Brand Start Goes Healthy - Brand Development for Better-for-You Food and Beverage CPG Podcast

Anika Sawni is the founder of a non-alcoholic beverage CPG brand called Gruvi. In their quest for growth, they learned to take a multi-demographic approach to appeal to a wider audience. She joined Leonard in this episode to talk about how they are navigating CPG challenges and competing in this promising category.

2) Does having a big WHY help with business growth?

3) How do you build a movement with your product positioning?

4) What is a multi-demographic marketing approach?

5) What are the 3 components of beverage CPG growth?

The vegan and plant-based sectors continue to grow but consumer education remains challenging.

How do you appeal to vegan customers? How do you expand your addressable market?

In this episode, Leonard talks to Radhika Datt, co-founder of One Good, about how they are building a brand that makes delicious plant-based vegan products accessible and affordable in India.

Listen to this conversation to learn:

1) Why must you know your trademark laws when naming your brand?

2) What is an effective consumer marketing strategy for plant-based CPGs?

3) What are the challenges and opportunities in the plant-based industry?

4) Why product expansion is more than just SKU expansion?

5) Why do all CPGs need to be a distribution-heavy company?

Subscribe to this podcast if you find this episode helpful.

Learn more about Radhika and support their brand at https://onegood.in/.

P.S. Are you a better-for-you food and beverage CPG who wants to build a brand that stands out, appeals to customers, and drive product trials? Then we can help you through our brand development expertise. Explore how we can work together by visiting www.thevineyardbc.com.

Having an e-commerce platform for your CPG brand is a powerful way to grow your business. But it's not as simple as having a website storefront.

In this episode, Leonard is joined by Anuraj Naithani of Oath Oats who shared how they are constantly optimizing their website to increase their conversion rates.

Listen to this conversation to learn:

1) How can you leverage e-commerce as a growth strategy?

2) What are the two buying stages of online consumers?

3) How can you integrate purpose into your CPG brand?

4) How do you build a content creator-led product?

5) What are some effective tactics to boost your online sales?

Don't forget to subscribe if you find this podcast helpful.

Learn more about Anu and support their brand at https://oathoats.com/.

P.S. We help better-for-you food and beverage CPG brands stand out, appeal to customers, and drive product trials through brand development. If you need help in revamping your website to help your DTC sales, contact us at www.thevineyardbc.com/talk.

Getting into retail is a key growth tactic but scaling your sales velocity on the shelf can be challenging. 

2) How do you grow from 0 to 1,600 stores in less than 2 years? 

3) What are the upsides and challenges of expanding into retail?

4) How do you execute an effective packaging strategy?

5) What is the effective CPG marketing framework to grow your retail sales by 8x? 

P.S. We help better-for-you food and beverage CPG brands stand out, appeal to customers, and drive product trials through brand development. If you need help, visit www.thevineyardbc.com/talk.

Not a lot of CPG brands get to a million dollars in revenue. It's even much harder to get to 3x that. 

2) What are the packaging mistakes to avoid?

3) How do you manage a high-risk, high-return situation?

4) How do you expand cross-market internationally?

5) How do you raise money through an IPO? 

P.S. We help better-for-you food and beverage CPG brands stand out, appeal to customers, and drive product trials through brand development. If you need help, visit www.thevineyardbc.com/talk.

Starting a CPG company requires healthy business assumptions. But how do you validate if your assumptions are right or wrong?

In this episode, Leonard is joined by Mateen Pouyafar, founder and CEO of Seedly Foods.

They talked about:

1) How do you decide on which product to build?

2) Why is founder ego can be a roadblock to growth?

3) How do you test market assumptions?

4) Why does your packaging design need evolution?

5) What is the biggest metric for CPG success?

Learn more about Mateen and his brand at https://www.eatseedly.com/.

P.S. We help better-for-you food and beverage CPG brands stand out, appeal to customers, and drive product trials through brand development. If you need help, visit www.thevineyardbc.com/talk.

Achieving profitability in the CPG industry has so many nuances. It's difficult but achievable and requires several factors that you should understand. 

2) What are the core elements of CPG profitability?

3) How to grow as an early-stage CPG brand?

4) How do you handle crises and uncertainties?

5) What are the growth tactics that can help you scale?

Driving product trials is critical to boost CPG sales. It's how you generate awareness, get customers to taste your product, and gain consumer feedback. But it can be a tough and costly game.

In this episode, Leonard talks to Mario West, founder & CEO of West Food Brands, to talk about how they are leveraging free samples to acquire customers.

Listen to this episode to learn:

1) What are the inexpensive ways to validate your product?

2) How can you generate 100% ROI with your product sampling?

3) Why competitive scan can be a game-changer for CPG start-ups?

4) How can you market your product differently?

5) What are the pitfalls to avoid to succeed more with Amazon?

Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast and leave us a rating. Learn more about Mario and his brand and businesses at https://westfoodbrands.net/.

P.S. We help better-for-you food and beverage CPG brands stand out, appeal to customers, and drive product trials through brand development. If you need help, visit www.thevineyardbc.com/talk.

Operating a CPG company has many components and you need to pull the right levers and set the right systems to anticipate and drive growth. 

2) What are the systems and tools that can help increase efficiencies?

3) How do you overcome common scaling challenges that CPG founders face?

4) Why is branding important in growing a CPG company?

5) What is the number 1 success quality of a CPG founder? 

P.S. We help better-for-you food and beverage CPG brands stand out, appeal to customers, and drive product trials through brand development. If you need help, visit www.thevineyardbc.com/talk.

Capitalization is a constant concern for every CPG company. Funding challenges come almost on an annual basis. 

2) How do you drive product trial and build brand affinity?

3) What mindset shifts are happening on CPG profitability?

4) What is the biggest challenge for early-stage CPG brands?

5) How do you overcome obstacles as a CPG founder? 

P.S. We help better-for-you food and beverage CPG brands stand out, appeal to customers, and drive product trials through brand development. If you need help, visit www.thevineyardbc.com/talk.