Welcome to Community Call, the podcast.
I'm Alyssa Travers, Director of Community at BevNET & NOSH, here with Jackie Brugliera, Director of Marketing and co-host of Taste Radio.
Hey, Jackie.
Hey, this is so fun.
We get to do a podcast together.
Who doesn't love doing a podcast together?
I get to keep you company.
I know you're all alone usually on the Community Call, slinging questions, but we get to have a little bit of fun.
Yeah, I love this so much.
I get to have a Community Call buddy.
And you've been doing Community Call for so long.
So for people that just found this podcast, Community Call has been a thing for, I think, a year now, and it's been a great opportunity for you to just share a lot of insights of the experts that you have connections with, with our current audiences on BevNET & NOSH.
It's been so much fun.
So of course, we have the Zoom call that folks can Zoom into.
We typically have an expert or two talk about a specific piece of business in CPG.
So, example, we've done a show on distributor deductions.
We've done work on event marketing, really kind of specific deep dives into specific pieces of CPG business, and then folks can write in their questions, that kind of thing.
So we welcome folks to Zoom in, join the live meeting, but we also understand that people are busy and oftentimes, the best place to consume content like this is in a car or on a walk or something like that.
So that's why we're putting together a podcast.
Yeah, and also on a podcast, it's really easy to just search for whatever you're looking for.
I know you've been doing these at a clip of once a week right now, and that gives you a lot of time to dive into topics, bring in a bunch of different community members, and to dive a little bit deeper than, say, some other pieces of content people might be consuming.
So it's definitely going to be a lot of content coming through this feed on all podcast channels, and I'm excited for people to learn.
So in this episode, we talked to the fine folks at Biena, Corvie Ptodia and Jen Hoffman, two incredibly talented and successful women in CPG.
Yeah, and I know that they recently launched their Tasty Thins, which are three skews of chickpea crisps.
So they're getting into snacking, and they had a big retail rollout.
So this is perfect timing to talk to you about what they did and what decisions they made and why it made this product a success.
I think that the advice they gave is multifaceted.
So they're certainly an experienced brand who's experienced a lot of success, but because they're entering into a new category, into the salty snacks category, they also bring an element of information that's helpful to folks who are in their, perhaps their first launch.
Yeah, and it was interesting that even though they might be a little bit more of an established brand, they're still going into the stores and doing the demoing.
They're getting their hands dirty.
They want to get real-time consumer feedback.
And I think no matter what stage of your company, that's important for you as a founder and you as a business owner.
Absolutely.
They gave really great information around the A-B test that they're running.
So they're launching with a national retailer, and then they're also launching with a local retailer that has just a couple of stores so they can keep an eye on things.
And like you say, go do those demos, see how the product is performing in the store and be able to talk to consumers to find out what they think about it.
And I think also they had a very strategic targeted approach.
Some companies, you know, want to just dive in to all stores at once, and it's hard to have control over that and get that information.
The team that Porvi has put together is so impressive.
Porvi herself, she has such a disciplined approach to CPG, so she not only strives to be the best, but always puts the work in.
And then Jen Huffman is a seasoned CPG expert.
She worked at large organizations like Mondelise and Pinnacle Foods, and she really seems to be an analytical brain in the operation.
And the information and strategy that they both shared was, again, very specific and very actionable.
So it's a set of practices that other brands could also execute.
And as you're listening to this podcast, you'll notice that Melissa is taking questions from the audience during the live recording.
And as someone that's listening on the podcast after it's live, there's still an opportunity for you to ask questions.
So if you head to slack.bevnet.com, you can jump in there, you can ask questions about the specific episode.
We'll get answers.
The experts are also in there to answer your questions.
So head over there.
Absolutely.
And you know, who knows, it might give us a great idea for a community call.
So if you have a question that maybe we haven't tackled yet, that's also a great way to start a conversation.
And we would love it if everybody listening could please like and subscribe Community Call the Podcast.
Give us a five-star rating if you think we deserve it.
I mean, you could give us a four and a half if you're severely unhappy.
But we'll leave that in the hands of the audience.
Melissa, you always get five stars.
Aw, thanks, Jackie.
And without further ado, we would love to get right into Community Call with Biena Snacks.
Today, we are so thrilled to have Porvi Petodia, CEO and founder of Biena Snacks, and Jen Hoffman, Director of Category Management, who came to Biena with over eight years in sales planning at Mondelez.
Biena Snacks initially launched in 2012 with roasted chickpea snacks and now has distribution in over 15,000 retail locations nationwide.
In line with their mission of reinventing the snack aisle, Biena has most recently launched Tasty Thins, a snack made with chickpeas and veggies in a low calorie format.
Today, Porvi and Jen will share their launch strategy for Tasty Thins and the high return retail activation activities they're using to drive sales efficiently and effectively.
Porvi and Jen, thanks so much for joining us.
What a pleasure it is to have you here.
Thanks so much for having us.
Great to be here.
Let's get right into it.
Tell us about how the Tasty Thins launch is going.
