A Retail Roadmap for Emerging CPG Brands
A Retail Roadmap for Emerging CPG Brands
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show notes
In this episode of Local Marketing School, Emily Steele interviews Caroline Grace, founder and CEO of Product and Prosper, to chat through building successful CPG brands in retail. Caroline shares insights to help emerging brands navigate retail complexities. She emphasizes the importance of proper positioning, packaging, and pricing, using the example of PAKTLI Foods to illustrate how refining a brand's story and foundation can lead to retail success. Caroline also discusses the necessity of maintaining both e-commerce and retail presence, treating them as connected but distinct strategies. A great listen for CPG brands looking to establish and grow their retail presence in 2025 and beyond!
TUNE IN FOR TOPICS LIKE:
02:02 Caroline shares her entrepreneurial journey and founding of Product and Prosper
04:32 Common challenges preventing brands from maintaining retail shelf presence
08:46 Three common misconceptions about retail expansion debunked
13:26 Essential components for building a strong retail brand identity
16:49 Understanding the three critical phases of CPG brand data analysis
21:31 Strategies for optimizing both e-commerce and retail channels
24:00 Case study: PAKTLI's successful transition from farmers markets to retail
27:03 Partnership opportunities with Product and Prosper
29:08 Future initiatives and growth plans for Product & Prosper
Listen to this week’s Local Marketing School conversation!
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Emily Steele (00:00)
Hello, hello everyone. Emily Steel back with another local marketing school podcast episode for you. Today's episode is packed with advice and stories and examples of how to prosper as a CPG brand. And today's guest is Caroline Grace, who's the founder and CEO of Product and Prosper, the Prosper Lab and the Retail Lab, where she and her team help build emerging CPG brands into retail winners.
We do this through a really unique process that she dives into a 90 day program, community, fair services, and one-on-one work, specifically with emerging CPG brands. And it helps them navigate the complexities of retail. There's a lot around positioning and pitching and having an actionable go to retail plan that allows you to win. And Caroline dives into a lot of the details that really set the brands she works, she and her team work with to be successful. in today's episode, we dive into more of her background. How did product and Prosper come to be? Some of the myths that exist around CPG brands getting tripped up, growing in retail. We talk about data, which is really, really interesting, from pre-retail to pitching to actually being on the shelves and the things to really look at and understand.
We talk about the balance between e-comm and traditional retail front door strategies, back door strategies. If you're intrigued, I hope you're still listening and dig into what that means. And I really love that Caroline specifically shares an example of a CPG brand that she's really partnered with to help them succeed. So there's a lot, a lot of good stuff in today's episode. And I think you'll absolutely love what Caroline brings to the table. So let's get to the show.
Emily Steele (02:02)
Hey Caroline, I'm so excited you're here for our local marketing school. Welcome to the show.
Caroline Grace (02:07)
Thank you, Emily. I'm so excited to be here.
Emily Steele (02:09)
Yay! Can you share a little bit about your background and how you started Product & Prosper?
Caroline Grace (02:15)
Yeah, absolutely. I was actually a wholesale sales rep for a number of brands before starting Product & Prosper. Before that, I came from the branding side, the digital side. I was actually in B2B tech sales consulting for a little bit. And I think that completely influences how I approach retail and CPG but when I was specifically working with, brands as their sales rep, I started to see a lot of common problems. So typically we would get them into retail, you know, some independent, some, some small chain retailers. And what would occur is, you know, once we, I would hand off that account, the, the, the product typically wouldn't retain placement. So I took a step back and I was like, okay, if I can't help brands actually get on shelf and stay on shelf, I'm doing these small brands a disservice. It's really most important to stay on shelf once you get placement. And so I really built Product & Prosper to answer that question. Why can't brands stay on shelf when they get on shelf? And I really identified that we have to build the foundation of a brand first and foremost in order to sell off shelf. What I mean by the foundation is basically the product, the positioning, know, retail is a really, really brutal testing grounds. and if we don't have a lot of these pieces buttoned up, it ends up looking not so great for the brands on shelf. So that's really what I, what I focus on in product and prosper is I'm not just focused on opening retail doors, but I want to build the entire house because because that's really what we need to succeed on retail. It's not just about getting on shelf, it's on making sure that you can sustain the shelf placement, that you understand retail as a sales channel, and we have the pieces in place to not just sell off shelf, but to continue growing within retail as a sales channel.
