Retail Ready Podcast

Hear how this Australian business went from selling a couple of products into a local café to now an to now one of Australia's best and biggest family owned brands. In today’s episode I got to chat with Michael Carp, owner and managing director at Kez’s Kitchen.

Keen to learn more about Kez’s Kitchen? Click on their site here:

https://kezs.com.au

Retail Ready is a destination for anyone looking to learn about food, new brands, manufacturing, trends and insights. The Retail Ready podcast will be full of knowledge bombs, conversations and discussions into an ever changing industry.

8 reasons why you and your business should be using LinkedIn

LinkedIn to some people is a boring platform and it wouldn’t even make it to many peoples first page of apps on your smart phone. In 2019 LinkedIn has 610 million users, compared to 1.74 billion users for Facebook and 1 billion for Instagram.

Based on the numbers above it makes sense for many individuals or even businesses not to even spend time creating content, searching for leads or actively using the LinkedIn platform. This is a huge missed opportunity. Below are my reasons why in 2015 I have spent the majority of my time using LinkedIn as my preferred platform but also building a profile with a network of like-minded individuals.

1. LinkedIn has 610 million users, roughly 250 million of these are active monthly, however only 3 million share content on a weekly basis. That’s just a touch over 1% of monthly users. (Source: Accuagency).

1. It’s nice not to be looking at individuals with duck lips every second photo who think they are models trying to sell a unresearched fat loss supplement.

1. 91% of marketing executives list LinkedIn as the top place to find quality content. (Source: Sophisticated Marketers Guide To LinkedIn)

1. Only 1 million users have published an article on LinkedIn. That works out to be under 0.2% of users taking advantage of voicing their knowledge, promoting their business or stating information about their job and passion.

1. LinkedIn tends to have very few keyboard warriors. If you ever read comments on Instagram or Facebook, some people can just be nasty! I find LinkedIn is a platform which debates don’t turn into bullying or personal attacks. Whether this is because the clientele is of a higher education or the individual can be tracked down via their place of work, making it riskier on that individual.

1. It’s a platform where you connect with like-minded individuals who I can learn from, reach out too and associate yourself with.

1. There is very minimal religion and political views posts.

1. LinkedIn is the best and proven social media platform to generate new leads (Source: Hubspot). I have had projects become successful due to help from LinkedIn connections which would have otherwise been cancelled.

Not matter what platform you or your business use to generate leads or connect with new individuals if you have a LinkedIn account then let your first step be to get a profile picture.

This alone will help you generate 21x more views and 36x more messages and only takes a couple of clicks and sets you up on the right path (Source: Expanded Dramblings).

Retail Ready is for individuals and companies looking for food industry help. I want to make Australia to biggest platform for food trends, product development and change consumer eating behaviours.

In todays episode we chat to the straight talking Scott Tulloch who along with his wife created the brand Farmer Jo. 

They went from selling a few units into cafes around Sydney, to a farmers market and are now in one of the major retailers in Australia. Scott explains the journey the brand has been through and where its going. 

Retail Ready is for individuals and companies looking for food industry help. I want to make Australia to biggest platform for food trends, product development and change consumer eating behaviours.

In todays episode we chat to the straight talking Scott Tulloch who along with his wife created the brand Farmer Jo. 

They went from selling a few units into cafes around Sydney, to a farmers market and are now in one of the major retailers in Australia. Scott explains the journey the brand has been through and where its going. 

We chat up with Jess Gordoun from Coles Supermarkets in todays episode. We chat about the current and new food trends she is looking to launch into her new format store, Coles Local in Australia. 

We also talk about how Veganism is not going away and the success of some of her new vegan launches. Tune in and let me know what you think. 

Please follow my food passion, as well as my other passions, coffee, tattoos, gin and my family life at Instagram. Click here to my Insta Page

Retail Ready is for individuals and companies looking for food industry help. I want to make Australia to biggest platform for food trends, product development and change consumer eating behaviours.

I have been on both sides of the fence and know what it’s like dealing with category managers. So here are my top 13 hints, tips to make the best outcome when organising a meeting, presenting and following up to get your products on the retail shelf.  

Here they are:

1. If you don’t get on with the category manager, don’t expect your product to go anywhere. It pays in products sales to get on with them. 
2. Category managers are busy. Expect only a 30 minutes meeting and expect them to be late, you have 20minutes to impress. 
3. They aren’t interested in your factory certificates or heritage, they want to know costs, margin, promotional activity and how you are going to grow their category. 
4. Need something, don’t just sent one email and leave it. 
5. Your voicemail probably won’t get listened too. 
6. Be prepared to have a different buyer every 6-12 months. 
7. Expect an email at 10pm and on weekends.  
8. They are switched on individuals, don’t lie about costings, volumes or product info. It will bite you back. 
9. Samples are essential but bring a box for them to take them in. Nothing worse than balancing samples. 
10. Be human. Show some emotion. It shouldn’t be all about commercials and business. 
11. Send them a personal hamper before your meeting. 
12. Send a post meeting email that night or next day with costings, product info and next steps. 
13. The Ultimate Winner - Have a product that good that they contact you and not you pushing it to them!! If you have this and the right commercials, unstoppable combo.

Please follow my food passion, as well as my other passions, coffee, tattoos, gin and my family life at Instagram. Click here to my Insta Page

Retail Ready is for individuals and companies looking for food industry help. I want to make Australia to biggest platform for food trends, product development and change consumer eating behaviours.

In episode 2 I will let you in on when innovation works within retail and why you should think about the customer at all times. You will also learn how sliced bread was not a success when it first launched. 

Please follow my food passion, as well as my other passions, coffee, tattoos, gin and my family life at Instagram. Click here to my Insta Page

Thanks for giving me a listen, I hope you stay around for plenty of epsiodes, otherwise it’s going to get very lonely with just me and my microphone.

Lets crack on with what’s in store for Episode 1. In this episode I just wanted to provide some background as to who I am, why I am doing this podcast, what’s to come and why they will be a great learning tool for anyone in the food industry. 

So let’s start off with who I am.

I am a qualified nutritionist, ex-personal trainer, gin and coffee lover, tattoo enthusiast, dad, soon to be husband, but also a passionate foodie, supermarket fanatic, and a seeker for amazing new products and brands.

I work as a full time Innovation Sourcing manager for a very well respected and passionate food manufacturer based in Melbourne, Australia which I absolutely love.

Learn more in the episode, available on Spotify and iTunes.