#44 Words of Advice from a Speciality Retail Buyer

Getting into the mind of a retail buyer is priceless for foodpreneurs. Knowing how to land a meeting with them, what to (and what NOT to) do, and the information they want to know about your product to improve your chances of getting stocked is what every Foodpreneur wants to know right??

Retail buyers, like most of us, are busy people; get them at the right time and you could see your product on their shelves within a week or two, get them at the wrong time and you could be sitting hitting refresh on your emails for a very long time (yep, you’ve been ghosted).

In this episode of Foodpreneur with Chelsea Ford podcast, I chat with specialty retail buyer Tim Sykes from Melbourne’s AMAZING Gertrude Grocer, about everything you’ve always wanted to know from a retail buyer, including:

🛍️ The best day/time to contact them to improve your chances of success.

🛍️ Their preferred ways of contact – one you may have never thought of!

🛍️ What information to come armed with when you land a meeting.

🛍️ Whether you should drop in unannounced and what to do if you decide to cold call AND

🛍️ Much more.

Links & Resources

• Noshing
• Alive & Wild
• Biscotti Boxx
• Box Brownies
• Oakwood Small Goods
• Gertrude Grocer Instagram
• Gertrude Grocer website
• Pricing for Distribution workshop
• Waitlist for Foodpreneurs Formula®

If you haven’t listened to episode 43 (48 mins), What to Do When a Stockist Says ‘No’, or ‘No for Now’. listen here.

This episode is brought to you by Foodpreneurs Formula®, my business acceleration program for packaged food and drink brand owners ready to scale and my Pricing for Distribution workshop to learn how to engage a distributor to help you sell more products and put more money in your pocket.

Season 13, out now, is 'Operations Season' and is being presented by Foodpreneurs Festival, your biggest sales & networking opportunity of the year; and Chelsea Ford Co., helping you land more accounts, get your product into more consumers’ hands, and put more money in your pocket.

Transcript

This is The Foodpreneur with Chelsea Ford podcast. Welcome Foodpreneurs to episode number 44. Today I'm talking with Tim Sykes, a director of Gertrude Grocer, a specialty retailer with three store locations in Melbourne. Tim tells me how he feels about when you drop into his stores without an appointment, and it's not what you think. Any generalizations about cold calling a store you might have heard elsewhere are too simplistic. Tim and his team are producer friendly, and their expectations are indicative of most specialty retail buyers. The nuggets of gold in this episode will help you know how to win retail listings in the specialty channel, and then what's expected of you once you have, so your product lands in more consumers hands. And once that happens, the reorder requests will naturally start to flow. You cannot manufacture that otherwise. Tim and I teach you the process from A to Z. You'll walk away from this episode feeling a lot more confident in your approach to specialty retail buyers and more willing to pitch more often. That at least is my hope for you. This episode of Food and Chelsea Ford is brought to you by Foodpreneurs Formula®, my business acceleration program for package food and drink brand owners ready to scale, and my pricing for distribution workshop to learn how to engage a distributor to help you sell more product and put more money in your pocket.

Hi, I'm Chelsea Ford Award-winning food and drink business expert, head coach of the acclaimed program for Women Foodpreneurs Formula®, and your host for this, the Foodpreneur Podcast. If you're a packaged food and drink business owner, tune in with me each week because I'm gonna help you land more accounts, get in more consumer baskets, and help you put more money in your pocket for every product you sell. In each episode, I'm going to tap into my 30 years of experience leading sales, marketing, and finance teams for big and small food and drink brands to give you coaching tips that will help you take your packaged food or drink business to new heights. I know what works and I know what doesn't. So I'm going to share with you industry tools and insider knowledge that are next to impossible for small businesses to access. And from time to time, I'll dive into my little black book to bring you interviews with hard to reach specialists who will help solve those pesky industry specific problems like distribution. But I know you've been losing way too much sleepover, so roll up your sleeves, foodpreneurs, because you are about to enter a no fluff zone, I'm bringing my A game so you can reach yours no matter where you are, whether it's in your kitchen, coordinating your deliveries, or on your way to a buyer meeting. Listen up because we're about to set the path for you to secure your next best stockers, increase your sales, and put more money in your pocket. This is the Foodpreneur with Chelsea Ford podcast.

Hi, Tim. Great to have you here.

Hey, how's it going? It's great to be here.

I'm thrilled that you're here. Tim Sykes, you have a really interesting background of investment banking and then hospitality. And now as a director of a retail business, do you wanna just elaborate for my audience more about who you are and then perhaps more about the stores that you have?

Yeah, sure. Yeah, so so yeah, I started off I guess my career started off in finance and investment banking which is what I studied at the university. Did that for about 10 years. And then around 2008 I was a bit over the industry and moved into drinks importing and distribution company for hospitality. And did that for four or five years, which was a great, I always wanted to be involved with food and and I guess restaurants and things like that. And people thought I was crazy doing the jump from finance into hobo, but <laugh>, it was just a little, it was just a little itch that I had to scratch. So but I thought I'd do that because I was excited about bringing new products into the country in the drink space. So I started with that and then and then disputing into restaurants and then did that for about four or five years, met some great people along the way, and then two of, two people of such. We teamed up for the three of us now, and then we've formed a separate company, and now we now we have some supermarkets and some some restaurants and gelato and and things like that on the go. So, but our main focus now is the supermarket.

