One dairy trace cost this Canadian plant based brand $120,000, three months of unpaid shipments, and a public recall.

PlantUp founder Aamir Malkani on getting into Sobeys, UNFI, and 1,200 retail stores across Canada.

Aamir came to Canada from a textile manufacturing family in India, knew nothing about food, and cold messaged plant based protein suppliers on LinkedIn until one took a bet on him.

Three years later PlantUp is in the frozen aisle and the snack aisle at Sobeys, Metro, Longo's, Fortinos, Whole Foods, Save On Foods and IGA.

This conversation is the unglamorous version of CPG distribution.

How he booked a trade show booth directly opposite UNFI, served dumplings like a food fest, and turned a lukewarm distributor conversation into a national buyer referral in one afternoon.

Why he and his co-founder personally walked into 54 Sobeys and Foodland stores in five days and converted 42 of them before a single category review.

Why he thinks a Toronto brand chasing national listings in year one is making a mistake, and the 7 million person math behind that.

He also breaks down what a broker actually does versus a distributor, why trade spend is the line item most founders underestimate, and why he switched from pea and chickpea protein to Canadian grown fava beans for the snack line.

Then the hard part.

A dairy trace in the biggest butter chicken bite run of the year, a national recall, chargebacks that kept arriving seven months later, and what he did on a 20,000 member Facebook group instead of going quiet.

If you are trying to get a food or beverage brand onto Canadian grocery shelves, this is the playbook.

GUEST
Aamir Malkani — PlantUp
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aamirmalkani/Website: https://plantup.ca/

SHELF TO SCALE
Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail, and scaling.

Hosted by Devesh Tilokani

Distributor or broker? Miki Talebi built oomé smoked tofu into Whole Foods and breaks down the CPG distribution mistake most founders make.

If you think signing a distributor means your product will finally get on shelves, this episode is the correction.

Miki Talebi, founder of oomé, grew a premium smoked tofu brand into Whole Foods, Save On Foods, Metro and Longos with no CPG background and a PhD in psychology instead.

She explains

• why she self-manufactures (there are no vegan smokehouses)
• why her product has to stay between 1 and 4 degrees or it gets rejected at the dock
• how she prices at a premium and makes retail buyers more money doing it
• the distributor-versus-broker confusion that quietly kills early food and beverage brands.

Essential listening for any CPG or FMCG founder working on distribution, retail, and getting into grocery.

GUEST
Miki Talebi — oomé Instagram: @thisisoomeWebsite: https://thisisoome.com/pages/store-locator

SHELF TO SCALE
Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail, and scaling.

Hosted by Devesh Tilokani

How to choose a 3PL for your ecommerce or CPG brand from a 3PL owner who once had a fulfillment company lose his entire $1,500 order.

Rahim is the founder of Get Set Prep, a Toronto 3PL fulfilling for CPG and ecommerce brands across Canada and the US.

In this episode, he walks through the complete playbook for finding a fulfillment partner:

• when to switch from self-fulfillment to a 3PL,
• the 5 data categories you need for an accurate 3PL quote
• the questions to ask a 3PL before signing
• how to negotiate a 3PL contract — including why the strongest lever isn't price.

He also shares a warehouse tour checklist for spotting red flags before your inventory arrives, and why 75% of brands that outsource fulfillment to him grow sales month over month.

If you're a CPG founder comparing third party logistics providers or still packing your own boxes, this is the buyer's guide.

GUEST
Rahim Velji — Get Set Prep

Website: https://getsetprep.com/contact-us/
Email: [email protected]

Rahim's Phone Number: ⁠416-802-0816⁠

SHELF TO SCALE
The podcast for CPG and FMCG founders navigating distribution, retail, and international scaling.

Hosted by Devesh Tilokani

An ice cream brand put freezers in the produce aisle, next to the bananas, and sales jumped 200% in six weeks.
How does a local startup out-merchandise global brands, survive three Dragons' Den rejections, and land 1,300 stores?

Yazeed Yasin co-founded NanaShake with his wife Tamara after their son's asthma ruled out dairy and every alternative on shelf made things worse.

In this episode:

• the pivot from a COVID-closed Toronto scoop shop to national CPG distribution,
• the four product iterations behind Nanopops 4.0
• why they deliberately avoided the pint category for six years,
• the merchandising move no ice cream brand had ever pulled off.

GUEST
Yazeed Yasin - NanaShakeLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yazeedyasin/Website: https://nanashake.com/store-locator/

SHELF TO SCALE
Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail, and scaling.

Hosted by Devesh Tilokani

David Ngo helped build North America's #1 poop bag brand. Then he bet everything on dried mango from Vietnam and hit 250 stores in 12 months.

How do you scale a CPG brand when your first dollar doesn't come back for 9 months?

