The 4 Keys to Selling a Packaged Food Product with Alli Ball
Have you ever dreamed of seeing YOUR product on the shelves of your favorite grocery store?
As a talented culinary pro, there’s a good chance it’s crossed your mind that you could sell your famous chocolate chip cookies or hot sauce that people can’t stop talking about.
If this is something you want to explore, then you’re going to absolutely LOVE this episode with grocery expert Alli Ball of Food Biz Wiz. As a former grocery buyer turned wholesale consultant, Alli knows exactly how to go from an idea to the shelves of retailers. She has helped 1000s of brands do exactly that through her program, Retail Ready.
In this episode, Alli is sharing her valuable 4Ps framework to help you think about the ins and outs of launching a packaged food brand. If you’ve ever thought about getting into the world of physical products, then you’ve got to listen to this interview with Alli!
Links from this episode
Check out Alli’s website
Sign up for my FREE Culinary Roadmap and learn how to start a flexible and fulfilling online business.
Say hello to Cynthia on Instagram → @culinarycynthia!
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[00:00:00] Cynthia Samanian: Hi there friends. Welcome to The Experiential Table. I'm Cynthia Samanian, founder of Hidden Rhythm and creator of Cooking Class Business School. I help culinary pros like you create and market profitable online cooking classes, memberships, and more. When you teach online, you can teach practically anyone from anywhere. I actually just got off a call with one of my alums, who recently packed up her bags, left the U.S. to go live, eat, and play in France while teaching online cooking classes. She's teaching a mix of public classes and corporate events to students from all around the world. Now, maybe you're not in a place where you can just up and leave for France, but I want you to think about how teaching online could open up more flexibility and freedom in your life. In fact, I know that many of you listening have dreams of doing more in the world of food, including creating and selling your own packaged food products. From your family's secret marinara sauce recipe to your contest, winning spicy mustard, these ideas could definitely rise to the next level and end up in your favorite grocery store. Now I am no expert in how to go from an idea to the shelves of Whole Foods, but I do know someone who is. Alli Ball is the ultimate go-to expert when it comes to all things grocery and getting your packaged food brand out there into the hands of customers. Seriously. Ask anyone, I mean, anyone in the CPG space for the best person to work with, and I am willing to bet that Alli's name will come up over and over again. I cannot wait for you to be Allie and hear all of the incredible advice she has to share
Hi Alli, I'm so excited to have you on the show today.
[00:01:39] Alli Ball: Hi Cynthia. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:41] Cynthia Samanian: Absolutely. Alright, my friends - I hinted at it earlier, but let me break down for you why Alli is truly one of a kind in her space. Alli is a former grocery buyer turned wholesale consultant who now helps emerging packaged food brands understand how to land on wholesale shelves and have high sales once you're there. She does all of this through her online course, Retail Ready. Her course, coaching and community have supported over 1000 brands navigate the behind the scenes of wholesale distribution and growing a CPG brand. She also hosts the brilliant weekly podcast called Food Biz Wiz, where she talks about all things grocery related
Alright, Alli. Thank you so much for joining us today. Before we dive into all of your tips for getting started with the packaged food brand, I would love to hear more about your story. I think our listeners have obviously. Gone to the grocery store, probably multiple times per day, given that they're the culinary world, but they're probably not familiar with the business side of things when it comes to grocery. So what does a grocery buyer actually do? Can you share more about that and how you got started?
[00:02:48] Alli Ball: I would be happy to, and I'm glad that you asked because oftentimes when, when I tell people I'm a former grocery buyer, their brain goes to grocery shopper. And they're like, yeah, you know, of course we're all grocery shoppers. Like what the heck? What the heck are you talking about? And so a grocery buyer is that person who works in a retail environment who chooses the products that go on the store shelves. So typically, Cynthia, they are choosing products based on. You know how much money that product is going to bring in. What's the brand story? How does it taste? What's the packaging like and above all, how is it going to sell off of our shelves? So I was fortunate to do that for a very long time here in San Francisco at Bi-Rite Market. I was a grocery buyer on a team of grocery buyers. And in that role, I figured out what we were going to sell and what our customers were really going to be attracted by, in both of our locations.
[00:03:45] Cynthia Samanian: Was your office or desk just filled with amazing samples and jars of things.
[00:03:50] Alli Ball: Yes, it was my desk. I'll tell you like the dirty secret of it was that my desk was like between two Metro shelves and my desk chair were like two stacked milk crates. It was like dusty and cramped and jammed in between all of this backstock but yes, it also was completely overflowing with delicious products.
[00:04:12] Cynthia Samanian: That sounds like kind of a dream, but I'm sure still work. I'm just picturing, going to Costco and having a day of sampling, but that being your everyday.
