Chris Williams, vice president of merchandising for Foxtrot, an innovative retailer with both brick-and-mortar locations and an online presence, recounted a particularly effective product pitch, during the session “The New Rules of Specialty Food,” Sunday, at the Winter Fancy Food Show.
“She reached out on LinkedIn and said ‘I know this person that you know’. She let me know that she was working with KeHE and UNFI, so I knew that she was on top of her business. She sent samples and [efficiently] covered everything,” he said during the panel moderated by Jack Acree of Saffron Road, Sunday. “It’s about selling not just the product but the entire process.”
It also behooves makers to present to buyers how their product is a particularly good fit for the retailer in which they’re trying to gain placement, he added.
Foxtrot’s product mix comprises 40 percent conventional products, 40 percent natural, and 20 percent items that are local and made by innovative startups, he said. The retailer launched eight years ago as purely ecommerce and now omnichannel with physical locations that have a corner market feel but also serve beer and wine.
Efficient communications with buyers are key given the changing marketplace said panelist Karen Farrell of Presence Marketing, at a time when retailers have gone from open category reviews to those that are less frequent and happening at the headquarter level.
Hallie Bonnar of New Fare Partners noted that in a post-pandemic world, food makers are also challenged with having to shift selling strategies now that consumers are shopping more in brick-and-mortar locations.
“Brands have to be really smart about packaging and reorient something that worked well online, in-store,” she said.
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