Yeah, you have PB Pizza Bar, you have Lago Geia, you have Mama's Boy Italian restaurant, but where you and I connected was through Gertrude Grocer of which you have three stores at the moment, or a couple coming online anyway. Yeah. Yeah, so Gude Grocer is, in my opinion, just Marna from Heaven. I love going there when I'm in Melbourne. It's so beautiful. <Laugh>, maybe say some more about that grocery store, because I don't think it's your average grocery store.

Yeah, it's, it's I guess with our backgrounds, with our group myself, I guess being born and bred in Melbourne Dario from Italy Joe, who's from Country Victoria. We all have share the same passion. I love introducing local products or, or I love learning about local products. Dario has a lot of interest of the overseas or the Mediterranean type products. And Joe, with his background in in drinks and things like that and finding weird and unique products, which he, he he introduces to us. We, we thought at the start of Covid we would yeah, we, this space became available on Gerrid Street which was empty. And and we thought we'd jump into the retail space and create a supermarket and it was originally called Fitzroy Gross, but then I thought the name Gerard's pretty pretty big, big name at the moment, Gerard Street. And I thought we should and it's got a nice ring to it, Gerrid Grocer. We quickly change the name and call it Gerard. And it's basically just a combination of of really good quality international products and also local, local produce and local, I guess artisan products, small batch where a lot of people come into the shop and they just spent a long time in there just browsing and just looking at all these you know, products that they might not usually see.

Yeah, I saw some of my Foodpreneurs Formula® client products in there, but I also grabbed, and, and this is when I was talking a lot to Joe I bought chestnut flour

Oh, yeah,

Yeah. For a cake. And I thought, where on earth am I gonna get this from? And low and behold, I got it there wasn't, you know, it was a high end product, so it wasn't like, yeah, $2, put it that way, but I, I felt it was very special Yeah. That I'd landed that. Yeah.

Yeah. It's I had no idea how many types of players there were. <Laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. So so yeah, there's, there's, there's distributors that specialize in, in different areas where they might carry a range of, you know, a dozen or 15 odd hours and we bring them in and some of the local restaurants come to us to use it because they might, they might use it ad hoc or for a special or something like that on their menu or so it's good. It's good that we've got where that point of call as well for some local restaurants that can come and get their chestnut, for instance.

Yeah. Hmm mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, you know for those people who dunno, Gerard Street, I, I'm just recounting you know, I lived in Melbourne 22 years ago and I remember doing yoga in the studio, that really big space above Gerard Grosser.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Still there. Yeah.

Is he, I think it was Paul was the teacher. I dunno if he's still there, but anyway, is it still there?

Yeah, it's still, yeah, there's a yoga studio above us. Yeah. It's still yeah, still still going. Yeah.

It had these, it was like a really old school, eastern European ballet studio. It had really, really long or tall red velvet curtains at one end as if you were right auditioning for sort of like the Bolshoi Ballet or something. It was very, it was great. Yeah. I loved it

To for current day yoga studios.

Yes, exactly. Yeah. They're more or steer and, yeah. Yeah, it was very, it was very beautiful. So people listening to my podcast, Tim love hearing from buyers like yourself. What, so I'd love you to talk to me about what your typical day looks like with the foodpreneur in mind, knowing that they're listening for ultimately, how can they engage with you? Like what is it that you do? Because I imagine it's varied.

Yeah. Especially at the moment with the staff issues that are happening in every industry at the moment. So we're, we're a little bit of jack of all trades. Yeah,

My day for instance, what is it, two o'clock now and this morning I've already had to place a couple of orders, schedule a few payments had to do a wine tasting doing a wine tasting ski, you know, I was writing up some pricing tags and I notice lots of deliveries were coming and had to jump on the floor, help, you know, get, get stock on the shelves quickly. So the days are, the days are always there's always, yeah, it's usually those sorts of things that happen throughout, throughout the day. And then for people that wanna try and get the products in it's like the guy that came in today for a tasting that was a scheduled meeting that we'd planned over a couple of of weeks. And but yeah, usually we get a lot of people that come in and cold call as well. Which

You okay with that?

Look, I, I get it. Some type, the timing can either be great or very not good. So, you know, if, if it's a cold call it, it's it's really a case of, well, if we can't chat now, let's, what are your details? Or send us an email later that day so we know it's in our mind so we can get back to you to organize a better time to catch up. Because if it's cold call then, and if we don't have the time, then then it doesn't benefit us or the maker because we don't have the time to invest in hearing the story or about the product, or our brain could be focusing on 10 other things on that day. Whereas if it's a scheduled meeting, we can actually wrap our head around it a bit more. And you know, and, and there's probably a better chance if it's done that way. So but I understand it. I under, you know, with my background when I was importing drinks, trying to cold call and you're knock on knocking on the doors of restaurants and stuff, trying to get your product in there, like so yeah, so I understand it, but generally it's, yeah, it's depends on the time of the day or the day of the week. Yeah. So

On that note then, do you think that there are better days of the week and times to drop in?

Yeah, I think definitely. Towards the end of the week, as the week goes on, it gets a bit hairier and busier cuz you're gearing up to the weekend. Well, for us, for us, our our weekends are the most busy because I guess GERD streets are a bit of a destination street at the moment, so, so which, you know, the volume of people comes through more on the weekends. So, so, and then at the start of the week, it's sort of restocking and replanning for the week. So at the start of the week is busy and at the end of the week's busy. So I guess for us, for instance, probably other shops, it's probably it's probably in the morning midweek I'd say to come in and some to try and get someone you know, get five minutes to someone's time. I'd say the sweet spot would be middle of the week, probably mid morning. But but ideally ideally for us, for instance, we've got great social media person who's always engaging with messages and stuff or people that contact us through Instagram. And then she always refers the, the contact via that way. And we're al we always get back in touch with people with social, you know, through social media and then we can plan, plan a proper meeting that way as well.

Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. Hmm. So social media probably the preferred way or email?

Yeah. I think social media, because Lee who does our social, like, she drives it, so she would put it in front of our face and drive it. So that would be that would be the best way. If a, if a producer wanted to reach out to us, then probably an email to our shop, but which we do get around to as well, but on that email is so many other emails from our existing suppliers or you know staff or promos from existing supplies and things like that so it can get lost. But then also, yeah, the cold call into the shop is, yeah, we get it, but if it's not a good time, we try and we schedule a time for you know, down the track be suitable and when the person would next be in the area and we work around it that way as well.

And what should a brand owner have with them when they do pick the right time? And perhaps let's just say in an ideal world, you have an organized time that you're expecting them to present. What do you want them to say and do or not say and not do?

Yeah, to not say not do. Oh, well ideally they come in with the product and coming with the product and some information about it, like a pamphlet a booklet, however, you know, and I guess the backstory where it's from some pricing you know, shelf life, all that sort of information is, is handy because as you're talking, you can sort of look at it all refer to it. And it also prompts us to ask questions if we don't see it as well. And and then just, yeah, just to see the physical product as well, just to see how it looks and presents in the shop and where we could imagine it might go. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>

Would you want them to be proactive with that to say, this is how I proceed in your shop or do you like to be in control of that? Or is it actually just advantageous for them to be proactive, but you know, in the end of the day it's your business?

No, I think it, I mean it's, it's a good selling technique for them to to say, Hey look, you know, we have X product and we know you don't have it in your shop, then this will go really well next to this. And it makes us go, oh, okay. You got a point there. That makes sense. So if they, and it just shows that they really understand their product as well which is, which is is great. Or, but we also can say, well thanks for your opinion, but, you know, no, you know so, so yeah, so someone that can come in and, and I guess not not really dry, not really ram it down out, you know, down out throat about you need this product and this is why you need it, but just to say, oh, well have you considered, you know, this is, this is my product that's in this growing space, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, it would, we pay attention to that. It make us go off and think about it. You know, see if, if we have it, if we have a similar product already if not where it would go. Well, yeah, conversely, someone will come in for a meeting and for instance and sell infused olives and we go, you know what? This is good timing. We're coming into the festive season. These will be perfect. We've got the, we know the exact spot where we can put it. So yeah, so we'd rather people come in and, and tell us why their product should be in our shop and not just sort of say, Hey, this is our product, can you take a look at it? Let us know what you think. And and then we also will do our, our you know, we'll do our we'll look into it as well from our, our perspective as well.

Are you interested in how well that product does elsewhere if they do have existing experience in other stores?

Yeah, it's good to know. And also if they've got a range as well to, to know so they yeah, to take the infused dollars again as an example, if there might be four or six lines, ask them what, what they find the more popular ones are, just so we know maybe which ones to start with or if you know, we carry the range. If we can talk about, well, if the slower ones don't move so well, if we could swap them out for the more popular ones and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, it's just a bit of intel on how the product goes elsewhere is good to know because, you know, then you can sort of like guess what sort of demographic that area might be if that demographic's the same demographic as our area. Because some products may work in around our supermarket area, but we've found the, the other supermarket we've opened up on the other side of town is a slightly d different demographic.

So, so because we're learning as well yeah, we've had to sort of tweak what we put in that shop versus what we put in put in the Fitzroy shop. So, so so that's why it's good to hear as well, because it may not be suitable for one shop, but then if they give us they say, well, this products, I've already got it in X yz, it's doing well in these places, well, we can kind of guess it'll work well in our shop or our other shop or both shops, so mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. Yeah. So that sort of intel kinda helps a lot.

Inversely, Tim, would you be open to people that are completely new and they've never done wholesale before? You know, like they might have been making it for the markets and that they don't have any store experience at all and they're bringing it to you like, you know, there's newbies, I was, I was gonna nominate who, who, who they could be, but it, I mean, it was absolutely, it could be anybody. Yeah,

Yeah, no, absolutely. And we do have a lot of them with us. I go to farmer's markets and go, you know what, this, this product will be great now shop, but I'd speak to them, but they're not quite ready to, they haven't made that transition yet from farmer's market to retail packaging, retail shop ready. So sometimes we we're too early trying to, we see a product or you know, we think, wow, you guys have got some amazing stuff, but it's not quite ready yet. Or they don't even wanna go down that path. But yeah, absolutely. I mean, we deal, I guess Gerrid we have our core suppliers, which carry a lot of our range, but we do have a lot of individuals supplies that just supply their, their one product, whether it might have been a an idea that they got during Covid outta their garage. And it's grown into, you know, something that's gained a lot of legs and traction or or something from a restaurant that one product that I keep doing and doing. Well,

That's what I was thinking too.

Yeah. So we definitely entertain those. We, yeah, we love, we love that sort of stuff. It's a bit harder to work with cuz it's, you know, it's a lot more, more, it's, it's, it's a lot a lot of little individuals that, that we that we, we work with and but that's what we want our shop to be. We want to, to be able to bring these unique products that people don't, might not go to a farmer's market a lot or yeah, or might not eat this specific source from this restaurant that they make or something like that. But, you know, if we can sort of stock it then it's a good point of difference for, for our shop over some other supermarkets.

Mm. Is there anything in particular that you've noticed has, I don't know, starting to trend you know, that you wanted to call out in any particular way that you are seeing from the ground up or maybe die off? Anything that you wanted to add given that you, you know, you really do have your finger on the pulse in terms of small batch producers?