Emily Steele (04:08)
Yeah, yeah, it does feel like, my gosh, I want to get on retail shelves is like the big shiny thing for brands, but it's really important to stay on shelf. So can you talk a little bit about what are the, things happen that would stop someone from staying on a shelf that maybe they don't know before they, they get on the shelf.
Caroline Grace (04:13)
Yeah, no, absolutely. It's a complicated question. And we've actually kind of boiled it down to 10 pillars that we need to build before we can actually get on shelf and stay on that shelf. There's kind of these foundational pillars, and there's a second level, and there's a third level. In the foundation, we're looking at, do you have a product that actually solves a problem? Does this solve the problem specific in the category? Does it have a product descriptor that makes sense for the category? Sort of the fundamental pieces of a product.
Do we have, secondly, the right positioning? Do we have a slot in that category that we can explain to the buyer? Does the shopper understand your positioning? Is it relatively differentiated? Then we go into packaging, right? There's merchandising standards for the category you're going to be shelved in. You need to look at how you're going to stand out, but also how you're going to fit in. One of the common issues I see with brands is, for example, like you get a certain amount of like allotted shelf space, right? So for say the shelf height is like 10 inches, sometimes D2C only brands will build a product that's like 11 inches and all of a sudden their product doesn't fit on the shelf that they want to be on. So we need to make sure like the packaging, not only from a design standpoint, but also from a functionality standpoint fits on the shelf that you need to be on. And then packaging is one of those other fundamental pieces, or sorry, pricing. Pricing is another one of those fundamental pieces. I get a lot of D2C brands who are premium priced but we need a very, very specific reason about why you're premium priced and why you're going to still succeed on a shelf where all of the other products on there are more average or budget priced. And so having reasoning behind your pricing, first and foremost, making sure that you have margins that you can succeed with and execute with with distributors and brokers and trade spends within retail. Those are just the four fundamentals, but without those, and there's like six more. But without those, those will make or break a brand when they get on shelf, or even just in getting a buyer interested in your product.
Emily Steele (06:28)
Yeah. Do you find that people more in the DTC space are like, I have something that works online. I just need to be retail ready. Are you working with people that are like, I'm thinking through the whole concept of starting a brand or maybe a mix of both of them?
Caroline Grace (06:51)
Yeah, I work with a lot of different brands. D2C only looking at retail as the next expansion opportunity, brands that are just starting or even have a concept, I help validate those concepts. yeah, retail is interesting because it usually indicates that a brand has made it. So that's why a lot of companies will push to go into retail is because once you have distribution, think about Siete, right? Siete had distribution across the entire US, right? And it's typically an indication that a brand has found product market fit, that they can actually produce and sell a product and get people interested. It's when brands actually make it as a company within CPG, but specifically food and beverage.
Caroline Grace (07:45)
And it usually indicates that a brand is relatively ready for acquisition at that point. And for some founders, right, that is a goal. So I understand like the focus on, on retail and plus, you know, it can add a lot to a lot to the sales and to your revenue. So I completely understand. I get a lot of brands that want to make it, but maybe don't have some of the foundational place pieces in place that are making it a little bit more difficult to get the buyer interested in the product, get to the buyer to respond or even to have a high velocity on shelf when they're actually on those shelves.
Emily Steele (08:24)
Yeah, my gosh, you're just a wealth of knowledge and we're like six minutes into the conversation. I love it. love it. Okay. Can you tell us? Yep. Yep. Yep. That's right here. So what would you say are some common myths when you see with emerging CPG brands that get tripped up when trying to grow and retail?
Caroline Grace (08:28)
Yeah, another really good question. I post about this a lot on my LinkedIn and in my newsletter. There's kind of three common myths I see. One is that there's a silver bullet that's going to get into retail. Two is that it's all about connections and the right connections. And then the third myth is that it's going to be quick and that there's a way to speed up the retail process. First and foremost, there is no silver bullet into retail.
