a vegan restaurant and teaches vegan cooking classes. I deemed her a "market expert" as she already owns a shop somewhat similar to the one I've described. I emailed her and asked her how if she had any tips from being in the same industry that I told her my potential business was in. She replied very vaguely and didn't really give any insight. She asked me to be more specific but I honestly had no idea how to be more specific as I just wanted to know if there were any random tips that she had never thought of but had learned over the course of owning her business.
3. Supplier- Publix/Happy Healthy Treats
• For this one I wasn't really sure who I should contact, so I first called Publix to see if they had different ingredients that my type of bakery would need. I asked if they had key ingredients such as gluten flour and bananas (which often act as eggs in bakery goods for vegan food). They had a lot of products that I would need that I wasn't even aware that they had. I also decided to email a woman who has a tent in my hometowns winter-farmers market. Her tent sells vegan baked goods and I was lucky enough to meet her because my mom is a very frequent client (my mom is vegan). I'm still waiting for her response (and I'll update this when she replies), but if I remember correctly this past winter when I was talking to her she told me it's not very complicated and she uses simple ingredients that you can get from any grocery store. She said that this isn't a hard lifestyle like many people think it is.

Reflection: I was very happy to learn how possible opening this kind of bakery could be. All these different types of diets seem so foreign and mystical and as though they'd be hard to keep track of, but in reality all the ingredients are right under our noses and in fact require very little differentiation from our "normal" diets. Especially with these diets becoming more and more popular in today's society, the knowledge is really endless in lists of recipes online, as well as facts to attain these diets.