Yeah. not trend wise, I think there's a lot of I'm not, yeah, I'm not too sure. It's funny with covid, a wave of new products had had come on board and it's slowly sort of starting to find its happy medium of of I guess ones that people that have been able to continue it through or restaurants that a lot of restaurants move to ready made meals with Covid and some absolutely nailed it. And, you know, maybe a year or year and a half ago there's great offerings of ready made meals from different restaurants and, and this and that, whereas now that feels it's, it's dropped off a lot because I guess the restaurants now reopened and, and actually costs a lot to produce manufacture and get all that sort of product retail ready. A lot of people doing pickles and things like that as well. Whereas a few thats kind of maybe plateaued a bit or was saturated

With fermentation too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. that was getting popular maybe 18 months ago, but that seems toed a bit. The vegan space really was, really was going gungho maybe two years ago, 18 months ago. But that seems to have my to a lot with alternative meats and things like that. So we do notice, yeah, we do notice things like that. There's

Always, what about the plant-based cheeses? Are they gaining popularity even though I do think that vegan, cause they, cause there's, I also see a shift in, in terminology from vegan to plant-based flat GF to flourless, that sort of thing. So I'm, I'm kind of curious about the cheese. Do you see, are you selling more of that in the plant-based space?

Yeah, yeah. The, that's I guess in our area it is, it's definitely it's definitely a requirement in our area. Yeah. To have a good vegan plant based cheese offering to yeah, cover your Parmesan, your cheddar, your Bri you, you have to have the whole range, like it was, you know, dairy as as well. So that's, and if you don't have it, get requested for it. So definitely that space. But that's, there are some key there are some key suppliers of that which have really great product. But I mean a lot of that, and there's some great products as well that they don't have really great packaging and so it's not as popular because the, especially in that space, the pack, it needs to pop, it needs to, needs to be really catchy on the eyes. And you might have a great product, but if if it's just coming in a vacuum sealed you know, plastic bag doesn't kind of cut it anymore. So, so yeah. So definitely yeah. Vegan cheeses and that, that's now a staple. Yeah, absolutely. And the quality's just getting better and better.

Do you think it'll be a staple at your Kensington store just as much as it in is in Fitzroy, just in terms of the popularity of plant-based cheeses kind of spreading out into the community and becoming more, I wouldn't say mainstream yet, but becoming a lot more readily that, that the, the awareness has has happened?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it will. And we do get requests for it. And I mean, yeah, like on a side note, for instance, we used to distribute be and cheese from a product in Queensland and for, for pizza

Okay.

Shops and things like that. And it was just funny that in more central Melbourne definitely the demand for it, but as you get further and further out into the suburbs, yeah, people just didn't require it or don't need it. So it is, yeah, it's slowly it is slowly it's slowly sort of people embracing it more. And yeah, the vegan cheese will be part of all part of all the ger groceries.

It's interesting you talk about the geographies like that and the, and the trends, because I was speaking to a food service distributor in far north Queensland about three months ago. So kind of about August, 2022, so a couple months ago, and he told me, according to him the vegan market is maybe three years behind Brisbane for him in fn Q and five years behind Sydney and Melbourne. That's, that's his interpretation, not mine. So I thought that was just really interesting in terms of

Yeah. Wow.

Geo specific trending. That's cause that's quite a long, that's quite a long time. Yeah. If that is, if that is actually true. Yeah. Well maybe he wasn't saying vegan, I might, but he was just saying generally the trends take that long really to become more mainstream and fn q compared to southeastern states. Yeah, yeah.

No, I, yeah, I, I'd believe that up there. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. when we traveled up there a few years ago, there was basically nonexistent. So so yeah, but where, where Ger is, it's, yeah, it's definitely it's definitely

You're in the heartland.

Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely you know, and there's some grip producers in Melbourne and I mean there's a lot of overseas product as well outta Europe, but the quality of the Melbourne stuff's fantastic.

Yes, it is. And really there's, I mean, you know, I have a noting she's a Michelle, she's a client of mine. I'd like to mention her. She's in Perth and she makes beautiful product and plant-based cheese and same with the live and wild she's in Byron Bay. And I'm sure there's some I've missed and I just can't think of them off the top of my head right now. But yeah, there are, there's some really great products coming out of Australia and I could imagine yeah, Melbourne too probably has, cuz it has such a, such a big vegan market. But it actually, you know, you and I going off topic a bit, but so sorry about that. But I'm just thinking in terms of Queensland, I read a stat the other day that the fastest growing vegan or plant-based community up there is the Sunshine Coast.

Oh yeah,

Yeah. 11% growth, something like that faster than any other parts of Queensland in total. Yeah. Which is very interesting. Yeah. But you know, just back to brass tax for a moment and then we're gonna take a quick break, but the person, the producer, the fabulous producer has met with you had the product information, their backstory, their pricing, their shelf life, the printed material maybe some information on where their product is performing in other places. So what do they then need to do or what will you do or your team to ensure that they land their first and their subsequent order? Because what I know about business is that it's one thing getting a yes and it's another thing actually making it happen.

