Vaughan food industry veteran pens book to give budding entrepreneurs a leg up

yorkregion.com
April 4, 2017
By Adam Martin-Robbins

Bruno Codispoti is a seasoned veteran of the food industry, having spent two decades battling to secure prime shelf space in grocery stores and the LCBO.

Now, the Vaughan resident is sharing lessons learned from his sweet victories and sour defeats in a new book dubbed Food Fight Inc.

Codispoti started writing about five years ago to chronicle the myriad products he and his brother/business partner, Dave, have launched together.

“At some point I said: ‘I think this would be really helpful for startup entrepreneurs, especially food entrepreneurs,” the 44-year-old father-of-three said. “As you sit down with these would-be entrepreneurs, there’s a lot of patterns; the questions are all similar. You also start to realize there are certain roads that lead to failure and certain strategies and roads that will keep you going. So I wrote it to give startup entrepreneurs a leg up.”

Codispoti’s career began at Beta Brands, which had the rights to brands such as LifeSavers. Then, he jumped to food industry giant The Quaker Oats Company. Following that, he started his own firm, BrandFusion, which has enjoyed successes from the launch of Kernels Popcorn Shakers in grocery stores to the creation of Crazy Uncle Hard Root Beer, last summer’s hottest seller at the LCBO.

In Food Fight, Codispoti shares the knowledge he’s gleaned from those tasty triumphs as well as from the times his bread failed to rise.

For instance, there was his overzealous attempt to team up with former Van Halen frontman Sammy Hagar to create a high-end margarita mix, or his failed pitch to partner with superstar chef Jamie Oliver.

Written in a conversational style with a dash of salty language sprinkled in, the 227-page book makes for a fairly quick read.

Many of the chapters feature a section called Let it Simmer, where Codispoti dices the key lessons into easy-to-chew morsels.

The book serves up a lot of the ingredients needed to succeed, but there's one piece of advice Codispoti hopes his readers digest.

“I think the fundamental lesson in the book - I express it a few different ways - is that the fight in Food Fight refers to the fact that it’s a battle of repetition. Even if you strike out 20 times, you’ve got to keep on swinging because it might be that 21st swing that connects,” he said.

Codispoti also paints a pretty clear picture of the man behind the book, especially his passion for music, which is proudly displayed on the book’s website, where you’ll find a link to a song he wrote to promote it.

“After someone reads it, I want them to say: ‘I want to sit down for a beer with this guy. This guy seems like a very approachable, down-to-earth guy',” he explained.

Food Fight Inc. only came out April 1, but early reaction has been positive.

“People are pleasantly surprised because they think they’re going to be getting a very structured business book, but it’s a very entertaining read."

To find out more, visit www.foodfightinc.ca.