And it's not just about connections. Again, it's really about that foundation and it's not going to be quick. Unfortunately, the buy cycle will take six to 12 months within retail, but there's lots to be doing while you're while you're waiting for a buyer to reply or review your product. I was actually listening. I don't know if you listened to or listened to Alex Hermosy at all. But he was saying that basically like when when you need more sales don't just focus on selling more, focus on building a better product. And that's exactly the mentality that we like to take a product and prosper is you really have to build that foundation. Like I keep reiterating and keep growing in other channels as you go to retail, that will be your silver bullet is to continue to grow brand awareness. And that's, know, what we see retail as is there's a front door to retail and there's a back door to retail that people typically overlook. Front door is typically what brokers will do.
Caroline Grace (10:09)
You can do it yourself as a brand too. You go knock on the door and you say, Hey buyer, can I be on your shelf? Success rate is, is, you know, varies on that and that approach, but it is necessary to get your name and your brand out there. There's another approach to retail that we've identified, which we call the backdoor approach, which is basically you get a buyer to come to your brand. The way to get a buyer to come to your brand is to build a better product and build in the market and specifically build in the industry conversations. So you need to be talked about. You need to be in newsletters and podcasts just like this one. You need to be in media and in PR and an affiliate so that when somebody searches your brand or just starts to see your brands all over, they become interested. The buyer becomes interested and they come to you to put you on shelf. A brand that just actually did this really, really, really well is Bezi. They're a labneh brand. They've been all over Like all of the industry newsletters and all of the industry podcasts. That is exactly what I'm talking about when I talk about the back door to retail, right? We have to wait. It is somewhat about connections, but it's not all about connections. We have to go through that front door. There is no silver bullet, especially when we focus on that front door. And that's really why it's so important to focus on this back door as well and execute in those same, in those channels as well. PR, awards, industry, that sort of thing.
Emily Steele (12:00)
Yeah, like if you think if there's like a thousand products on a shelf at a grocery store, how many do you think came because they asked to be on the shelf versus how many were pursued by like, what do you think? Like just to see, you know, how much work it is on the front door versus back door, you know, like.
Caroline Grace (12:12)
Yeah. I think it depends on the retailer you're asking about specifically and the size of brand, right? When we look at categories, there are brands that own the categories. I was just looking at the natural cleaning category, Mrs. Meyers, Eco's, they own that category. Those are typically brands that have gone to the buyer. They have tons and tons of data. They have the best brokers. They have all of the money to be on those shelves and they've built all of that velocity data, right? So I think when we think about like the majority of products on shelves, they probably will be more of those cases, right? The big brands with the big money, the big marketing budget, who own this category already?
Emily Steele (12:49)
Yeah. Totally.
Caroline Grace (13:08)
I think for the brands that are emerging, right? The new products that are being slotted in, specifically when we think about regional chain retailers or any trendy retailers like Pop-Up Grocer, the more I learn, the more I believe that buyers are seeking them out rather than the brands getting placement themselves or they have a lot of these pieces in place that get the buyer interested in the brands, right? They have a really good presence online. They have like existing sales on Amazon and it's good reviews, right? They have all of these pieces in place that get the buyer to say, okay, this is actually going to get me some additional sales in my category.
Emily Steele (13:37)
Cool, cool, cool. No, I appreciate you kind of double clicking on that. I would love to ask what are some key elements of a strong retail brand identity in your mind?