Yeah. <Laugh>, yeah, there's few things to it. Timing unfortunately for me it's, yeah timing and then if I'm interested, but haven't acted on it and just persistence. So yeah, leaving, I guess some samples for us so we can all look at it, sample it and to getting a first order it would be I guess whether the person is happy to like say the product stacks up and it's great. So how do we get first order? It would be like, okay, so how do you know how, how do we go about ordering? Who, who does the delivery? Is the person I'm speaking to doing the delivery or do you use three pl? How does the ordering work? If I order it on Monday, when will I get it? Cut off times, things like that. If there'll be things in place where like I don't necessarily want to introductory deal but I want to be able to know more about, say, okay, well if say there's a range of product and if it doesn't quite work well, can I swap it out for something else that you have by the other product? Just whether there's that opportunity to work together to try and, you know, make it, make it get some legs. And also

Sampling. What about sampling now that we're out of the covid?

Yeah. So yeah, so sampling and in store tastings.

Yeah.

So that which everyone seems, especially if it's your own product, everyone's more than happy to do it. Cause chances are you're probably doing bomb's markets and things like that anyway. So just, yeah, whether you can do a a tasting on a a weekend afternoon or something like that. And yeah, that's basically really the, the main things to then to then try and get the order and get the delivery and then from there and then a reorder is to come in, I guess, you know, to not, not go, oh, I got an order out of, out of Gerta grocer suite, drop it off, don't hear from you for a month. And then call up and say, Hey, do you wanna do another order? It'd be great if you came in a week later or a couple weeks later to see how it's going.

And I've had that in the past, but we bought some biscuits in, for instance, and we put them in a certain spot, they were good, but they weren't really working. And then we just moved them. They suggested, well, have you thought about maybe they would go better next to this other product in our shop? And then we, you know, we moved them there and then all of a sudden they just jumped in sales. So so things like that where they might, the producer might have some knowledge on, well, you know, this is really working, I'm finding this is working in other shops, so

Pairings.

Yeah, yeah. Things like that. And just, just, just coming, just returning in just to seeing how things are going to just, you know, because for instance, we had a, we started carrying a range of like some health products, not multivitamins, but sort of health, health type wellness products. But our shop, we didn't quite lay them out map and they, they were sort of moving but not setting, you know, setting any records. Then they just came in and just tweaked the layout a bit to help place it a bit better and in, in a bit order with put the right products next to each other within the range cause it makes sense. Whereas for me, I dunno anything about that and mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and then all of a sudden they just start moving. Cause people that know those products know what to look for. So, so yeah. So to come in and to, to, you know, we get our delivery and then over time you come in to sort of help kind of drive the sales that way, then you know, chances are we be reordering and become a great product of the shop.

Mm. So you're okay with really, I, I hear most of what you're saying actually is to be a real partner and be suggestive and helpful without being pushy or passive.

Yeah, and I, I guess our shop, we have that space to be able to do that, whereas maybe a larger chain or a larger larger franchise supermarket, they might have specific requirements. It has to be this, this, this, this and this. Whereas I guess we have the flexibility probably that we can work with the producer order, try and make it work for, you know, work the best for, well for us cuz we sell the product and for them because they get, you know, the product sells. And also I guess working together maybe on in social media and things like that as well, promoting.

Mm. Fantastic. Tim, thank you. We're just gonna take a moment break. And when we come back, I want you to talk about some of your golden children and maybe some other brand owners that haven't behaved well and maybe outline what people should be mindful of. Is that okay?

All right.

I know how difficult it can be making money and food and drink, especially right now. Foodpreneurs say to me, Chelsea, why should I pay a broker and a distributor? They also ask, if I engage a distributor, there's no money left over for me. What should I do? These are other questions are fundamental to scaling a packaged food and drink business. Engaging a distributor to help you sell more product and put more money in your pocket only accelerates when you start understanding margins. Promotions and sale support. Three fundamental aspects of doing business successfully with a distributor as your sales partner. Getting your product into more consumer's hands isn't as easy as clicking your fingers, but it is easier when you understand a distributor's business model and how they make money. You can use hope as your sales strategy or pray a distributor will take you on only then to be disappointed because they didn't live up to your expectations of delivering incredible sales results, but they didn't because you weren't prepared to work with them in the way that gets the most from them.

I know because I've engaged and managed distributors for years and I know how frustrating it is dealing with them and that's why I invited Hasen Bja, founder of boutique food and beverage brand partnership and distribution company Cartel Co to teach with me and help you price correctly for distribution. The workshop took place live in July and I'm now offering you the replay and the 11 page workbook with the pricing formulas to keep so you can refer to them in your own time. And finally take your business next level by following our tried and tested formulas. They will help you know what margins you should have and how to create a bigger impact and sell more product. Find the link to the distribution pricing workshop in the show notes or go to females in food.com and find it under the resources tab on the menu bar. And just so you know, this offer is only available until the end of 2022, and I'm doing it to help you access food and drink business expertise at a fraction of the investment you'd ordinarily have to make cause of how tough it is in the market economically speaking right now.

Team, we're back. Thank you so much for the first half of this chat. I've really enjoyed, and I know my audience would absolutely love how tactical your examples have been on how they can get in to your store and get subsequent orders. And I love the fact with the subsequent orders or even the first order you said, it's about timing and persistence and then assess really that first order, how it went, and maybe for the foodpreneur also to come to you or your team with suggestions on how it could work better. I love that, particularly around planning and merchandising.

Yeah, no, no, this is this is, this is good fun. I'm enjoying enjoying sharing what what knowledge we've picked up over the last couple of years as well. Well,

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Well, I'm very grateful and I know, I know my audience will be as well. So I would love you to give some examples and you can talk about it from a category perspective or, or the brand or, or, or just name the food type depending on how comfortable you are. But who's, who's been your golden children and why do you love them?

