Ever pitched your brand to a buyer and heard nothing but crickets. Or worse, a flat-out no?
Here’s what really happens during those notoriously opaque retail category reviews. The gap between how founders see their brand and how buyers evaluate it is where most early retail pitches fall apart.
Robert Johnson spent years on the buyer side of the table, evaluating new brands as the former Category Manager at New Seasons Market. Today, he runs Astra CPG where he works with sales reps to become the kind of partner buyers actually want to say yes to. He breaks down what buyers look for, what gets ignored, and what earns a spot on shelf.n.
00:14 - I’m still looking at it from a standpoint of a customer
02:35 - Be the easy brand or rep to work with
05:51 - Tie it back to how you help the category perform better
08:27 - Afterward, there’s honestly not a lot you can do
10:52 - Improve what you’re doing a little bit at a time
Text answers below have been edited for length and clarity. Full answers are in video. (We highly recommend watching!)
When buyers evaluate a new product, what are you actually looking at?
Even though I’m a buyer, I’m still looking at it from the standpoint of a customer: packaging, ingredients, taste, and price.
Packaging comes first. Does it stand out? Does it clearly communicate what the product is and its purpose? Is it appealing enough to make me pick it up? Packaging is that first entry point and the barrier you potentially have with the customer.
Next, I look at ingredients and nutritional facts, and how it all plays together. Taste has to deliver.
Finally, price and promos. How will you support the product after it gets on shelf? This separates brands when multiple similar products go into a category review.
For chains with our store count, a big thing is logistics. How do you get it to the stores? For an indie retailer with one to three stores carrying a local product, local delivery is straightforward. But if you’re a brand from Texas trying to enter Portland without distribution, there are red flags. It’s a lot easier for us to pass.
Don’t go too wide too quick. Stay in your market and go as deep as you can. Build velocity and proof of data before moving to the next market.
How can brands get a meeting with big-chain buyers?
For chain retailers with central headquarters, the number one way to get access is through a broker. Brokers manage multiple brands and make it easier for buyers to have one point of contact.
If you’re a founder not working with a broker or fractional sales rep, email with the intention of understanding how to work with that buyer. Let them know upfront: “I really want to work with you, but I need to know if it’s a good fit and how to best get into your process to make it easier for you.” Find the best way to get into their review process. You’ll succeed if you can be the easy rep to work with.
Recognize you’ll send many follow-ups before getting even one response. Or you’ll get responses, but it’ll be some time before you get an actual meeting or presentation. It could be months or up to a year depending on the product, the buyer, and what’s happening in their world.
You’re going to get ghosted. You have to be consistent and be the constant in the relationship. But that really helps build trust. When the time comes and they reach out about a review, they’ll know they can trust you.
Do all buyers look for the same things?
What separates one buyer from another is experience level, training, and personal perspectives. You have to navigate through that buyer to buyer.
Buyers follows whatever the culture and vision is of their company. At Kroger, Fred Meyer, or Walmart, they’re probably slower to adopt new items because they don’t want to take the risk.
Indies or natural specialty stores are more open to trying new items. For natural grocery, new items are the lifeblood of the chain. If it misses, it misses and we move on.
That’s good and bad for brands. Good that you get a shot, but as things have progressed, items don’t have as long on shelf to prove themselves. Category reviews are driven by short timeframes. When I’m reviewing yogurt, new items from the previous year have only been on shelf eight to nine months. You don’t even have a full year before I’m looking at the data and deciding if the item should stay.
Buyers don’t like being talked AT for an entire meeting. Practice getting your pitch down to about five minutes. Build in intentional pauses that leave room for questions and real conversation.
At what point is a brand objectively too early for retail?
There’s a long list of boxes that should be checked before attempting to sell into retail. Here are the top things to keep in mind:
Packaging
Meets food safety requirements
Has a UPC that scans correctly
Has a completed nutrition label
Uses a master case that can handle delivery without damaging the product
Logistics
Production follows food safety rules
Production can keep up with retail demand
There’s a clear way to get product to stores
Walk us through a category review. What’s the process from start to finish?
At New Seasons, category reviews took five to six months from start to finish. That’s from sending out the email that we’re holding meetings to items hitting store shelves.
We typically held meetings in one day, maybe two if there were excessive requests. If you’re lucky, you get a 15-minute break in a full day of meetings. It’s just go, go, go. Those meetings are crucial to stand out, be quick with your presentation, and hit the points the buyer needs to know.
After the meeting, if I like it, there’s still a lot that happens, usually takes about four months. After meetings, the brand or broker submits all product information into our portal for another review. We look at everything: what did we like, what stood out, what items currently in the set aren’t performing and need to come out.
At this level of chain retail, you partner with your schematics person. You give them the list of deleted items and new items, then work together on how it all fits. Even if you’re deleting 20 items, it might not be the right 20 to make space for your new items because of space or location. That process takes three to six weeks.
Once we know what we want, we push those items to our distributor partners and that’s when it gets communicated to brands or brokers that they’ll get on shelf. There’s another milestone of getting the PO in stock at the distribution center before it goes to stores. But that’s the high level.
If you’re causing friction between you and the buyer in any way, it deteriorates trust and relationship. Take a moment before you contact them to ask: am I making it easier for them or harder for them?
Aside from velocity, what other things do buyers care about?
Everybody talks about velocity. Yes, you have to build velocity. But you want it to be smart in a way that aligns with the retailer.
Any good founder or sales rep will also ask: what is your threshold for high-end performance? Where do I need to be to stay on shelf? What can I help you achieve?”
Because you don’t just want to stay on shelf. You want to dominate the shelf and add new items in the future. If you can tie it back to how you help the category perform better, it helps the buyer look good. We’re going to feel good about you and the product, and it will build momentum.
You could also say: “I want to make sure this is a right fit. In a certain market, I’m doing X units per week or dollars per week. What’s your threshold? Am I even going to be close?”
If you’re not, maybe it’s not a right fit for this time. If you’re not going to hit it, why spend the money to onboard, do your free fill, pay ad fees, and all these things if you’re not even close to the threshold? Honestly, as a buyer, I’d respect that more than just trying to get on my shelf to say you’re in at New Seasons.