[00:04:21] Alli Ball: Yes. Well, that, that was a lot of it. Um, and then it's also, depending on the size store that a grocery buyer works in, there's also a lot of physical labor.
There's a lot of, a lot of walking the floor, re-merchandising sections, helping manage a grocery staff of stockers and inventory managers. Um, and at the end of the day, it's a pretty, it's a pretty blue collar job, you know, it's, you're working in a grocery store, so it's, it's physically demanding, it's mentally demanding. Shoppers can be quite rude. Um, so it definitely takes a toll.
[00:04:56] Cynthia Samanian: Yeah. I think you shared this on your Instagram. I think that's where I saw it. But you mentioned something about how when you go into grocery stores and you see that, you know, the products are hiding in the back of the shelf and they're not organized neatly sometimes you'll actually go in and...
[00:05:12] Alli Ball: I'll front them. Yeah, it's called fronting and facing and you're totally right, Cynthia. I am that person who will scoot all the jars to the front of the shelf and twist them. So the labels are facing forward, especially when they're small brands and, you know, they're competing against the bigger brands.
Right, right. Alongside them. I want to give those small brands a chance, and I know that fronting them really helps.
[00:05:36] Cynthia Samanian: Yeah. So how did you get into this space? How did you become a grocery buyer?
[00:05:41] Alli Ball: It was weird for me, so it was totally random. And I, Cynthia, I don't, I don't think you know this story, but before I worked in grocery, I worked in tech and I worked for a company that did corporate team building and, um, like management training and things like that. And I had been there long enough. I was ready to move along and I live down the street from Bi-Rite 18th street and I was just, this is back in like 2007 or so where everybody looks for jobs on Craigslist. So I was just scrolling on Craigslist and I saw a job for a grocery . Buyer. I literally remember reading the description and being like I could do that. I'm organized, I like products. I'm great at spreadsheets. I could totally do that job. And my husband was like, I don't think you're qualified, Alli. Like, you know, you see that, see that asterisk down at the bottom where it's like, five to seven years experience in a grocery buying role. And I was like, it's fine. I'm just going to, I'm going to convince them. And so I applied and you know, sure enough, we know where the story goes. I had several weeks of interviews and I got hired. And I think at that point, Cynthia, they hired me because of my management experience. And they figured that I had management experience and I had a passion for food. And Bi-Rite is a really unique place where, um, taste trumps all. And that, that passion for food is really, really important. So I apparently I did a good enough job, um, showing that in the interview process and they took a chance on me.
[00:07:17] Cynthia Samanian: I'm glad you shared a bit about Bi-Rite because it really is an institution. If you are a food lover and you're in the Bay area, you know Bi-Rite. And if you are visiting the Bay area, you definitely have to check it out. And how amazing that you have Bi-Rite be your first job in the grocery space.
[00:07:34] Alli Ball: I feel so grateful for that because it really set me up for success now. And Cynthia, it's, it's funny, you know, I remember those early years of Bi-Rite it was back when it was a single location and it was me and it was three men, three, like middle-aged men, um, in the grocery department. And I would go into those meetings and I had no idea what we were talking about. I did not understand the language of wholesale. I did not know the terms that they were using. I felt so out of place. And I remember just, you know, I would, I would write down words and I would go home and Google them and really did so much self-education around the world of grocery, uh, and those, those first few years were really tough.
[00:08:20] Cynthia Samanian: That's probably where most of our listeners are right now. We don't talk about packaged food brands on this podcast. We are usually talking about teaching online and working with corporate clients on events and things like that, but I couldn't help but have you on the show. One, because I love chatting with you and it was an excuse, but two, because you know what you're doing in Retail Ready and the way that you've helped so many food business owners grow their brands. I just had a feeling that there are people listening who have a dream of starting a packaged food brand. So let's start off with the basics. Can you help us understand what you mean by the term packaged food brand?
[00:09:01] Alli Ball: Yes. So CPG stands for consumer packaged goods and Cynthia, I usually find that when people are really early stage, they don't know what that acronym is. They would never Google how to start a CPG business, unless, you know, they've done some research. So I really put a stake in the ground and I was like, we're going to call it packaged food for now because that's likely what these early stage food founders are Googling. So when I say packaged food, I mean, anything that is packaged up and put on a shelf for consumption in the home. So anything you would find in the Whole Foods and Bi-Rites of the world. It would not be a restaurant dish or food service or something that's sold at an event space or something like that. We're very specifically talking about retail.
[00:09:52] Cynthia Samanian: Okay. That's helpful. So I know you have your four P's that food founders should think through as they consider launching a packaged food brand. I think it probably makes sense to walk through each of those, um, get some examples and I'm sure I'll ask you some questions on them.
