Retailers and brands play an important role in every community. This is part of what makes natural natural. Brands are the glue that bind shoppers together and drives them into stores. Savvy retailers partner with brands focused on meeting consumer’s needs

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Community is at the heart of natural. Working together toward a common purpose is what drives us. Our stories need to educate and inspire consumers to vote with their dollars - helping brands get on retailer’s shelves and into the hands of more shoppers

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Today's story is about inspiration and education. I have the privilege of interviewing Gary Hirshberg, one of the leading thought leaders in our industry. Gary shares with us the story about how he and his partner started Stonyfield Yogurt. The struggles that they had and how their dedication, and attention to detail, turned it into one of the leading brands in the category.

Gary shares how his commitment to his friends, family, shareholders, employees, the community that he serves and the farmers that support him, helped him remain true to his passion. His dream was to develop a healthy yogurt brand and more importantly to prove that organic farming was sustainable. This was an opportunity for organic farms to prove themselves, to be a viable solution, to help solve many of the food problems that we have today. 

We discussed the need for education. The opportunity for brands to help educate consumers and retailers about the sustainability and the viability of organic. We talked about how consumers vote with their dollars and why it's imperative that we speak up and stand up for those farmers that are committed to organic, that are committed to giving back to our healthy way of life and are committed to healthy sustainable farming practices. Gary also talked about how entrepreneurs are pathological optimists and he emphasizes that if you don't ask, you don't get. This mantra helped Gary continually do whatever it took to succeed and to find ways to persevere when everything was going against him.

I want to thank Gary for openly sharing his story and his inspiration to help young healthy organic brands get their start and to stay focused on their core mission and to guard and protect their values. Never compromising or giving into adversity, which causes so many brands to cut corners.

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Shoppers want healthy natural products. Big brands and retailers struggle to connect with these shoppers and the brands driving this trend. Learn what is at the heart of natural, why it resonates with consumers and why it matters. 

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Your brand's selling story is the cornerstone of all effective business building strategies. Learn How To Get Your Brand On The Shelf and What Retailers REALLY Want. This Is Your Roadmap To Success. 

CLICK HERE TO GAIN INSTANT ACCESS TO MY FREE TURNKEY SALES STORY STRATEGIES COURSE

Shoppers want healthy natural products. Big brands and retailers struggle to connect with these shoppers and the brands driving this trend. Learn what is at the heart of natural, why it resonates with consumers and why it matters. 

Today's episode focuses on what makes natural natural. You've heard me talk about this on a lot of different podcasts, the content that I put out there, the webinars I produce and everything else. This is the underlying question that people keep asking me: What makes natural natural, and why is it important?

Why do they need to pay attention to it? You've probably heard me describe natural as being somewhat like a religion. That in no way means that anyone's trying to be preaching natural. The point being is this, the natural community is more connected to what makes natural natural, the ingredients in the packaging, the ground that the ingredients are grown in, the climate, the environment, every thing that's involved in making food more accessible. This goes well beyond the package or on the shelf. This talks about the story, the underlying story, the mission behind the brand behind the entrepreneur, why they do what they do, and why it's important. The point is simply this: The natural organic brands that we talk about, that we celebrate on this show, are the ones that are driving sustainable sales across every category and every channel.

It's these unique disruptive brands that are changing the way people think about food. At the heart of this discussion, we use words like transparency, clean label, and try to explain what those are and why those matter. Customers want products that they can trust, products that they can rely on to deliver exceptional nutritional value to them and their family. This is about celebrating the food for being something more than just a commodity, something you stick in your mouth. It's about building a community and uniting that community. It's about bringing people together. This is what makes natural natural. And this is why this episode is so important. This is why I do what I do on this podcast, and with the other content I produce.

Today I'm thrilled to introduce you to Robbie Vitrano, a thought leader in this space. He leverages the insights that he gets from all the other thought leaders and brings them together. This session is perhaps one of the most impactful episodes I've had yet in that it addresses that fundamental underlying question that people keep asking me: What makes natural natural? And why this matters.

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Savvy entrepreneurs look to industry leaders to help guide, mentor, and inspire them. They know and appreciate learning ways to avoid common pitfalls and accelerate their growth. This shortens their learning curve helping them grow sustainable sales. 