Caroline Grace (13:54)
Retail identity, okay, let's talk about this. It really goes across those 10 Ps that I was talking about, right? Those four fundamentals, product, positioning, packaging, pricing. It starts with those four fundamentals. Specifically, when we get to retail, retail is visual shopping experience. so packaging is usually one of the key drivers of a really strong retail brand identity. I know there's a lot of trends right now to kind of distribute colors per variation or per flavor, but there might be a case in a lot of categories. It depends on the category you're in to actually like brand block. There's actually a honey company that does this really, really well. You probably know what I'm talking about if you've ever looked at the honey category, they're bright orange. They're bright orange packaging. I don't know if you've seen them. I forget their name, but they did a really good job of color blocking. That's a really great way to build a strong retail identity. The other thing that I would emphasize is specifically within that product, that first one, I see a lot of brands who launch products across different categories. And this is one of the biggest losing strategies I see within retail is when you have products in multiple categories when you're launching, it's really hard to market across those two, especially if you have a pre-existing audience. Like it's really hard to direct your audience to different categories in the store. You have to split your time and your effort between two categories. And so I typically really recommend having a hero product SKU and a hero product line that exists and is placed in a single category within a store. And then, right, you can play the Siete game. Once you've owned that category for them, it was tortillas. You can, and once you've owned that category, you have distribution, you're known in kind of the collective mind for that category, for that product. Then that's when you would continue expanding to additional categories. Yeah.
Emily Steele (16:19)
Cool, that singular focus. It does feel like, you know, the entrepreneur who's so excited about all of the things. Like, that would be hard to be like, stay focused, get really good at people identifying you right here. Yep. Yep. I love that.
Caroline Grace (16:24)
Totally. I think it's really hard to, especially coming from a D to C side, like D to C side is driven by keyword. You know, and when you have say a cleaning product, right? Like there's many different keywords that you could potentially launch into. And so the potential is higher if you distribute across multiple categories, but within retail, I typically direct my clients to just pick, let's just pick one SKU, one brand, or sorry, one retail product to capitalize on as the hero skew within a single category.
Emily Steele (17:07)
Yeah. And so as a brand is thinking about the success of their hero SKU, I'm sure data really comes to play with this. So how should CPG brands be thinking about data? What's available to them? How do they leverage it for their growth? you know, kind of how does that data story then allow them to think about scaling to other SKU's and trying new things? It's a loaded question.
Caroline Grace (17:31)
Yeah. It is a loaded question. I think pretty much anything can be treated as data if you think about it enough and you learn from it enough. I think people typically point to things like velocity data or reorder data or D to C sales or conversion rate. Those things are really important for sure. But I do think that there's a lot of data within that you can learn from a category. So or how from kind of micro testing, like an approach to a buyer or to a retailer or to a category.
Caroline Grace (18:40)
Data and retail growth. think there's kind of three phases to how we need to think about data for retail. One is when you're pre-shelf, one is as you're going to the shelf and one is when you're on shelf. Pre-shelf data that I'm typically looking at is, there existing market traction and demand for this product? That could be D to C sales. It could even be farmers market sales. It could be followers. It could be just growth over time.
That's going to show me that we have some of those foundational fundamental pieces in place to be on a retail shelf. And I can take a lot of that data into my pitch to a buyer. Other data pieces would be kind of around brand presence when we're pre-shelf, right? Have you been featured in publications, right? Has anybody endorsed you? Do you have any like of your own story that shows that you are uniquely qualified to solve this problem that your product is solving and built this company. Those are pieces that we need to have in place in order to pitch to get on shelf. And then I think the second phase of data for getting into retail is while you're pitching. I think a lot of ways that we approach retail is we just kind of like knock on doors, knock on doors, knock on doors. And I think it's really important to take a step back and micro test, right? Let's knock on a door over here. Let's go knock on a door over here. Let's go knock on a door over here.
Caroline Grace (20:03)
Let's go build you on faire, see what happens. Where can we see the highest amount of traction? The quickest, basically. And that we really have to microtest with that data. Within microtesting, it could even be we might have the wrong product SKU, get our foot in the door. For example, one of our clients right now, Kaizen, they have an awesome lupini bean pasta.