[00:10:08] Alli Ball: Yes. Okay. So taking it from the top, these are gonna sound obvious, but then like you said, Cynthia, I'm delighted to dive deeper into each of them. So the first one is product. We think about the product. The second P is pricing. Above all, are we going to make money off of this business idea? The third one is placement and then that fourth and final one is promotion.
[00:10:31] Cynthia Samanian: Okay, got it. Product, pricing, placement, promotion. So let's start with the first one, which is product. So I think, our listeners, you know, they all kind of have a niche or a focus. We have bakers listening. We have mixologists, a wide range of people in the culinary space. So they probably have an idea as to what food product they'd want to package up and sell.
[00:10:53] Alli Ball: Yes. And Cynthia, I'm glad that you reminded me that you have bakers listening, because I do want to clarify here that when I say packaged food product, I also know that sometimes the food isn't in a physical package, right? So we have lots of Retail Ready students who make things like bagels or muffins or, um, mochi or, and things like that, that aren't like literally in a package. So if you are a baker and you're listening, this still applies to you if you're looking to sell it off of retail shelves. Okay. So we think about product first and the, at the very high level we ask ourselves, do, do we have a product that people actually want to buy? That seems so obvious, right? Of course people want to buy this product, but at the end of the day, we need to get super, super clear on who actually wants this product. And why do they want it? Especially when there is so much competition nowadays, you know, you walk into a Whole Foods or Kroger, gosh, Trader Joe's, like there are just hundreds and thousands of products on the shelves. So you have to make sure that your product is providing something new to the marketplace or solving some sort of different problem for the consumer.
[00:12:17] Cynthia Samanian: What is great about you walking through this is that you've been on the other side, right? So you, as of former grocery buyer, you know what the grocery side needs to be able to say yes to your product. I think that's a really great perspective here. We're getting insider knowledge.
[00:12:36] Alli Ball: Well, thank you, Cynthia. I'm going to, I'll just like give a spoiler alert here, but one of the things, one of the light bulb moments that our students have inRetail Ready is recognizing that just because you think your product is delicious. Just because you've got a great founder story or, you know, you make you use your grandma's recipe or whatever it is, does not mean that that grocery buyer needs it for their shelves. And if you can't convince that grocery buyer, that your product is going to sell off the shelves, you're only going to get so far. And certainly there is, there is a sales strategy where you stay direct to consumer and you bypass those grocery buyers and you don't need retail. Like that, that can be a way to succeed with your product. But if you are looking to sell your product on retail shelves, you need to understand that that grocery buyer is judging your product, evaluating your product and making a decision based on whether or not your product is going to help them meet their buyer goals. This was really eyeopening to me when I, when I started at Bi-Rite but typically those buyer goals are all around financials. So, how much margin am I making off of this product? What revenue is it going to bring? Buyers performance is measured off sales numbers. I use this example in Retail Ready, I'll use it here too but if I had been working at Bi-Rite and I sat down for my annual review and let's just say I was in charge of the frozen category. If Sam, Bi-Rite's owner, said to me, like Alli, you know, frozen sales are down this year. What gives? What were you doing? And I said to Sam, like, I'm just laughing because I can picture this conversation so easily.
[00:14:24] Cynthia Samanian: I think I know where you're going with this.
[00:14:26] Alli Ball: And I'm like, Sam, frozen sales were down. You're right. But man, the pierogi that we're selling it's, you know, the founder's grandma's recipe and it's just so sweet that they source all of the filling protein from 10 miles away and, you know, on and on and on, he would be like, okay Alli, like great story. But at the end of the day, you're not hitting your sales goals. To recap there, Cynthia, it's just so important that we don't get blinded by the passion for our product and the passion for our recipe and think that the product itself is going to be what, you know, gets you on the retail shelf.
[00:15:08] Cynthia Samanian: Ah, that's such a good insight and not only what we think, but our friends and family who maybe they do love what it is you're making, or they could just be lying to you because they don't want to hurt your feelings. Right. Let's be real? That can happen.
[00:15:23] Alli Ball: It happens all the time. I, I bet 75% of students who come into Retail Ready start their product line because their friends and family told them that it is delicious and they should really sell it on, you know, Whole Foods' shelves or something. We hear that all the time and it's really dangerous to build a business off of your friends and family's opinion, because I don't know about you, but like if my grandma told me that she, you know, that I should sell my strawberry jam, even though my grandma says that I would never charge my grandma the $19.99 that I need to in order to make money off this jam business.