Right. Yeah, so I guess it, yeah, so Golden Children. So we had we've got ones from a while ago and got some new ones recent, which pretty excited about. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. Yeah, so the one we had the great one they're called the Scotty Box. And these guys were just a family. They just made great I guess artists and biscuits and the families and, you know they friend of a friend, something like that, can't remember dars. And and they did all different types of I guess classic Italian style biscuits. And so I think Dar told them to, they should look at doing maybe retail and you know, they went off research, the packaging and things like that. And and yeah, it was great they first delivery, but then all the packaging was around the wrong way and it was just, it was just yeah, the stickers, I wouldn't feel properly and this and that and like we've, they're lovely people and you know, it's not obviously their their specialty and I think we were their first customer, but you know, we gave them some guidance on, well, you got the stickers printed, which is great, but you actually need to put 'em on this way and that way helps it.

Like, yeah. So and then they eventually got barcodes describe to them about how, why it's important to set up barcodes and all that, this sort of stuff. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, so yeah, and they just, they just sell like hots. They're just, they're just, they're on our front shelf and I think there's eight different varieties of all different types of shortbread and they're our biggest seller biscuits. You know, and but we were their, we were their first customer, which is, you know, which is great teeth in issues at the start, but now it's, you know, now yeah, it's just a great, great product. So so we have that, we have box brownie, which is just an amazing brownie from George Georgia. She's from Adelaide originally. And I don't know what recipe she's got or but her, her brown is just, everybody just can't get enough her brownies and she does different flavors and she drops three, three SLS of it off each week. 

Three slabs.

Yeah, yeah. It's all cut up and, and it's sort of a selfer type type thing that we have up front. And it's just a really really soft, moist moish brownie that everyone who tries just comes back and just gets one more or gets another one. And so we've got a lot of, a lot of, I guess, little ones like that where we've reached out to them or, you know, we thought something like that would work well at our shop and you know, and they go well and it just continues to go well and just an order each week that we do and which is good for them and good for us. And and we brought on a new small goods manufacturer from Castle Maine, which is great cuz we're the first supermarket in Melbourne out of stock. And he's got a, he's got a bit of a cult following and 

What's his name or what's that or what that business name?

It's called Oakwood Oakwood. And yeah, his name's Ralph Fi. He's German and his generations of German small good producing and amazing. Great smokehouse up in Castle, Maine, and he produces what sausages for? Yeah, yeah, he produces sausages for ensure for Atica and collabs a lot for chefs. And he's been on postcards, the TV show and and yeah, he's never, he's never taken on a Melbourne supermarket. He's been approached a lot, but he's never taken one on, but I went up and met him a couple of times and really wanted the product in the shop. So we started that about a month ago and it, it's going really well and, and now people don't have to drive all the way out to Castleman, get his product, they can come to Gerrid and and he's a lovely guy. He's, he's very passionate as well and, and yeah, he's, he's gypsy hands, just, you just open a pack and you can just smell it through. It's just, oh, it's just a die for. So yeah, so when we I guess, yeah, when we have products and point of difference of, of things like that that other shops don't have yeah, it's fantastic. So I guess they're the Golden Childs and and

Do they support you by coming down and doing tastings or install tastings or sampling or anything like that?

Yeah, so he'll come down with some samples and we'll do some tastings and promotion on their social media already as well as, you know, where the first Melbourne supermarket and all that sort of stuff. And so yeah, it's, I guess, and we were excited about it and wanted to sort of announce it, but we wanted to get the first delivery and get it, you know, cause I was up there and taking videos of everything and but I didn't wanna sort of put it out there until the first delivery was done and everything. So yeah, we're off and running now with him, which is great. And and and yeah, and the other producers as well. If we need to do samplings, all we wanna do is tasting, we just organize it. We just organize it with them and, and everyone's always, all the suppliers or producers are always accommodating or so, so they're the good ones. So, yeah.

Interesting. Cause you talk a lot about, understandably you talk about the quality and the taste and I guess how special those products are. And I'll, I'll link them up in the show notes so everybody can find them and support them. Yeah. Cause that's really important. I know that's important to you and that's really important to me too, especially because most of them are pretty small. Yeah. In fact all of them are. But also just wondering whether or not you had anything to say in terms of, you know, it's one thing having a great product. It's a bit like what you were saying earlier about the plant-based cheese, that some of them might taste fantastic, but they might be in a, you know, in a plastic bag still or just a plastic seal. So with those ones that you've just said, are your golden children like Biscoti Box and Box Brownie and Oakwood Small Goods, do they, not only do they not only taste great and have done well in your business, did they come to you? Well you said with Biscoti Box, no, you know, maybe I'm gonna change my tack there. Why were you prepared to work with Biscoti Box when the stickers weren't on the right way and they weren't retail ready? What made that different,

I guess? Yeah, maybe that one's it'll anomaly a little bit, I guess because we knew it was a friend of a friend and we just knew it was a great product and if we just had to get it out there but they had no idea how to do it. And back then we were just starting as well, so we probably had the time to help guide them a bit more. Whereas, so that was, I guess one end of the spectrum. Whereas something like Oakwood for instance, small goods already has a cult following. The packaging's great. It already ticked, you know, it already tick, tick the boxes. It was more, it more or less just, just trying to get the actual product in the shot. So,

Yeah.

Yeah. So

What about the bad boys then? Tell me about the ones that have perhaps behaved badly and and made you angry.

Yeah, probably not by name.

Yeah.