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Real shopper loyalty is earned not found on plastic cards. Your brand’s real strength is its ability to convert casual customers into brand ambassadors.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE STRATEGIC GUIDE: Merchandising Checklist To Grow Sales and Shopper Loyalty

Savvy entrepreneurs look to industry leaders to help guide, mentor, and inspire them. They know and appreciate learning ways to avoid common pitfalls and accelerate their growth. This shortens their learning curve helping them grow sustainable sales. 

The underlying theme of this podcast is that it's about you and it's for you. It's about helping to identify resources to help you grow your brand and to help you help your retail partners compete more effectively. In today's story, we talk about an entrepreneur that almost by accident created a special niche in the industry. His secret sauce is being able to bring young entrepreneurs into a room together with some of the leading thought-leaders in the industry, essentially providing a mastermind group for anyone looking to grow a brand. 

Today's guest is John Craven, the Founder and CEO of BevNET. I've had the privilege of knowing John for quite a while including being a featured speaker on BevNET Live, supporting some of his tabletops where young brands can get expert advice, and participating in FBU University, now called Project NOSH.

In episode 32, I had a great discussion with Phil Lempert, The Supermarket Guru, about how brands need to be walking the store shelves, and more importantly they need to know what's going on outside of their market. They need to be paying attention to trends in the marketplace and what different retailers are doing. John and his team at BevNET provide this information in an easy to digest format, with expert commentary.

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Shoppers want healthy natural organic products. Organic produce is the gateway to driving sustainable natural organic sales in center store. This is the audio recording of the presentation I facilitated for the Category Management Association.

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Your brand's selling story is the cornerstone of all effective business building strategies. Learn How To Get Your Brand On The Shelf and What Retailers REALLY Want. This Is Your Roadmap To Success. 

CLICK HERE TO GAIN INSTANT ACCESS TO MY FREE TURNKEY SALES STORY STRATEGIES COURSE

Shoppers want healthy natural organic products. Organic produce is the gateway to driving sustainable natural organic sales in center store. This is the audio recording of the presentation I facilitated for the Category Management Association.

The Category Management Association reached out to me to facilitate four webinars geared toward helping mainstream retailers and brands understand what makes natural natural. Today's podcast includes the audio from the third in the series, all about produce and how produce is driving center store sales. 

As consumers begin to experiment with organic and they try to understand and learn a little bit more about it, it's easier for them to make the connection between produce and other products within the store. The key point here is that produce is what drives sales in center store by helping those consumers understand and appreciate the value of natural organic products on the perimeter of the store and how they relate to other categories within the store. 

If you'd like to download the presentation that we refer to in this webinar, you can easily access it at RetailSolved.com/cma3. As a little bit of additional background, the Category Management Association (CMA) defines the standards of category management proficiency. There are three levels; CPCA, CPCM, and CPSA. I'm a Certified Professional Strategic Advisor (CPSA). The CMA also provides a wealth of information and resources to help support their members which predominantly include mainstream brands and retailers. For any natural companies listening, the reason this matters is because category management includes the advanced strategies that the big brands rely heavily upon. The point being is that if you want to play at that level, you need to BE at that level. That's what the focus of this podcast is, all about to help small natural brands and retailers compete head-to-head, toe-to-toe with the big guys. 

I would like to thank the CMA for supporting this important cause and for bringing this information to you. If you want to learn more about the CMA and how they work with brands, you can always connect with me or reach out to them directly. I'll put links to them and Category partners, my guest on this webinar, in the show notes and on this podcast webpage.

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Mission-based brands resonate with consumers. Shoppers want to feel good about the products they purchase. Seth shares his journey as an activist to entrepreneur, industry thought leader, and no compromise iconic brand builder. 

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Your brand's selling story is the cornerstone of all effective business building strategies. Learn How To Get Your Brand On The Shelf and What Retailers REALLY Want. This Is Your Roadmap To Success. 

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Mission-based brands resonate with consumers. Shoppers want to feel good about the products they purchase. Seth shares his journey as an activist to entrepreneur, industry thought leader, and no compromise iconic brand builder. 