[00:16:07] Cynthia Samanian: Yeah. My mom, she makes the best baklava. And I remember at one point, her and I were like, Ooh, what if we started a baklava business? And I had the spreadsheet open and she's telling me, yeah, I put a pinch of this, a pinch of that. I'm like, no, mom, we need to measure out the ingredients and very quickly, I was like, yeah, we're not doing this. You could not pay me enough to want to do this.
[00:16:29] Alli Ball: Oh my gosh.
[00:16:30] Cynthia Samanian: The financials. I just remember being like, yeah, I don't think this is gonna work out.
[00:16:35] Alli Ball: Oh my God and baklava too. Like how labor intensive and gosh,
[00:16:40] Cynthia Samanian: A lot of nuts.
[00:16:42] Alli Ball: Right? Very expensive ingredients. Yeah. I'm glad you did not go down that business path, Cynthia.
[00:16:48] Cynthia Samanian: Although every time we see baklava sold in a package, she always looks at me and I'm like, Nope, Nope. Like we're not going down that path.
[00:16:55] Alli Ball: You know what you can send her through Retail Ready and we'll convince her not to do it.
[00:16:59] Cynthia Samanian: Have you had to encourage, I don't want to say, tell, but encourage founders that you've worked with to maybe explore changing their product?
[00:17:07] Alli Ball: Yeah, the short the answer is yes. Um, I think so often, I mean, myself included start businesses based off excitement and passion. And then we don't, we don't actually play out those scenarios to figure out whether or not they're actually going to be profitable businesses. And in the food industry in particular, especially over the past two years with all of our supply chain issues and ingredient prices going through the roof and all of that, it can often take like a tiny tweak to become profitable. Maybe you have the wrong packaging size, or maybe you are calling your product by the wrong name or a name that just doesn't resonate with your audience, or maybe you're selling in the wrong location. You know, sometimes we can make small changes to the product that really leads to profitability faster, just with small little tweaks.
[00:18:01] Cynthia Samanian: Got it. Okay. And then how would you know if you've actually created a product that someone wants to buy? If you can't listen to your friends or family, we can't totally trust them, then how do you know?
[00:18:12] Alli Ball: Yeah. You know, there are a couple of different methods, but I think the easiest one is to make your product and try to sell it to strangers. And I know that sounds really, really basic. But especially in states where we have cottage food laws, and if you're in a category that, that falls under cottage food laws, you can make your product and you can go and sell it. You can sell it direct to consumer. You can sell it at the farmer's markets. You can get out there and you know, it takes a little bit of courage, but put yourself out there and see if people respond to it. If you put it out there, if you go to the farmer's market and you, you know, obviously steps are involved in this Cynthia, right? We can't just show up at the farmer's market tomorrow and start selling product. But you know, you put in the basic business planning steps and you go to sell your product, you can, you can gauge pretty quickly whether or not people are interested in that first iteration of your product line. Frankly, if I were going to start a food business, farmer's markets seem really exhausting to me. It's so much work. Right. So I don't say it lightly. Like, just go to the farmer's market. I understand how much work it is. Maybe you would start with some holiday pop-up events, maybe your audience, Cynthia, starts selling to the people who have taken their cooking courses. Maybe they have a mailing list and they can say like, Hey, remember the baklava we made together in our cooking class, you know, remember how hard it was to make? We're now selling it, you know, for your holiday gifting. Right. Try that.
[00:19:45] Cynthia Samanian: That's such a good idea. Use the audience that you have, uh, right at your fingertips. There's no reason to start from scratch.
[00:19:52] Alli Ball: Yeah. And then once people actually pay money for your products, those are the people who you want to, you know, they're your early adopters. They're the ones who are willing to take out their wallets and give you their hard earned money. And they're going to be your super fans that you can tap into again and again.
[00:20:11] Cynthia Samanian: I see so many parallels between what you're describing and how I talk to my students and community around creating their online cooking class businesses, because it's the same thing. I mean, you go out and you interview and you talk to people about what they'd like, but you don't really know until they sign up and they pay for your class. So you can put an Instagram poll out there and say, hey, would you be interested in my slow cooker class? They could all vote yes, but if no one actually signs up that means nothing, right.
[00:20:38] Alli Ball: Yeah. The, the, the money is where it's at, right?
[00:20:41] Cynthia Samanian: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we can't talk about money without talking about pricing. How does it work when you have a physical product?
[00:20:50] Alli Ball: Yes. Can I swear on this podcast, Cynthia? It's hard. It is really hard because margins are really slim in the food industry. Right? We all, we all know that margin is lost in every step of the supply chain in grocery. You know, obviously we've got production costs. You have to pay for labor, you know, obviously. If that's yourself or someone else, you're paying someone to make that product. You're paying brokers to sell your product. You're paying distributors to physically distribute your product regionally or nationally. You're paying for promotion and trade spend. I mean, there are so many people taking a little slice of the profit pie, if you will.