But this category is relatively developed. They have their brands. you know, people know these brands. It's Banza and it's Brahmi. These are brands that are pretty well known in the space. And so what we've been micro testing is let's try the, the Lupini bean pasta. But what we're seeing is actually garnering a little bit more interest in the theory we're testing right now is they actually have Lupini bean rice SKU's, which is not a category that has been kind of that has taken off and been owned quite yet. So what we're trusting now is, okay, can we make this the foot in the door? Can we make this the hero SKU? And we wouldn't know that if we didn't micro test and saw the data, like buyers aren't interested, right? So it's while you're going to retail, there's data. And then finally, obviously there's data when you get on shelf. A lot of data like, reorder rate from the buyer, the velocity data. You can calculate a lot of that yourself in the beginning, but there's also data within providers like Spins and Nielsen, and you're gonna wanna start building that story as well. And that can give us indications on how well you're performing and just how well the product is doing on shelf. So a lot of different data points. Anything can be really.
Emily Steele (21:52)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so many. Really, the microtesting is probably the most fascinating thing you talk about just because you think about it even from a PR standpoint or I think about it from pitching investors for our company, right? It's kind of like, what's the angle that gets people excited? And you're like, wow, there's really something here. Do we want to dig more into this as a company? That is exciting to us. So I love that. I don't know that everyone would think about it that way. You know, others might be like, this is what we have to offer. And this is, you these are the benefits and this is how people think of it. But being open to repositioning and being creative and the messaging is, pretty key. sounds like. I love it.
Caroline Grace (22:33)
Totally. Yeah. I mean, that's just the sales. You know, your salesperson can be the same every single time. It's like pivot.
Emily Steele (22:37)
Yeah, for sure. Yep. As brands think about the balance between e-commerce and kind of traditional retail, there any advice you like to give there?
Caroline Grace (22:51)
I would really think about them as two completely different teams that are connected at the hip. Basically, they need to be really similar, but your SKU and your packaging and your, your pricing even might be slightly different, different between e-comm and retail. Right. We, even talked about in our conversation, build in one category within retail, even if you have multiple categories on D to C. It's just a different strategy of growth. I would just recommend like you can't take your foot off the gas on the DTC side. Even if you're a retail only brand, you need to have some sort of DTC presence to promote your product or market your product when you're in stores. Or, you know, a lot of research at the store level is done on Amazon. So that's one of the things that we need to build. So it's...It's a tough question. I mean, all of this is difficult, but most importantly, we can't have a singular focus on one channel or the other nowadays. It has to be on both, and our strategies have to be different for each channel.
Emily Steele (23:52)
It is just going in with the mindset, right? Okay, I'm excited to build a product, but having it available online and in retail, like the mindset, just going in knowing that could be huge for someone who's been had a dream to have something on shelf. But it's like, well, the reality is people are going to search for you on Amazon or want to go to your website, understand your brand story that they're not going to get on shelf. So it does feel very critical in 2024 and 25 and beyond.
Caroline Grace (24:18)
Yeah, no, absolutely. We call that presence in our 10 Ps. It's a little further down the road than our foundation. There are a of Ps, but they're all necessary Ps. Yes. They're all Ps. They're all Ps. The first one's product, the last one's prosper.
Emily Steele (24:39)
Yeah, I love it. Lot of peas. Are they all peas? Because you are product and prosper. They're all, that's a lot of peas. Okay, so all the piece in between. Okay, that's like that's last question. I'll ask you just more about the product and prosper program and how you should be considering it. But I want to ask you one question before that. So can you share an example of a CPG brand that you've helped to successfully grow in retail and what were some of the growth levers like a really actionable brand would be super helpful.
Caroline Grace (25:03)
Absolutely. Yeah. I have a couple of different examples. I'm going to start with a brand named PAKTLI. I don't know if you've seen her brands all over in the industry. She's obviously taken the backdoor approach, which I emphasize in Product and Prosper. When Seena came to me, she was in a few different independents. She was looking to transition out of farmers markets. She has some interest by a Kroger buyer that was local to her, but the Kroger buyer was basically just, you're not retail ready quite yet. There are some updates that you need to your product, your packaging. What we really did together, Seena and I, is we took a step back when we looked at that foundation. The way that she was pitching her product, talking about her product, the positioning, the packaging, the format, the pricing, right? All of those foundational piece that I keep talking about, I know I harp on them, but that is what creates brands that are successful in retail is getting those pieces right. When we started working together, Seena was talking about her product as a like a snack, a ancient grain snack with chocolate and quinoa and amaranth. And that's just a really, really long way to pitch your product. It doesn't necessarily put you into a category within retail. And it wasn't captivating the buyer's attention like we needed. And it wasn't captivating shoppers or consumers attention as we needed.