Today's story is about the importance of your mission. Your mission, what your brand stands for. Not just that you want to get a product into the hands of more consumers, but more importantly, what does your product stand for beyond the four corners of your package? Let's face it, no matter how inspired a consumer is, not everyone has the capability of taking time off work to repair a devastated village, to teach someone how to read and write when they don't have schools, to help make health care more accessible.

Today's story comes from thought leader, Seth Goldman, with Honest Tea. Learn how Seth has baked in his passion for activism into the DNA of Honest Tea, and how he's been able to help communicate the value of that to retailers. In his story today Seth shares with us how he can help consumers feel better about the products that they're buying, while delivering incredible value at the shelf by giving consumers what they really want and need.

We also talked about how Seth was able to help a big brand stay true to the values of Honest Tea, which has helped him extend his mission into even the McDonald's happy meal. In addition to this, you're going to learn about other passions Seth has for evangelism, including his journey to Beyond Meat, and how he's working to help Beyond Meat get on more retailer shelves and into the hands of more shoppers.

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Natural products are champions for the environment. Shoppers want to feel good about their purchases including how their choices positively impact the environment, climate and the health of our planet. Learn how a grass roots movement is leading the way

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Real shopper loyalty is earned not found on plastic cards. Your brand’s real strength is its ability to convert casual customers into brand ambassadors.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE STRATEGIC GUIDE: Merchandising Checklist To Grow Sales and Shopper Loyalty

Natural products are champions for the environment. Shoppers want to feel good about their purchases including how their choices positively impact the environment, climate and the health of our planet. Learn how a grass roots movement is leading the way.

As you listen to this podcast, you'll routinely hear me talk about how important it is for these brands to be tied to a cause bigger themselves, tied to causes that are focused on giving back, on local, healthier, food solutions that are more nutritious for us. And one of my favorite focus areas is giving back to the world. Helping to make our world a better place, by reducing carbon footprint, by reducing the amount of pollution we create, with a focus on sustainable packaging. This has already been the focus of a few podcasts, and it will be the focus of future topics.

In fact, I'm so passionate about this, I'm going to use this as one of the lessons in my future courses. Here's why it matters. If you're going to merchandise your product on a shelf and drive customers into a store, you need to have packaging that fits the shelf, that helps your product stand out in a crowded shelf, and more importantly, gives consumers an opportunity to feel good about your purchase, not because of what's in the package, but the package itself. 

Today I have the honor of speaking with Lara Dickinson, who is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of OSC2, an organization focused on the important things that we're talking about on this podcast, and especially in this intro. I had the privilege of meeting with Lara at a breakfast they hosted at Expo West. It was inspirational. The different speakers shared their thoughts and beliefs on what's going on in the world, along with their commitment to do good. 

In addition to that, during this breakfast, I also had a chance to listen to and learn a little bit more about the Climate Collaborative, which is closely tied to OSC2. I will include links to both OSC2 and the Climate Collaborative in the show notes, and on this podcast webpage.

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A compelling selling story is the key to every brand’s success. It is the key to getting your products on retailer’s shelves. It must include rich actionable insights about how your loyal consumers shop the category as well as fact-based recommendations

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Every slight improvement means more runway for sales growth, higher brand valuations, better terms when negotiating with investors, fuel for more innovation, greater support for mission-based causes, and much more.

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Savvy brands are experts at meeting their customer’s needs & helping to connect retailers with their loyal shoppers. This is where the real power of a brand at retail is important. Retailers need to partner with brands to satisfy shoppers and drive sales.

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Your brand's selling story is the cornerstone of all effective business building strategies. Learn How To Get Your Brand On The Shelf and What Retailers REALLY Want. This Is Your Roadmap To Success. 

CLICK HERE TO GAIN INSTANT ACCESS TO MY FREE TURNKEY SALES STORY STRATEGIES COURSE

Savvy brands are experts at meeting their customer's needs & helping to connect retailers with their loyal shoppers. This is where the real power of a brand at retail is important. Retailers need to partner with brands to satisfy shoppers and drive sales

While doing research for today's podcast, I was doing research into our guest and into the brand as I always do. I was reminded of the story this time of the movie Field of Dreams where the theme was if you build it, they will come. In today's story, I learned about Ethan Brown and his journey to solve some of the problems of the we talk about on this podcast in different ways. For example, talking about making our healthy way of life more accessible by producing alternative solutions for people who are trying to watch their cholesterol or their blood pressure or some of those other health issues or concerns that so many people are focused on, in addition to that, helping our environment, by reducing greenhouse gases and reducing the number of animals that are required to produce food for us.

