Business Development > Analysis > Investment Analysis
Updated November, 2020
File C5-230
Assessing Agricultural Processing Investment Opportunities
When considering an investment in an agricultural processing business, focus your thoughts on the following eight areas. These are some of the major topics to investigate when considering a business investment. This should improve your odds of making a wise investment decision.
A) Investigation and Planning -- Has the business concept been thoroughly investigated and adequately planned?
B) Leadership -- Are the project leaders capable of creating a successful business?
C) Economic/Business -- Will the business be profitable?
D) Management -- Is management capable of successfully operating the business?
E) Markets/Industry -- Will people/companies buy the product?
F) Facility/Technology -- Will the process work?
G) Financial -- Are there sufficient funds in place for start-up and operations?
H) Conclusions -- What are the overall conclusions of this investment opportunity investigation?
Each of these topics is investigated in more depth below. This file provides you with a "checklist" of questions that are important in assessing each of the topics above. Answer each question yes (Y), no (N), maybe (M), don’t know (DK), not applicable (NA) or otherwise as directed.
This checklist can be used during or after an equity offering presentation to guide your investigation, to identify important questions to ask the project leaders and as a guide to assess the business plan or disclosure documents.
For more information on business development, visit the Ag Decision Maker website.
Don Hofstrand, retired extension value added agriculture specialist, agdm@iastate.edu