Caroline Grace (26:43)
So what we did is we took a step back and we looked at the reason why she created this product. And it was actually an inspiration from her childhood in growing up in Mexico, eating alegrías from street vendors. Alegrías are a mix of basically amaranth and chocolate or honey. And she had taken that recipe and modernized it for the US consumer. So she was using multiple different ancient grains. She was using really, really high quality chocolate. She was adding key ingredients like blueberries and cashews into this alegría. And so just even shifting the story and how we were talking about that product to not just an ancient grain snack, but an alegría with multiple ancient grains, completely changed how we were able to go to retail we actually submitted to a backdoor opportunity to get into sprouts through a pitch competition and she, she got placement through the innovation set, and was slotted to be on shelf in October. unfortunately there were some production issues, so she'll be going into the innovation set a little bit later in the year, but, it, just goes to show that if we can really optimize that foundation, just change even slight tweaks. And it's really hard to do that when you're kind of internal to the the brand and it's your baby. It really changes how we can enter retail and the success we can have. So that's one example. I'm happy to share more, but I know I'm going to be responsible time as well.
Emily Steele (28:07)
Yeah. Yeah. I love it. So Seena, was she part of a program, your 90 day program, or did she work one on one with you? How do you work with brands?
Caroline Grace (28:26)
Yeah. Again, this is something that we are micro testing and pivoting. She was part of our 90 day program. We work together through our incubator process. And I want to be really careful. It's not a course. It's really quite collaborative, right? We're doing things. Our client is doing some things. It's like we're marathon training together, right? We're going to push you, but we're going to be running this marathon with you. yes, Seena and I went through our program together in our 90 day program.
Emily Steele (28:56)
Amazing and that is that the primary way that you like to engage with different brands is through that program or do you do one-on-one consulting as well?
Caroline Grace (29:07)
At Product Prosper, we have a three step process. Hold on. It's changing, hold on. Give me a second. At Product Prosper, we are a team. I'm not a solo consultant. And what we really focus on is growth strategy and sales execution for emerging CPG brands on the way to retail.
Caroline Grace (29:34)
The primary way that we do that is through our audit build manage process. Build is that 90 day program. But before we do that, we need to understand what a brand is strong in and what they're weak in from our 10 P's standpoint. So we know exactly what to build as we bring the brand into retail. And then the 90 day program is the build. We spend time with the founder to really build that foundation, that house. So we have a stronger base to build from when we manage the brand's entry into retail. The management is really our sales team. This is one of our newest offerings. It's something that our clients have been asking for for lots of years at this point. And we finally pressed to go. so half of it is a retail sales team, but also half of it is focusing on those backdoor approaches with PR and awards and submitting to alternative ways to get the brand out there into the industry.
Emily Steele (30:07)
That is so exciting. Like you've been hearing from your clients like, hey, we want this. And you're like, okay, we're going to do it. Let's go. That's incredible. That's amazing. Is there anything next for product and prosper you would want to share with listeners?
Caroline Grace (30:30)
I mean, I think right now we're really using a lot of our own strategies that we, we ask brands or we work with brands to, do as well. We're really truly building our foundation and we're improving our core services to get better results for clients. Specifically that means spending time optimizing this audit build manage process as we move into 2025 and making sure that we have all of the pieces in place to not only help brands get on shelf, but ultimately thrive on shelf and grow as a company in the market.
Emily Steele (31:19)
Caroline, this is a wealth of information. I know you share a lot of tips and advice and great content on LinkedIn. think this just packages so much of what you've been sharing for years into a conversation. So really appreciate your time. Yeah, I appreciate you sharing this. I know there are so many CPG brands that listen to this podcast that will be listening to your advice and hopefully taking action and engaging with you at Product and Prosper. So thank you so much for your time today.
Caroline Grace (31:33)
Thank you, Emily. That'd be wonderful. Thank you so much, Emily. It's been a pleasure.