Ethan Brown is the founder of Beyond Meat. I highly recommend that you listen to the podcast episode that he did with NPR on their website. I will put a link to it in the show notes and on this episode's webpage. I love working with, interviewing and speaking to disruptive brands that are trying to differentiate themselves through authentic, mission based objectives. This is something that the brand takes on because it's part of their DNA. It's not something that they're doing to try to gain extra support. It is who they are. They give back. On today's episode, I have the privilege of talking to Chuck who is Beyond Meat's Chief Growth Officer.

Chuck was kind enough to share with us, how a brand can leverage social media and consumer demand to help them get their products on retailer's shelves and into the hands of more consumers while helping to guide retailers to understand and educate them on the new trends in the marketplace, to help them give their customers the products and the solutions that they're looking for. It's a relationship between the brands and the retailers that we're trying to foster here on this podcast and in all of my content and in my free course. Today, Chuck talks about how they're able to leverage their story at retail, to help retailers carve out a space for them to meet the needs of that health conscious consumer that is looking for alternative solutions, to support their needs and the needs of their family. 

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Plant-based foods fulfill consumer’s needs for healthy innovative products. This growing trend is driving sales across all categories. Be inspired by Daiya, a brand and founding member of the Plant-Based Food Association leading this revolution!

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Your brand's selling story is the cornerstone of all effective business-building strategies. Learn How To Get Your Brand On The Shelf and What Retailers REALLY Want. This Is Your Roadmap To Success. 

CLICK HERE TO GAIN INSTANT ACCESS TO MY FREE TURNKEY SALES STORY STRATEGIES COURSE

Plant based foods fulfill consumer’s needs for healthy innovative products. This growing trend is driving sales across all categories. Be inspired by Daiya, a brand and founding member of the Plant Based Food Association leading this revolution!

Throughout this podcast and all of my content, I talk about the new trends in the marketplace. I talk about how leading disruptive brands are really making an impact by helping retailers meet the needs of their consumers and their shoppers, by providing the items that their shoppers want to buy. The next focus is how to help the retailers merchandise and take advantage of these strategies, these products, how to leverage them to drive traffic in their store and profitable, sustainable sales across every category. Then to follow up, how does that retailer use those products to drive sales across the entire store? What I mean by that is that consumers that buy healthy products, whether it be organic, plant-based, etc., tend to spend more money buying other products, premium products, across the entire store, because those consumers understand that if you are what you eat, then eating food that properly provides nutrition for your body is going to fuel you longer. In the long run, even though it's a few pennies more at the register, it's actually cheaper for you, and that's the basis of everything I teach, everything I talk about.

Today's guest helps me amplify that message by helping consumers understand why these products are important, why they matter, and then also helping the retailer understand how to leverage these products to help those consumers find the solutions they want. My guest on this episode is Mike Cooke, the VP of Sales for Daiya Foods, a plant-based brand that is revolutionizing the way that consumers think about plant-based products. Here's why it matters. Consumers are looking for healthier options, and plant-based is one of those options that consumers are flocking toward.

It's one of those solutions, one of those product solutions, those meal solutions that consumers are actively choosing to add to their diet. Not because they're trying to become vegan, but rather because they're looking for other products to add to their menu that help support them in their goal toward becoming healthier. We also talk about the Plant Based Food Association, which is driving this conversation not only at retail, but across the entire food ecosystem, across all CPG, and helping to support it with legislation. That ensures that plant-based foods have an equal voice with retailers, and within all of CPG.

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Want an unfair competitive advantage? 

Take the 30 Days To Prosperity Challenge to master the brand-building skills and strategies required to give your brand a substantial and sustainable competitive edge. Stop Using the same cookie-cutter tactics your competitors rely on. RetailSolved.com/30daychallenge

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