And so it becomes really challenging in grocery to figure out how or what that price is that you need to charge in order to still make money in your business. And this is really where the challenge comes up because typically what we find is that people have to charge a significant amount of money, especially, you know, the type of brands that I imagine, Cynthia, you and I work with who are values-based brands. They're doing ethical sourcing. You know, they're not doing production runs of hundreds of thousands of jars at a time. Right. It all adds up. It all gets expensive. And so typically the cost, the wholesale cost is quite high and meaning the retail cost is even higher. And so typically what we do is we work, we work backwards. We say, okay, if we want it to hit the shelf at $10. And that grocery store is going to take $4. Because they're going to put that 40% margin on it. And then the broker is going to take 5% and the distributor's going to take between 10 and 30%, the dollar signs keep reducing, reducing, like all these subtraction lines.
And, you know, we're thinking, you know, if you can make a product for $2 and 50 cents, are you going to sell it for $10? I mean, most likely, right? And so if you are making that, that product, that you're only making $2 and 50 cents off of, you have to sell a lot of product every single year to make a reasonable salary.
[00:23:21] Cynthia Samanian: That is really eyeopening. I have to think a lot of the people you've talked to who aren't in the industry, uh, are like, oh, I make a delicious jam, so I have to pay for the ingredients and then I just have to package it in a jar and then I have to pay some shipping costs to get it to someplace, but no, there are all these middlemen involved.
[00:23:40] Alli Ball: Totally. And Cynthia too. I think, I think for some of your listeners, they might be thinking, well, I want to stay small. I don't need a broker. I don't need a distributor. I don't need those things. Like I can keep my cost down because I'm not going to invest in those things. And this is one of the mistakes that we see with our Retail Ready students, where they have, they have this thinking and then their business starts taking off and there is the demand for it. And people from outside of the state are asking for it or across the country, people are asking for it. And in, in short, like dreams are coming true. It's wonderful. But then they're like, oh, shoot. I haven't built out this financial model that includes margin for these people who I, who frankly, I need at some point in order to continue growing my business. And so that's really where people get in a pinch. So what we always recommend is from the beginning you build in those, those margins for, you know, things like the brokers, distributors, promotion. And at the beginning, I mean, lucky you, you get to keep more margin and that's all wonderful, especially as you're growing your, your early stage business. And then as you grow, you end up giving up more and more, but it almost is worth it because you can do so much higher revenue because you are in that growth period.
[00:25:04] Cynthia Samanian: It's just a conservative way of forecasting so that you don't end up in a place where, like you said, all of a sudden you're like, oh my gosh, we didn't account for this. And you have to make some tough decisions.
[00:25:14] Alli Ball: Totally. It's so - and I'll say this, you know, it's so, so painful to do the financial modeling, but it is really, really important to do because what you don't want is to wake up two years into your business and realize that you have just created a very expensive hobby, but you're not making any money off of it.
[00:25:35] Cynthia Samanian: Yes. Uhh. I think that's something people listening can feel to their core because we see that in the online space as well. I just got off a coaching call with my Cooking Class Business School students, and we were answering questions about 2022 financial modeling. And, you know, and they're like, well, what should I put for the labor line? And I'm like, well, how much do you want to pay yourself? Build the business you want. Model that out. And the beauty of a spreadsheet is you can put anything in there. And of course it has to be realistic and you've got to find a way to make it happen. But if you don't, if you kind of have the blinders up and you, you don't even look at what that math is, like you said, you're going to wake up and realize this was one expensive hobby.
[00:26:18] Alli Ball: I'm going to give one more financial example here, and then we can move on to the next P. But so, you were talking about salaries and like what, what you would want to pay yourself. So let's just use this example of wanting to pay ourselves $60,000 a year off of our food business. And let's say that you're a baker and you want to make cake mix in order to build a packaged product line. So let's say you make $5 in profit on every mix that you sell. And like I said, you want to make that $60k a year in your business. That's a thousand boxes a month that you need to sell in order to make $60k. And here's the thing. We have students who sell that much volume. Right. They've got household names. They've, they've made it, I just did air quotes there, like made it right. But it's really important to, to just know these numbers and think about what it would take in order to hit those sales. So like, you might love being a baker and doing your online cooking classes and maybe making a custom cake every other week. Like that's one thing, but can you imagine what life would be like if you had to make a thousand boxes of cake mix every month and figure out how to sell it.
[00:27:41] Cynthia Samanian: Yeah, that math is so powerful. That's exactly what people need to see before they get into the business. Not to scare them away. Right. But just to be informed.
