Food Business Marketing Podcast | Brand Strategy, Sales, & Growth for Food & Farm Brands

Your sales are slowing down. Do you lower your prices? Run a promotion? Look for new customers or new places to sell your products?

Those might all be options, but before you jump into solutions, we need to understand what's driving the decline in the first place.

In this episode, Clint and I walk through some of the questions we'd ask if you, a food or farm business owner, came to us wondering what to do about slowing sales.

You'll hear us ask questions about:

• External factors like seasonality and changing customer needs.
• Your brand strategy as your guide and your glue...are you clear on key elements of your strategy that inform your sales efforts?
• Choosing the right sales channels.
• Same-store sales vs. new distribution
• Product mix and what your sales data can tell you
• Packaging and how it's your primary way to stand out in-store
• ...and more!

The key takeaway? Declining sales are a signal to dig in, not a diagnosis.

Understanding what's really happening helps you focus your time, energy, and money on changes that address the underlying issue instead of jumping into tactics that might not solve the problem.

If your sales aren't where you want them to be, this episode will help you think through where to start. And then you can reach out to us to have us actually ask you these questions, and more.

➡️ Want more help thinking strategically about your brand?

Resources:

• Schedule an introductory call to talk through where you are, where you're working to go, and what's getting in the way.
• Business Maintenance Check: Episode 196: The Maintenance Check Your Food Business Needs | 8 Areas to Review — Explore the "Big 8" strategic priorities we reference in this conversation.
• Friday Newsletter: Real Food Brands — Get an actionable insight every week to help you think strategically about your food business.

Have a business question you'd like us to explore in a future episode? We'd love to hear it: Contact me here.

See you in your inbox Friday (be sure to join my list), then back here next Wednesday. Have a great week!

Let's go shake up shopping carts🛒

Katie & Clint

Have an idea for a new flavor, size, or product line? Bringing something new to market can be exciting, especially when creating great products is one of the reasons you started your food business in the first place.

But is launching another product the right next move for your business right now?

In this episode, Clint and I explore how we'd approach that question if you brought it to us as a food or farm business owner (this conversation is more CPG-focused, but can apply to farm experiences or other services as well!).

You'll hear that what seems like a product decision can have implications for your brand strategy, financials, sales, distribution, and operations. And that's the power of having true brand alignment and asking good questions.

Join us to talk about:

• How your brand strategy can help you evaluate whether a new product fits what you want your business to be known for.
• Why adding more SKUs doesn't necessarily mean more sales growth.
• What sales velocity, margins, production efficiency, and retailer shelf space have to do with the decision.
• How focusing on your existing products might create a greater opportunity than launching something new.
• Why asking the right questions helps you see the bigger picture before investing your time and money.
• Real examples from our work with food businesses (conceptual, not confidential).

The takeaway?

There isn't one right answer for every food business if you should luanch a new product, or not. And the answer can change over time. A new product could be a great opportunity, but it's important to understand what you're working to accomplish and how the decision fits into the bigger picture.

Your brand strategy is the North Star that helps set the direction. The next step is making sure your decisions across the business are aligned with it.

➡️ Want more help thinking strategically about your brand?

Resources:

• Work with me: Schedule an introductory call to talk through where you are, where you're working to go, and what's getting in the way.

• Business Maintenance Check: Episode 196: The Maintenance Check Your Food Business Needs | 8 Areas to Review — Explore the eight strategic priorities we reference in this conversation.

• Product Mix: Episode 202: Product Mix: Is Every Product Earning Its Place? — Go deeper into evaluating your existing assortment.

• Friday Newsletter: Real Food Brands — Get 1 insight + 3 questions every week to help you think strategically about your business.

Have a business question you'd like us to explore in a future episode? We'd love to hear it: Contact me here.

See you in your inbox Friday (be sure to join my list), then back here next Wednesday. Have a great week!

Let's go shake up shopping carts🛒

Katie & Clint

As your food business grows, the decisions get bigger too. You might be adding a retailer, investing in equipment, hiring someone, launching a new product...or all of the above!

And as you know, any mistakes can get more expensive as the stakes get higher.

The good news is that your financials aren't just there to tell you what already happened. They can help you look ahead, pressure-test decisions, and potentially avoid an expensive mistake before you make it.

In this episode, Clint and I are joined by Abby June Richards, founder of The CPG CFO, to dig deeper into financials as one of the eight strategic priorities from our Business Maintenance Check series.

We talk about the difference between looking at your financials in the rearview mirror versus using them to help guide what comes next, including how to think through decisions around debt, equipment, product profitability, margins, and growth. Abby also shares her CASH FIGHT framework and why avoiding preventable financial mistakes becomes increasingly important as your business grows.

One of my favorite parts of the conversation is where it ultimately lands: ALIGNMENT.