How are things going right now, and when did they launch?
Would you remind us again?
They started launching into retail towards the end of September, so September, October, and so it's been just over six months.
And just how things are going at this point is we've learned a ton.
We've been doing so much testing and learning on the product line to really understand what moves a needle, and then of course talking to consumers from the very beginning to get the feedback on the snacks, what people are loving, what could be improved.
And so at this point, I would say about six months in, little over six months in, we feel like we have a good handle on how the product line behaves in the market.
And it's kind of almost like we've treated the first six months as a pilot mode, and now it's like based on those learnings and the success that we're seeing, we're starting to scale the product line.
Fantastic.
One of the core principles that we talked about in terms of how to make your retail activation smooth and successful was, first of all, partnering with the right retailers.
Can you tell us which retailers did you roll Tasty Thins out with?
And we would love to know why.
Yeah, sure.
So, you know, we initially launched it with one very small partner and one very large partner.
So the small partner was, ironically, and you'll be able to kind of understand the range that I'm talking about in a moment, that I'll talk about, you know, why we chose this approach.
So the small partner was the Fruit Center, which is a two-store, high-volume natural food chain in the Boston area.
And the large retailer was Whole Foods.
And so we went national with the product line at Whole Foods, and they both launched around the same time.
The Fruit Center was maybe a month earlier.
Then Whole Foods market.
And then, of course, since then, we've launched the product line into additional retail partners in all in natural and conventional grocery.
But those were the two first.
And in terms of the reasons why we focused there, it was really about learnings.
We had enough confidence in the product line based on the consumer work we had done and the feedback that we felt comfortable launching it at a national level into Whole Foods.
And we were really excited about that.
But we also wanted a partner that was very close to home and were headquartered in Boston and someone that we had a strong relationship with where we could really go in and do a lot of direct work ourselves with our own team to really gain that initial understanding of being in front of consumers in a real retail experience, in a real retail environment to get that early feedback.
And in fact, I was actually one of the first people to demo the product at FruitCenter.
And that was just a phenomenal set of experiences for our team because I think when a product line works and you get that feedback from the consumer, it's just so energizing and exciting at launch.
It gives you a very different sense of the product and what's working or not working versus, say, looking at data on a weekly basis from a national level.
Is that something that you typically do for all new product launches, making sure that your team is in the stores, demoing themselves so they can see what the feedback is?
That's a more recent kind of rule that we instituted, and certainly demos were shut down for almost three years with COVID.
And so in the past, we've always been a team that's pretty hands-on and wanting to get into the stores and talk to people ourselves.
And some of it is the nature of how the business has evolved, some of it obviously is my perspective as a founder.
But yeah, so with this product line, I mean, we tried to deploy a lot of the wisdom that we've gained over the years, and this was just one piece of it.
What kind of feedback did you get from customers in those stores about the product?
There was a lot.
I mean, gosh, just speaking even from that very first demo I did, which was a four-hour demo, it was me and our director of ops.
We learned pretty quickly, you know, what was the first couple of questions that people were asking when they came across the product.
And actually, we've made a packaging change based on the learning from some of those early demos.
And I'll give you an example.
One of the first questions people are asking is, oh, it's a healthy chip.
Well, so what is it?
What's in it?
And we made this phrase, chickpea veggie crisps larger in the latest.
We've made one packaging tweak since the item launched in September, and so that was one of the major changes that we made.
And that really obviously also comes back to kind of plain prioritization and things like that on the packaging.
But so, yeah, we learned, first and foremost, what kinds of questions are people asking, what was exciting to people, what was confusing to people, what kinds of people ended up actually saying that we're going to buy a bag and put one or two bags in their basket.
We learned that people were likely to buy multiple bags because of the flavor variety.
These were just some of the things off the top of my head that came out of some of those early demos.
So I perfectly understand why you launched with Fruit Center.
It's also a set of stories that's close to both of you, so you can go in there and see how the product's performing.
In terms of launching with Whole Foods Market nationally, what was the thinking there?
I know that they're such a good partner to you, and I also know that you can see data.
Did the data component of that play into why you decided to launch with Whole Foods as well?
I've never actually thought about it that way, to be honest, but that was certainly a huge benefit of working with Whole Foods, is the data component of it.
And Jen, maybe you can speak to some of the different elements of the data that we look at on a weekly or monthly or quarterly basis.
Yeah, it's certainly a plus with launching there, and we have the data by store, by week, and we get it on Monday morning for the Sunday before, the week before, so it's really real time and very detailed, and we look at it each week, and we can look by store to see, okay, we had a demo here, what was the lift?
And we had a display here, what was the lift?
And it really helps, really kind of with that learning and adjusting as we go very quickly.
So interesting.
Something else that we talked about as we were preparing for this was that if you launch with the wrong retailer, you can pull that back.
What do you do if you launch with the wrong retailer, and how do you even know?
How do you know it's not working?
I mean, I think obviously the first thing is it's better not to get yourself into that situation.