[00:27:52] Alli Ball: It's wild. And Cynthia, I do want to be really clear that I didn't come on this show to scare everyone was starting a packaged food business, you know, that would like kill my business of Retail Ready if, if I told everyone don't do it, but I think we, we need to be a little bit more transparent about what it really takes.
[00:28:12] Cynthia Samanian: Right. And also, I think part of it too, is, you know, as I was hearing you say those numbers, I realized like I actually don't even know what that looks like for brands that I buy. So as a shopper, I don't know how many cake mixes were sold by XYZ brand. So I think part of it's just like education around what's normal or what's average
[00:28:35] Alli Ball: Yeah. You know, it, it is really interesting. I, I was just running some numbers, so I've got this off the top of my head, but we have a baker inside of Retail Ready. She makes, uh, a bread brand and she sells about 29,000 loaves of bread every month. Isn't that crazy?
[00:28:56] Cynthia Samanian: I can't even picture that. I don't even know what 29,000 loaves of bread looks like.
[00:29:00] Alli Ball: That's about 7,000, just over 7,000 loaves a week. And you know, she's in year what like 8, 9, 10 of her business, and she's got a staff of 18 people and she's all in with this business. But yeah, it's, it's possible but you build up to that.
[00:29:19] Cynthia Samanian: Yeah. Okay. That's perfect. Now let's talk about the next P, which one is that? I think...
[00:29:25] Alli Ball: Placement placement. So placement is all about where the product is sold. Where is it placed? So what we want to do when we think about this Cynthia is we go back to that target audience that we were thinking about, like who is going to buy our product. Right. Whose problems are resolving when we, when we make this packaged product line. So the way we articulate it in Retail Ready, the way we think about it is, where does this person, our target audience, where, where are their pain points or their problems, where their needs most acute and where do they feel it the most? I don't even mean like in their body. I mean, like where do they experience this pain point the most? And so let me give an example here from a brand that likely most of your listeners know. I'm going to talk about that brand Emergen-C, you know, the little like vitamin.
[00:30:17] Cynthia Samanian: Oh yeah.
[00:30:19] Alli Ball: -packets feel like I like grew up drinking these in like high school and college. Um, so say you were selling those single packs of Emergen-C that vitamin drink mix. Where do people need that boost of vitamins, that like hydration on the go, we would most likely sell them like Emergen-C so strategically did in airports and convenient stores, because that's where those people are looking for single serve vitamin pick me ups right? Like say you were selling something like. Uh, post-workout smoothie, like a ready to drink beverage. You might sell that at juice bars, you know, in your gym or the checkout line at Whole Foods Markets. It's always about going to where your audience is already shopping and where they're already looking for the solution to the problem that you're solving. Does that make sense?
[00:31:14] Cynthia Samanian: Absolutely. It's so much of it has to do with, like you said, the context or the situation.
[00:31:19] Alli Ball: So often our Retail Ready students are like, well, you know, I want to sell in you know, I keep saying Whole Foods cause that's really something that feels like a dream account and we always question if that target shopper is currently shopping at Whole Foods. And if they're not, then let's not sell there. Let's not let our ego get the best of us. We don't have to sell in the fancy stores just because we feel like that should be the end goal.
[00:31:49] Cynthia Samanian: Yeah. Do you ever tell some of your students maybe your audience is shopping online more and maybe, you know, going to like a brick and mortar grocery is not where you should be focusing your attention. How has e-commerce changing things?
[00:32:05] Alli Ball: That's a great question, Cynthia. And I would, I would say here's, here's how, you know. You want to ask yourself if your audience is Googling for your product? Right. Like, I worked with a brand who, gosh, this was a few years ago who made an adaptogen mix and this, I mean, gosh, it was almost four years ago at this point. Like, well, before COVID, adaptogens were just starting to get on the scene and people really didn't know the benefits of medicinal mushrooms and so in thinking about the strategy here, we, you know, we really had to question like, are people going to pick up this jar of like dried brown powder off the shelves at Bi-Rite or are they Googling for natural stress relief or are they Googling for, you know, functional powders and things like that. Um, and ultimately what we concluded is, is the fastest path to profitability was going online with very select retail accounts where that true target audience was already shopping. So they can discover the product online, but then have the option to become a repeat purchaser in person where they're already doing their weekly shopping. I mean, Cynthia, imagine like when was the last time you Googled vanilla ice cream and expected to buy it online.
[00:33:37] Cynthia Samanian: I can't tell you the last time I Googled any food product. My husband does all the grocery shopping in one day. I think COVID has turned us into like just power shoppers, where we meal plan for the week. We have our list and he goes to two places and we're good. It's kind of killed the discovery element of grocery shopping where like I would go and wander the aisles.