Something Clint & I talk about ALL the time related to your brand strategy and business strategy!

Financials are one lens for making a decision. Your goals, market information, values, brand strategy, and the other areas of your business matter too. The goal isn't to optimize one area in isolation. It's to understand how the pieces work together so you can make intentional decisions that support the business and brand you're working to build.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• Why your financials can be a forward-looking decision-making tool
• What Abby looks for when assessing the financial health of a growing food business
• How to pressure-test investments in equipment, capacity, and debt before committing
• Why understanding the full cost of a product can help you catch an expensive mistake before launch
• When bringing in deeper financial expertise may make sense
• Abby's CASH FIGHT framework for understanding where cash is coming from, where it's going, and where problems may be hiding
• Why brand strategy and financial information can work together to help you make more aligned decisions as you grow

• BUSINESS MAINTENANCE CHECK SERIES PLAYLIST
• The CPG CFO website (find the CASHFIGHT framework here)
• Get your Brand Checkup Scorecard HERE!
• Ready for more strategic support? SET UP AN INTRO CALL
• Subscribe HERE to my weekly email for a brand insight + 3 practical ways to apply it each week. This week you'll find more details to help you think through your intentional customer journey.

-------

Have a great week -- see you in your inbox Friday (be sure to join my list!), then back here next Wednesday.

Let's go shake up shopping carts! 🛒

Katie & Clint

You can have a great product, a clear vision, and a solid strategy, but at some point, we all need other people to help bring our vision to life.

That's why we're wrapping up our Business Maintenance Check series with leadership and team.

And when we say "team," we don't just mean employees. Your team may include contractors, designers, advisors, agencies, or anyone else helping you make decisions and move your business forward. The question is whether the people helping you build your business understand the standard you've set and are aligned around what you want your brand to be known for.

In this episode, Clint and Katie talk about why leaders need to model that standard themselves, what to look for beyond experience when you're hiring, and how your brand strategy can help guide everything from interviewing and onboarding to coaching and developing future leaders.

You'll also hear why it's important to hire people who can both lead and follow, how strong leaders create an environment where good ideas can come from anywhere on the team, and what Ernest Shackleton's story can teach us about building a team that can make it through some pretty challenging circumstances.

Your strategy sets the direction, but aligning the right people around it carries it forward.

In this episode:

• Why setting the standard (aka Brand Strategy) starts with your leadership
• How your brand strategy can help align employees, contractors, and other partners build towards your vision
• What to look for (beyond an impressive résumé) when you're hiring
• Using your values to guide interviewing, onboarding, coaching, and performance
• Why developing other leaders becomes increasingly important as your business grows
• Creating the trust and environment that allow good ideas to surface throughout your organization
• What the book Shackleton's Way can teach us about leadership, adaptability, and team culture

Want to take a step back and look at your own business? We're here to help!

The Real Food Brands Brand Checkup will help you assess where your brand is strong, where things may be getting out of alignment, and where to focus next. Get your Brand Checkup Scorecard HERE!

Want more help thinking strategically about your brand? Other resources:

• BUSINESS MAINTENANCE CHECK SERIES PLAYLIST to assess your business strategy + alignment across our 8 strategic priorities
• Find SHACKLETON'S WAY on Goodreads
• WORK WITH REAL FOOD BRANDS / SET UP AN INTRO CALL to see if it's a good fit for us to work together.
• Subscribe HERE to my weekly email for a brand insight + 3 practical ways to apply it each week. This week you'll find more details to help you think through your intentional customer journey.

—————————–

Have a great week -- see you in your inbox Friday, then in your favorite podcast app again next Wednesday.

Let's go shake up shopping carts! 🛒

Katie & Clint

Customer experience isn't just what happens when someone buys your product. It's every interaction someone has with your brand, from the first time they discover your brand through using your product, buying it again, and hopefully telling someone else about it.

And depending on where you sell, you won't control ALL of the interactions. A DTC brand has different opportunities than a brand selling through retail or distributors, of course, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be intentional about the parts you can influence.

In this episode, we continue the Food Business Maintenance Check. Clint and I talk about thinking of your marketing plan as a customer connection plan to craft a memorable experience and using the customer journey as a framework to look intentionally at the experience you're creating. We break that journey into awareness, trial, usage, repeat, and referral and talk about how what you want your brand to be known for can shine through along the way.

We also talk about:

• The different stakeholders who experience your brand, from B2B partners to your end customer, and even your internal team
• Why your level of control over the customer experience changes depending on your sales channel
• How all of your interactions and touchpoints can work together instead of feeling like separate activities
• Looking for unnecessary friction and making it easier for people to take the next step
• Why customer experience isn't only transactional and how the details can create a stronger emotional connection
• How a premium, playful, or farm brand might bring its brand strategy to life differently across the customer journey
• Why being intentional ahead of time helps you make more aligned day-to-day decisions instead of reacting as they come at you
• Why this can be a competitive advantage

The Brand Maintenance Check

Look across the customer journey and ask: What touchpoints can you control or influence? Where is there unnecessary friction? Does the experience you're creating reinforce what you want your brand to be known for?