David launched Nam Fruits in May 2025 and will be in 250+ Canadian stores including IGA, Provigo, and Metro by the end of June 2026.

In this episode he breaks down the exact math: why a $1 retail product needs to survive a store margin and a distributor cut, why trade shows cost $6-10K and are still worth it, and why he says he couldn't have started this company without AI.

If you're a CPG founder trying to crack retail distribution especially with an imported product, this is the operating manual.

GUESTDavid Ngo — Nam FruitsWebsite: https://namfruits.com

SHELF TO SCALE

Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail, and scaling.

Hosted by Devesh Tilokani

Costco will pull every price you've ever sold at, find the lowest, and ask for 40% under it.

Here's how a beverage operator prices so that never happens.

Autumn heads R&D at Gnusante (Newbies, Radiate, 52 North) without a food science degree, after a career in ballet, modeling, and scuba diving.

She breaks down the real margin math of beverage, the clear-pouch sampling trick that catches dishonest feedback, why a 33% velocity jump came from making the product smaller, and the barcode change that can get you delisted overnight.

If you're building a CPG brand and trying to survive the move from DTC to retail, this is the operator detail most founders learn the hard way.

GUEST

Autumn — Gnusante (Newbies, Radiate, 52 North)

Website: https://www.gnusante.com/

SHELF TO SCALE

Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail, and scaling.

Hosted by Devesh Tilokani

He made ice cream out of cottage cheese. It's now headed for 1,500 stores.

How do you build a frozen category that didn't exist, then get Sprouts, Whole Foods, and a 500-store retail win in your first year?

Smear Case is the first and only frozen cottage cheese ice cream.

Half the fat, half the calories, and the most protein of any pint on the shelf.

Joe coined and trademarked the word "Froco" before he'd sold a single unit, won the Albertsons Innovation Launchpad pitch at Expo West (and 500 stores with it), and is closing in on 1,500 doors nationwide.

If you're a CPG founder trying to create a category instead of fighting for shelf space in an existing one, this conversation is the playbook.

GUEST
Joe Rotondo - Smear Case
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephrrotondo/
Website: https://smearcase.com/

SHELF TO SCALE
Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani | Silvertop Trading.

Arshad Bahl built Amrita Health Foods into 1,500 stores across Whole Foods, Sprouts, and Wegmans.

Then lost all of it overnight to a product recall.

What came next changed how he thinks about everything.In this episode:

- Why a product recall was actually the best thing that happened to Arshad's business- The real role of distributors in your supply chain and why it's not what most founders think- How he built his own manufacturing facility for $150,000 using eBay and Facebook Marketplace- Why $10M in revenue at 15% margin beats $100M at 3% and the math behind staying small- What Peter Rahal, the Tom's Shoes founder, and dozens of other big exits have in commonArshad has been in CPG for over a decade — ran co-packers, ran his own factory, ran DTC, ran retail.

He's one of the few founders in the space who has operated at every level of the value chain.

This conversation is not about inspiration. It's about the structural decisions that actually determine whether a food brand survives.

Guest links:- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arshad-bahl-61206373/- Website: https://www.amritahealthfoods.com/

Shelf to Scale is a weekly podcast for CPG and FMCG founders navigating distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani.

The buyer conversation most CPG founders get completely wrong — and what to say instead.

Opal Rowe started Stush Patty during COVID, delivering hot patties out of her car.

Today she's in Whole Foods, RABBA, and four provinces across Canada. In this episode,

she breaks down exactly how she got there:

• two rejections from RABBA before getting in
• landing Whole Foods at her very first trade show
• the co-packing nightmare behind a product that looks simple.
• the one mindset shift that changed how she talks to buyers.

If you're building a frozen CPG brand or any retail brand, this is the episode.

Guest: Opal Rowe, Founder of Stush Patty

Website: https://stushpatties.com/

Instagram: @stushpatty

New episodes every week.

Subscribe for conversations with CPG founders on distribution, retail and the real mechanics of scaling a physical product brand.

Paul Weedman has spent 26 years on the ground in Shenzhen sourcing products for brands from the West.

He says 60–80% of Vietnam factory inputs still come from China.

So what is China + 1 actually solving?

In this episode, Paul breaks down

• the manufacturing ecosystem concept — why a factory is the smallest part of the supply chain
• why industrial clusters make China nearly impossible to replicate
• what actually happens when a brand finds a "good factory" and thinks the hard part is over.

He also explains the human side of sourcing: why AI can teach you everything and still get you burned, why a translator is the wrong hire, and how a $10M business still comes down to two people walking a street in Shenzhen and sharing a beer.

GUEST

Paul Weedman — Victure Group

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-weedman/

Website: www.victuregroup.com

SHELF TO SCALE

Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail,

and scaling.

Hosted by Devesh Tilokani