I guess the ones that could be annoying might try and force a lot of the product on onto us. For instance, like we've had a case of of having a oh geez, I don't even wanna name the, the category, but we've had, we've had ones where like, you know, you take on a bit of the range and it sort of goes well, and then you put a bit of, you have a bit of mutual trust and, and they say, oh, well maybe, you know, you can try some of the others. And you go you look at it and you, you think, okay, I might try a couple of others, but you're not expecting to have boxes of the product arrive and the invoice and, and this is, you know, like it's happened a few times where you think, yep, you know, we'll we'll try it.

And we'll I'll get six units this, six units, this six units, this blah, blah, blah. And then next thing you know, they don't tell you, well the minimum order's actually this, so here our 10 boxes of the product would like go off and sell it. There, that's when it's a bit frustrating because, and because a good, a good person starting out would say mix, do a mixed case of product to get you started, whereas someone that can be annoying might go, no, this is our minimum order, you know, we don't deliver unless you order how many hundreds of dollars worth, can't do mixed cases, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, you know, that's, we might, the product might not work and we might be stuck with it might go out date, they won't swap it for fresh stock. So we've had instances like that where you'd hope you'd be able to work better to closer, like that'd be more accommodating. 

Well to me that's, I mean, I've heard that before from a buyer where they've taken an inch been given an inch and taken a mile. And to me that's like when people add you to their email lists, but worse Yeah. Without your permission, you know, it's all of a sudden no, no, I just said hello, you know, we're not getting married here or, you know, can't be email bombing me. You know, like if, if I opt into something sure. Then that's my choice and it's all very I've given you permission, but otherwise it sounds like that that is a real take on hospitality really, and it's not partnership at all. Yeah,

No, it's, and it's annoying because you have a good chat with people and you go look, yeah, alright we'll give the product a go. And they're like, yeah, great. And you think, well standard if you order a case of something standard jars, there might be six in a, you know, so you just, I guess you just think sometimes if you're busy you don't have to go how many jars are in a card? Like it's usually six, eight or 12. But then there's one instance where, you know, they wouldn't do a mixed, they wouldn't do a mixed case. So I order one box of each skew and then next thing you know that, you know, there's 24 jars of, you know, really unique product,

Which

Would be hard to sell, come on. Like, this is gonna take me ages to push this because it's a unique product. It's not an everyday product. And they're like, oh, well that's, that's how it comes and that's how it is. And so yeah, that's my fault for not doing enough due diligence. But yeah, there's been a couple of cases, you know, like that pardon the fund mm-hmm <affirmative> and whereas 80% of or 90% of producers you work together on doing Nick's cases or you know what I mean? It's like they know, it's like they know in the back of their head that, oh, I'm about to send this shop a thousand bucks worth of stock, new ripper, I've got bloody order out of them. Whereas they don't say, oh, by the way, each case is, you know, there's this amount in a case. And that's probably cuz they don't have the information there, they don't have the piece of paper, all that information's not there. It's something you forget to ask. So yeah, so so things like that. And then also I guess product people that come in with their product and they just, they just ram a product down your throat for 20 minutes and you can't put a word. You can't get a word. They might be excited about it and they might be so excited and I get it and they're nervous.

Yes. I think it's often that

Yeah,

That's what I experience.

Yeah. Which yeah that's great. But it's, it's like, mate, just just take a breath and just let us have an actual chat. Let me ask some, some questions a while because

<Laugh> yeah,

The longer it goes on, the more disinterested I might get cuz I'm busy. If it's a cold call, like it's just, yeah, that happens a bit and straight away it's a bit of a red flag just because Yeah, it's, it's, I think it's a thing. I think you're right. I think it's yeah, whereas if,

Yeah

Yeah, if it's planned a bit better, then yeah, that'd be, that'd be a lot better. But but in terms of bad outcomes with supplies, it's, yeah, it's really, I guess ones that just don't ones that make suggestions to just to try and get more sales wow. You know, things like that. And not replacing stock or policy stock not acknowledging, like there's a lot of that during covid as well with restaurants doing the covid pivot and trying to create a source or create a salad dressing and just, you know, it explode or something like that. And you just have to keep resending it back and swapping it from new stock and then not acknowledging that there's a problem and things like that. 

Yeah. And there isn't a problem coming down the supply chain of which, you know, over the last few years and, you know, post kind of the, the, the, the real heart of the crisis supply chain has just been so challenging. You know I've been discussing with my Foodpreneurs Formula® members about when do you tell your buyer there is a problem coming down the pipeline. Do you have your own perspective about that, Tim, do you wanna know? Like put it this way, I kind of forgive me, but I'm gonna half answer my own question, which is I don't really care about problems if they're not gonna be a massive problem for me. You know, at the end of the day, if you're gonna tell me that there's a problem, but I'm getting, it's getting fe then great. I guess I only wanna know about it if there isn't a solution for me, but I need to be able to figure that out myself. So I'm wondering what your perspective is with supply or perhaps traceability or something like that. Have you got an opinion or some experience you'd wanna share? How much do you wanna know?

Yeah it's good for us to know if there is a delivery issue or a delay or definitely something outta stock because I guess with our larger suppliers that carry a bigger range, you keep ordering it and they don't, the good ones get back to you and say, oh, we're sorry, but this is outta stock. This is outta stock, this is outta stock. You get the other ones that just ignore it and you order it and you get the delivery and you realize it's not on the delivery. And then you question, well, did we order it? I'm sure I ordered it, it's not on the invoice. And then you've gotta go back and check and you see you did order it and then you gotta then chase it up within, it's like, you missed, you missed picking this product. You're like, and then you're like, oh no, you gotta got it, but we're just outta order.