Customer experience brings together so many of the areas we've covered throughout this Maintenance Check series. Your brand, marketing, sales, product, and operations all ultimately influence what the person on the other end experiences.

>>> Get your Brand Checkup Scorecard HERE!

Referenced in this episode:

• Ep 131: Would You Rather Be Connecting or Marketing to Build Your Food Brand?

Want more help thinking strategically about your brand?

>>> Subscribe HERE to my weekly email for a brand insight + 3 practical ways to apply it each week. This week you'll find more details to help you think through your intentional customer journey.

—————————–

Have a great week! See you in your inbox Friday, then in your podcast app again next Wednesday.

Let's go shake up shopping carts!

Katie & Clint

>>> Get your Brand Checkup Scorecard HERE!

Having growth goals is one thing...and then being able to produce your product, move it where it needs to go, and keep up with demand is another.

In this episode of our Business Maintenance Check series, Clint and I look at the operations side of your food business and why what works today may not continue to be the right fit as your business grows.

You'll hear:

• The pros and cons of making your product yourself vs. working with a co-manufacturer
• Why strong supplier relationships matter more than you might think
• How terms, inventory turns, and cash management connect to operational decisions
• Using sales and inventory data to forecast what you'll need before you need it
• Why it's worth reassessing your operations as your business and goals evolve
• ...and the game Clint always wanted as a kid but never got (any guesses?!)

Think of this as a check-in on what your business needs now, what it may need next, and where changes could help you stay aligned with where you're working to go.

Want to dig deeper into operations? Clint references our previous conversation with his Start Right Foods co-founder Kyle about the operational side of running a food business.

>>> RELATED EPISODE: Ep 172.How Operations Can Be a Competitive Advantage

>>> Subscribe HERE to Katie's weekly email for a brand insight + three practical ways to apply it each week.

—————————–

Have a great week and see you next Wednesday. Let's go shake up shopping carts!

Katie & Clint

Whether you love being on camera or would rather stay behind the scenes, there are ways to show up on social that feel true to your brand and to YOU!

Before you ask what you should post, there's a bigger question to answer: What do you need social media to do for your brand and your business?

In this episode, Katie and Clint talk with Anna Brekken, founder of Picnic Studio and a social media manager for food and beverage brands, about using social media as a way to bring your brand strategy to life.

When you connect your social back to your goals and also keep it feeling social versus forced, social media can become less about feeding the content machine and more about supporting the business you're building.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• Why your social media goals should come from your broader business, brand, and strategy
• The difference between founder-led content and "building in public"
• Ways to show up without always having your face on camera
• Why follower count alone doesn't tell you whether your social media is working
• What Anna looks for when reviewing a food brand's social media profile
• Key things you want to have on your social page to drive engagement and sales
• How collaborations can help extend your reach and support retail relationships
• The value of repurposing content

The goal isn't to do what every other brand is doing. It's to know what you want social media to accomplish and find an approach that works for your food business.

Want more help thinking strategically about your brand? Resources:

>>> Get your FREE Brand Checkup Scorecard HERE!

>>> Subscribe HERE to Katie's weekly email for one brand insight story + three practical ways to apply it each week.

>>> Find Anna Brekken: Picnic Studio Website & Instagram

—————————–

Have a great week and see you next Wednesday. Let's go shake up shopping carts!

Katie & Clint

Adding a new product can feel like growth. But over time, new flavors, sizes, seasonal products, customer requests, and retail opportunities can quietly add A LOT of complexity to your business.

That doesn't mean you need to start cutting SKUs or events. Reassessing your mix could lead to adding a SKU or event if there's a gap...although typically we're looking at reducing or right-sizing.

It's worth periodically stepping back to ask whether each product, service, or experience you offer is still earning its place—and whether your product mix as a whole supports where your business is going.

In this episode, Clint and I walk through a straightforward three-step check I use with clients to evaluate their product portfolio. And while we talk a lot about CPG products and SKUs, the same thinking applies to services, on-farm experiences, and any other offers.

We talk about:

• Why every product should have a clear role or "job" within your business.
• The criteria you can use to evaluate individual products, from financial performance and consumer demand to brand alignment and operational complexity.
• Why an underperforming product doesn't automatically mean it's a bad product—or that it needs to get pruned.
• How adding another SKU can create complexity without creating incremental growth.
• What to look for when you step back and evaluate your portfolio as a whole, including gaps, redundancy, and consumer clarity.
• Why your product mix should reinforce what you want your brand to be known for.
• A simple place to start if it's been a while since you've taken stock of everything you offer.