[00:33:59] Alli Ball: Well, Cynthia, you bring up a really good point and it's something that we've spent so much time thinking about over the past two years is that it's we use the term trial in grocery, but product discovery and trial. How are you going to get people to try your product when you know, we're all by and large like darting in and out of the grocery store as quickly as possible. And we've really, really saw a reduction in product discovery over the past few years, just because people aren't shopping in that leisurely way that they used to.
[00:34:35] Cynthia Samanian: Yeah. Okay. So I'm not alone here.
[00:34:38] Alli Ball: No. I, I mean, I'll tell you I am a grocery expert and still I do most of my grocery shopping online. I'm glad that you asked the question about e-commerce because there are two different channels here. There's e-commerce that's direct to consumer. And that's cutting out the middleman where we're selling it directly to the consumer, and then there's still wholesale that happens online. So that's selling through something like a Good Eggs or a Thrive Market where you, the producer, are still selling your product at wholesale pricing to those online platforms and then the grocery shopper is building an entire basket of many different products and then checking out, you know, it almost in a more traditional grocery with a more traditional grocery experience in one fell swoop, one checkout process.
[00:35:28] Cynthia Samanian: Okay. So once people buy your product, then you're good, right? There's one more P though
[00:35:34] Alli Ball: Yes. Promotion. That happens like once you already get on the shelf or once you start establishing the sales, it feels like you said, you're like, okay. Yes, I've made it. I got on the shelves, but let's go back to that, not to bring us back to the sad place, Cynthia, but I'm going to bring us back to that example of selling cake mixes. Right? We need to think about a promotional strategy that addresses how we are going to sell that many cake mixes. I imagine it's similar with your audience thinking about, you know, they built their online classes and then how the heck do they fill those seats? Right.
[00:36:11] Cynthia Samanian: Exactly. Absolutely.
[00:36:13] Alli Ball: Yeah. So it's one thing to get on the shelf. It's a whole other thing to get into those shoppers' baskets. And so you want to make sure that you've got some sort of, I call it promotion, you know, same thing. We can call it marketing. Otherwise you're going to get discontinued. We talked about needing to meet those buyer goals at the beginning and those goals typically being sales related. So if you're not bringing high sales, we call it high velocity to your category, that buyer only keeps you around for so long. You'll get discontinued.
[00:36:45] Cynthia Samanian: Wow. I have to say is very high pressure because the comparison here with the online cooking class space, the way I think about it is okay, you create your classes, your offers, you know what you're going to do and then you put it up on your website, which is the digital shelf of our business. But if you don't sell any, no one is coming at you pointing their fingers saying, ah ahh, we are taking you off of the internet.
[00:37:08] Alli Ball: I know this is, this has turned into an intense podcast episode, Cynthia.. I promise I'm a more lighthearted person than this. But, um, and the other thing too, just since we're going down this dark rabbit hole, is that we're talking about by and large like perishable products that have only so long of a shelf life.
And so the clock is ticking, you know , your audience definitely understands perishability, but the clock is ticking once we produce that product, we've got to figure out a promotional plan. You know, whether those are strategic sales or quarterly discounts, how we're going to drive traffic to those stores, whether they're online stores or brick and mortar stores. Whether we're doing demos or sampling staff education. I mean, all of those things go into promo planning that lead to getting your product to sell off the shelf.
[00:38:03] Cynthia Samanian: So how common is it for people to come to you and say, okay, Alli, I got into Whole Foods. Do they expect Whole Foods with their big marketing budgets to do the marketing for them.
[00:38:14] Alli Ball: I'm so glad that you asked this question and. Yeah, Cynthia, I'm going to say, you and so many of my Retail Ready students. So many people in the food industry think that it is the store's job and yes, to some extent, yes, of course it is, like they own the store. They need to sell the product, but it's almost like the store is real estate and you're like renting that shelf space in order to sell your product.
So you get on the shelf and then it becomes a partnership you have to show up as a trustworthy, engaged brand in order to get your product off the shelf.
[00:38:53] Cynthia Samanian: Okay. Yeah, this sounds challenging, but at the end of the day, I mean, there are people doing this and you have so many people in your program. Where do you see the food founders that succeeding? Like the bread example you talked about earlier? There must be something deeper than just financial goals here.
[00:39:11] Alli Ball: Oh yeah. Thanks for bringing it back to this. I'm really excited by how these food founders are so, so values driven and that typically the founders who succeed are the ones who have those bigger whys. There's so many weeds to get caught in, there's so many things here in grocery where it becomes, you know, it feels like you're pushing a boulder uphill, but if you can come back to that, why, why do people need your product? Why are you the brand that's better than other brands on the shelf? Why do you need to share your story and share your product with the world? That's the thing that really, really push our successful Retail Ready founders to keep going even when there are so many setbacks.
