Specialty food makers seeking to get their products onto supermarket shelves should take the time to choose their retail partners carefully and to understand each retailer’s needs, said Scott Zoeller, director of deli for Melville, New York-based Uncle Giuseppe’s Marketplace.
Zoeller is scheduled to present a webinar called Selling to Supermarkets on Thursday, April 28, at 1 p.m. EST, as part of the SFA’s Maker Prep Webinar series.
The webinar will cover a range of topics that specialty food makers need to consider before pitching their product to supermarket companies, as well how to maintain good retailer relationships over the long term.
Makers first need to understand their own customer and where that customer shops, he said, before choosing which stores to target. Then, they need to craft a strategy for how to approach those retailers. Perhaps most importantly, makers must understand what it is about their products that differentiates them from other products on the market, so that retailers have a reason to consider going through the effort of putting a product on the shelf.
“There’s not a lot of appetite right now for new items in retail,” Zoeller said.
Retailers want to avoid duplicating existing products with new items that are essentially similar to ones they already have, he said. The maker needs to show clear evidence that its items will offer some advantages for the consumer.
“For example, if you have an Imported Italian ham, well, Imported Italian ham has been around for a while, so what makes your imported Italian ham different from what’s already on the market?” Zoeller said. “Is it all natural? Antibiotic-free? Is it organic?”
Makers need to consider things from the retail buyer’s perspective, and ensure they are providing as much data about the category and trends as they can to help the buyer understand each product’s consumer appeal. Both sides need to develop a level of trust so that the buyer understands that all of the work that goes into bringing in a new product will be worthwhile, and so that the maker trusts that the retailer will support the product launch and ongoing success as well.
“No one wants to spend a lot of energy and take a lot of risk setting up a new product and have it fail,” Zoeller said.
One strategy that has worked for specialty food makers is to start out by targeting smaller specialty retailers and gaining a track record of success before pitching their products to larger supermarket chains, said Zoeller, who said he has seen that scenario unfold many times during his previous tenure as a buyer at the Kings and Balducci’s gourmet supermarket chains.
Other topics he plans to discuss in the webinar include how makers can best leverage opportunities such as trade shows, which have been limited during the last couple of years but have made a comeback, and in-store sampling, which has yet to return in a big way. Both present great opportunities for makers to tell their stories, to retail buyers and customers, respectively.
Zoeller also plans to discuss working with brokers and distributors, and navigating the world of slotting and ad fees that retailers often demand. In addition, he’ll talk about how makers can connect their history of online sales and marketing with their potential expansion into supermarket retailing.
“That landscape has changed quite quickly,” he said. “Makers who use emails, and offer engaging recipes, and things like that can help engage the consumer and make them stand out can be really, really important.”
Another topic Zoeller said he plans to discuss is whether or not makers are prepared to offer their product as a private label, something that buyers are often interested in if a product is truly differentiated from other brand-name items. That is a strategy that has proven successful for both makers and retailers in the past, he said.
If you have a question for Zoeller that you'd like him to address during the webinar, leave it here in the specialtyfood.com Community Hub.
Related: Di Bruno Bros.' Fike Shares Tips for Sellng to Specialty Stores; Spill & Dish SFA Podcast: TV Producer Turns Professional Pickler.