Women’s Day Exclusive: Katy Barfield

You are a successful social entrepreneur. We are very fascinated with the idea of your business- Yume Food. How did you come up with that?

As the founding CEO of food rescue organisation, SecondBite, I saw that there was still so much food being wasted in the commercial food sector that could not be donated. I created Yume in 2014 to dramatically reduce the 3.9 million tonnes of food still going to waste in the commercial food industry each year. Yume’s mission is to drive revolutionary change in the food industry by enabling the sale of surplus food via technology.

What major challenges did you face as a Social Entrepreneur in terms of expanding your reach?

Like any other startup, Yume faced a number of challenges in the early days. We were trying to balance the technical build of the platform while trying to expand our reach with buyers and suppliers by getting them to trust us with their brand. We overcame this challenge by always focussing on providing exceptional and attentive service so that our credibility strengthened.

As a successful business leader, do you feel social networking helps? What strategies one can implement for a new business which has no social reach?

Absolutely! Social networking is crucial for any startup. We are often reaching out to companies on LinkedIn and looking for like-minded people via Facebook. For a business that has no social reach it’s best to start posting your own content online which will draw people to your brand and position you as a thought-leader in the space.

Do you feel visuals work better in comparison to text in a business like yours? What has worked best in your case?

The Yume platform is quite unique and unlike any other business around. We found out that visually representing information works best as it allows people to understand how we work at a glance.

What one advice do you want to give to aspiring women entrepreneurs?

Never stray from your mission and vision!