We're just outta stock. So they don't tell you for whatever reason, they don't tell you where they're too busy or they don't wanna lose the space and the shelf because if they tell you if we fire off an order and they get back to you straight away and say, oh no, we're outta stock of that, it's not gonna be back till three weeks or four weeks or something, they might worry that we'll go to another supplier to try and fill that gap. So maybe that's why they don't tell us. So it's getting better, but there's, yeah, there's definitely, there's definitely supply chain issues still there, but that's, I guess that's more for the bigger sales. The smaller, the smaller the small batch partisan local producers, it's usually, it's, it's usually pretty good once you know what the pattern of ordering is. Ordering and delivery. Hmm. <Affirmative> it's, it's, it's more or less pretty easy to work with.

The problems that I've been seeing of late is around packaging and getting materials, which then knocks on on, but that's kind of, I think a, you know, it's a few steps before they get to you. So it just depends on what their past stock is in their, in their, in their storage or in their warehouse really. Because if they've got the past stock there, you know, the finished good, then they shouldn't go out of stock. I guess it just depends on how much they've got of that.

Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, we have instances of having a great great product. For instance, frozen Gelato, which is great packaging. I think it's from out Queensland and Packaging's amazing, but all of a sudden all of the, all the gelato tubs started turning up in brown Cross, you know, tub because they'd run outta packaging, I guess it comes from overseas, you know shipping delays, everything like that. So they scramble to try and find an alternative packaging solution. It's not really their, it's supposed to be their, you know, so there is a bit of that. It's nowhere near as bad as what it used to be. But there was a bit of that during yeah, during the, you know, the peak covid times.

Mm.

And now, I guess, yeah, like small batch producers because you gotta do a lot of minimum runs with packaging. Chances are you've probably got boxes and boxes of the packaging in your warehouse or wherever you work out of. So hopefully it's not too much of an issue anymore. Mm. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, as we begin to wind up, I've really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you.

No, it's been great. Chelsea,

What are there any last minute tips or insights that you'd like to share with food and drink entrepreneurs that you think perhaps would make their life easier or your life easier? Therefore they can, that can make your life shine? Yeah.

<Laugh>, like everyone's life shine. No, not, not really. I guess, I guess if, if you really have a product that you believe in and you wanna bring to the market it really is, I guess testing it. Yeah, the packaging's very important. Having the the design, the label, everything sort of stand out, pop, having the relevant information, nutritional panels, barcoding's very important. You know, Barco just makes the world easy for retail space. Yeah, which is easy to set up and organize. And I guess just having that aspect of, of everything sort of covered, because then when you do eventually have a meeting with a shop or something like that, you know, we know that okay, you're retail ready, you, you know, it's, you, you, you're ready to sort of get into shops. It's, it's all been tested.

You've, you've hope, you know, maybe the product might taste great being at a farmer's market, but it might not taste great coming out of the packaging product that's been sitting in a shop for a week or two or something. So yeah, doing a bit of testing in different environments like that as well. So you might wanna tweak recipes or something like that to make a better suit for retail environment. And then, yeah, just having, I guess everything lined up in terms of account forms you know, your bank account, like just all the basic standard stuff all ready, like maybe in one document, you know, a piece of paper just so we would have to fill in a credit app for instance, so, you know, have credit apps ready account forms, you know, templates, all that sort of stuff. 

On that note, can I just ask before we do wrap up with the first order, when you don't have proof of how that product's gonna go, how do you like to pay for the stock? Do you want cash? Do you want credit? How, what sort of expectations do you have in terms of the payment terms? Can you just share a bit of light on that?

Yeah I guess we're a bit case by case with this. It's if it's a, if it's something more serious we'd want terms, like if it's big product we're looking at doing multiple skews things like that. I guess we, you know, some terms would be good to have in place. Or, or be able to do return stock or swap or things like that. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And then if it's, I guess if it's smaller, you know, we could look at doing c o d or seven days or something like that. So it is, yeah, it is, it is case by case with that.

Okay. Yeah, that's good.

And there might be some product, for instance, from, for me to start or something like that. Where would we have to prepay, but we really wanna just try and get the stock in and and you know, to be able to it or whatever we need to prepaid, just so we can test it. And then if we prepay the first one, then we go on terms or something like that.

Yeah. Fantastic. Tim Sykes, where can people, where can we direct people to, to find out more about Gertrude Grocer?

Yeah, I think well definitely the best spot to find us would be at Gerd Grocer which is our Instagram. Yeah. And that's our, we're definitely very active on that and got great marketing behind that, which is very, she leaves very responsive to our questions or queries. She always forwards them on onto us and then we then we look after from there. So at Gerra Gross or gerra gross.com, our website.

Wonderful. And I'll link them up in the show notes. And Lee yeah, she's really responsive. Loved it. Thank you so much for your time. This is really gonna be a game changer for foodpreneurs. I'm so thankful and I know they will be too, so thank you. No worries. From them to you.

Yeah, thanks Chelsea. Appreciate it. And it's been great fun.

Okay, that's it for today. Thanks for listening. I hope you found today's insights valuable and learn something that you will implement in your food and drink business right away. I'd like to ask you now to help me help more female foodpreneurs, put more money in their pocket by giving me an honest rating. Five Stars would be lovely, but that's up to you. Write a review and subscribe to this podcast on your platform of choice. The more you tell me what you like and the more momentum builds for food with Chelsea Ford, the easier it will be for me to help women with packaged food and drink brands have more choice on how they can invest in their business, freedom to spend more time with their loved ones and joy as they help even more people on their food journey. So thank you for taking a moment to do that and see you next week for another episode of Foodpreneur with Chelsea Ford.