The goal isn't to end up with the fewest products possible. It's to make intentional decisions about where you're investing your time, money, and attention so your product mix works harder for the business you're building.

Ready to create more clarity and take aligned action in your food business? Set up an intro call at RealFoodBrands.com.

—————————–

>>> Subscribe HERE to Katie's weekly email Newsletter for ways to bring the ideas you hear here to life for your business.

—————————–

Have a great week – see you next Wednesday!

Katie & Clint

More sales sounds like a good thing, but we know that's not always true.

With so many ways to sell and distribute your product, it's important to know which channels to focus on to help you meet your specific business goals—and how to crack the code within those channels.

In this episode, we (Katie Mleziva & Clint Matthews) continue our Food Business Maintenance Check by looking at a few key things to consider as you assess your sales and distribution plan.

We talk about choosing the channels that make sense for your product and business goals, understanding the financial and operational implications of how your product gets to the end user, and knowing when it may be time to change course.

Clint also shares a costly lesson from Start Right Foods about a retail opportunity that once looked like a big win—but no longer made financial sense when circumstances changed. It's a good reminder that even when you have a plan, you need to keep reassessing it as the market, your business, and your goals evolve.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• How to think about which sales channels make sense for your product and business goals
• Why it can be fruitful to focus on one channel and build a strong foothold before spreading yourself too thin
• How distribution can impact your margins
• Why a sales opportunity that once made sense may not always be the right opportunity to keep pursuing
• How questioning your assumptions can uncover opportunities to make your sales and distribution more effective
• Why grounding your sales strategy in your brand strategy can give you a major advantage when deciding where to focus

You don't need to pursue every sales opportunity or have every answer today. The goal is to have a strategy for where you're focusing, understand why that path makes sense for the business you're working to build, and keep reassessing as you learn and circumstances change.

If you could use support creating that and bringing it to life, we're happy to have a conversation about how we might be a good fit as part of your team.

Mentioned in this episode:

• The 4 P's of Sales Series Playlist
• Choosing the Right Partners episode
• Brand Checkup Scorecard (Self Assessment)

—————————–

>>> Subscribe HERE to Katie's weekly email Newsletter for ways to bring the ideas you hear here to life for your business.

—————————–

Have a great week – see you next Wednesday!

Katie & Clint

There are 200 episodes just waiting to help you build your business! 🎉

So where do you start listening? Or, if you've been listening for a while, what might be worth revisiting with a new perspective that some time and experience have given you?

In this episode, Clint and I went back through the archives and pulled out 5 episodes we think are especially worth a listen. Our picks cover brand strategy, sales, leadership, and regenerative agriculture, with ideas you can put to work as you build your business.

Clint's Pick: Episode 176 — Build Your Inner Edge to Deliver When it Matters Most | with Chad McGehee

A conversation about mental resilience, brain training, and taking care of yourself as a leader so you can show up better for your business.

Katie's Pick: Episode 182 — Your Brand Adds Value Across Your Business, Not Just Marketing

Why brand strategy isn't just a marketing tool. It can be a business asset that helps you make better decisions, reduce rework, strengthen your positioning, and build business value over time.

Clint's Pick: Episode 153 — Sales Intro: Unsure About Sales? Use This to Create a Process You Love

The starting point for Clint's sales series and his 4 Ps of sales: Planning, Prepping, Pitching, and Persisting. If you want to strengthen your approach to sales, start here and then keep going with the full series.

Katie's Pick: Episode 163 — Brand Pillars: The Backbone of Your Brand That Makes a Major Impact

A practical place to start organizing your brand strategy. We talk about how brand pillars help clarify what your brand consistently stands for and give you a foundation to build from when it comes to messaging, products, and more.

Shared Pick: Episode 192 — Stewarding the Land and Building Brand | Scaling Regenerative Agriculture with StarWalker Organic Farms

One of our favorite conversations about regenerative agriculture, stewardship, and building a business around something bigger than the products you sell. Jason and Kristina also share a bigger vision for bringing others along as they work to move regenerative farming forward.

You don't have to scroll through 200 episodes to find what you need. Browse podcast episodes by topic on the Real Food Brands website or explore the Spotify playlists:

• Brand Strategy 101 Playlist
• Brand Strategy 201 Playlist
• Sales Series Playlist
• Business Management Playlist

And be sure to follow the Food Business Marketing Podcast on Spotify or your favorite podcast app so you don't miss what's coming next.

Whether this is your first episode or you've been here for years, thank you for being part of the first 200. We've got no plans of stopping, and we're glad you're here as we keep working together to shake up shopping carts and help more people get access to real food.

The best is yet to come - let's go shake up shopping carts!

Katie Mleziva & Clint Matthews