[00:40:02] Cynthia Samanian: Yeah. I believe like in food in general, I mean the closer you are to the food, the less money you make.
But generally there's more passion. And I see it with my students and my community as well. They want to succeed so badly, not just for the financial support, which of course is important. Everyone has to pay their bills, but because they have this greater impact that they want to create. Yeah, so many parallels here.
It's not that surprising, but I'm glad you, you talked about that. And I know that you also, as a company are really focused on making sure that the food industry is more inclusive, right? And that the founders that are in your program represent all walks of life and all backgrounds. Can you talk more about that?
[00:40:49] Alli Ball: Yeah, I'd be happy to. Thanks for bringing that up. I mean, Cynthia, on a small scale, just bring it back to that that feeling that I had when I was early on at Bi-Rite and sitting around that table, being the only woman and, you know, being significantly younger than everyone and just feeling so out of place. So over my head and in over my head. It has been really important for me to help our industry move away from this tiny group of homogenous decision-makers deciding what goes on our shelves, what goes on our tables and making it much more inclusive, particularly minority owned, female owned, you know, um, brands that deserve that place on our table. Absolutely.
[00:41:41] Cynthia Samanian: Yeah. Well, I love following you on social. We'll share where people can find more about you and your company and your program, but you are definitely a vocal player in this space when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion. So I do want to call that out because I think you are a great example for other small businesses and identifying like how you can really, impact the industry, um, in a variety of ways. So thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. I believe that if we can diversify our shelves, it means that we can have more sustainable supply chains and just get closer to our food sources. It's a win for everybody.
Well, thank you so much, Alli. After these four PS I'm, I'm actually just really hungry. I want a slice of cake more than anything, but I do want ask you a question I ask everyone on the show and I'm going to tweak it a little bit for you. So I would love to know Alli, what is the single most important element of an incredible product experience?
[00:42:43] Alli Ball: Gosh, I'm going to say the first thing that popped into my mind here, and I think it's the packaging. And I know that, I know that sounds so
[00:42:52] Cynthia Samanian: How shallow of you
[00:42:53] Alli Ball: I know, it's so shallow, but here's what it is. It's it's because it sets the tone for the entire experience. So I think about that packaging capturing my attention from six feet away on the retail shelf. Three feet away, I'm standing in front of it. I'm picking it up, I've got that tactile experience. You know, maybe it's soft in my hand or crunchy in my hand, or, you know, whatever that is just getting excited, thinking about this. Um, and it sets the tone for the experience that is about to come. So I think investing in packaging is that like first interaction that someone has with your packaged product brand is crucial.
[00:43:39] Cynthia Samanian: Thank you. Thank you for that answer. And thank you for letting me add a little twist at the end, keeping you on your toes. You're a podcast host, so I'm like Alli's comfortable here, we're going to mix it up. Um okay, I absolutely know that our listeners are going to want to learn more about you and what you do at Retail Ready so where should they go to learn more?
[00:43:58] Alli Ball: Yes. Thank you for asking. I've got two places where people can go. The first one is directly to our website. It's just Alliball.com. And then the second one is, come and say hi to me on Instagram. That is where I spend most of my time, engaging with brands. If you send me a DM, I'll give you a follow back and see what you are producing. I would love to do that. So I'm at itsalliball on Instagram.
[00:44:22] Cynthia Samanian: We will definitely put those links in our show notes and on theExperientialTable.com. Okay my friends that wraps up this week's episode. Whether or not you've been thinking of creating a food product, thanks to Allie's tips. You now know the basics of getting started and who to go to for help.
Now, next time you're at the grocery store reaching for your favorite yogurt or spice blend I bet you're going to be looking at those products a little bit differently than before listening to this episode. If you're thinking that you would love to create a product down the road, but you want to get your online business up and running first, here's your next step.
I want you to join me in my free masterclass. You'll learn the four steps to creating profitable online cooking classes, whether you want to teach to the public, corporate teams or a mix of both. It's actually the same framework. I teach my students in Cooking Class Business School. You can sign up for free by going to hiddenrhythm.com/masterclass.
And one more thing. If you love this episode, then please tell us. You know, I pour my heart and soul into this podcast and I have a small but mighty team that helps me bring this show to life every week. One of the best ways you can show your support is not only by listening, but also leaving a rating and review. It really helps The Experiential Table get into the ears of listeners like you so please help us out and leave a rating and review wherever you're tuning in. Thank you so much for listening and until next week, get excited to get experiential.