So I think that's the first question.
When we were thinking through what were the steps that we used, and when we said the first question is, is it even a strong fit from a retail standpoint, really the emphasis was that we put a lot of thought into figuring out if an opportunity is worthwhile for us.
And there's a lot of different factors that go into it.
One of the first questions is, can we be successful with this product line and this retailer?
And successful, I think, is first and foremost determined by whether there's a fit from a consumer standpoint.
And then secondarily, we're looking at the financials.
We're looking at the investment levels that are required by the retailer.
So it could be like slotting, or we're looking at promotional expectations and things like that.
We're looking at who else is in that section of the store, the set and what their revenue looks like.
And we also look at things like payback calculations, like if we have to pay X amount in slotting, how long would it take for us to make those dollars back?
So those are some of the questions that we try to think through in terms of retailer fit, Jen.
What else would you add to that?
Yeah, I think that makes sense.
And it's really just where we can drive that trial awareness and where the tactics are available rather than going to 20 retailers starting with one or two that we can really invest in and know that we can drive that trial.
Because for Tasty Thins in particular, it had zero awareness.
It was launching from the start.
So with our other brand, the Roasted Line, if we are launching, there's some awareness.
We're in 15,000 stores.
Tasty Thins was really a whole different launch.
It was brand new.
The sub-brand's brand new.
You know, Biena's not brand new, but the sub-brand, it's in Salty Snacks.
So we had to think about that and make sure we could really invest.
We had a lot of awareness and trial driving to do.
We know the product tasted great, so we just needed to get that trial to get the repeat.
So we didn't want to spread too thin to start.
How are you kind of rolling out the next, you know, succession of stores?
What is, when's the next wave, or has it already happened?
So we already have a number of other retailers that are just starting to launch the items.
So the items have also now launched into Stop and Shop.
They've launched into Hy-Vee.
They're just now launching into Roach Brothers.
Jen, where else?
Tomorrow, CVS.
Walmart.
Is it, how many CVS stores is it?
I believe it's 1,500.
I think it's 2,800.
2,800, I'm sorry.
I might be getting it mixed up with our roasted lime.
That's why I hesitated.
We have the Roasted Chickpea Snacks also launching into CVS.
So I think it's almost 3,000 for the Tasty Thins and then close to 1,500, as Jen said, for the Roasted Chickpea Snacks.
And then Walmart.
I forgot to mention Walmart, as Jen said.
So Walmart has a Healthy Better For You snack set.
And so the Tasty Thins have launched into Walmart as well.
And then we have more coming, which are not in the market yet.
But as I mentioned, like, we're just, now that we feel like we have a better handle and an understanding of how to create that awareness with the Tasty Thins line and what kind of investment that takes, we're just now starting to deploy that and grow it.
Those are some hefty retailers, not an insignificant door count.
How do you stagger the retailers that you just named?
What's the timing on those?
With the retail cycle, first of all, I would say the cycles are long, right?
And so most retailers are reviewing Salty Snacks once, maybe twice a year.
And so you are, as a brand, you do have to work with those timelines, and you don't want to miss a launch window.
And so within that, there are retailers that we chose to pitch earlier, and then others that will wait to pitch a little bit later.
And so it really does come down to, again, that retailer fit question, which some of it is about the things I mentioned earlier, like, where can we drive awareness faster?
Or ultimately, where do we think we're going to succeed, both from a revenue standpoint and from a financial standpoint?
So ultimately, I think all the questions really come down to that.
But actually, I would add to Jen's point on her commentary on why Whole Foods and us having to build a sub-brand from scratch in Salty Snacks, which we are doing with this product line, there's probably another filter or layer that we're adding to that right now to our thinking about where do we go first with this product line, which is where can we actually activate this product line based on the tactics that they have?
And one of the things I'll add, which I'm sure many of the people in the audience have probably experienced in their own brands, which is just that I think there are some retailers that have moved to more EDLP type models.
And in our experience, I think there's actually two kinds of EDLP models.
One is a, it sounds like an EDLP model, but actually there's still lots of high-low pricing and lots of promotions.
And then there's like true EDLP where it's literally one low, everyday low price, and there's no promotions, there's almost no display, there's nothing.
And so, we almost don't want to launch into an EDLP type player first because that's kind of one of our big learnings is that when you're launching from scratch, you kind of need these other types of tactics and opportunities to be able to stand out from the 38,000 other skews that are also in that grocery store.
What are some of those tactics that you all use?
Can you talk through some of those?
Sure, yeah.
Here's a lot of the tactics that we layered on to launch and where we got a lot of learnings from.
A lot of this is Whole Foods, some of it is Stop and Shop, but you can see we obviously use social media.
Here's a picture of some of the demos where we got a lot of...
We did that with our team and also had a partner.
We got a lot of great feedback and qualitative of why people like the product, why they were trying it.
We also put on IRCs just to test pricing.
That's one where we know the stores that had the IRCs, and we can look at the store level data to see that impact.
We also did a field agent digital demo where we had field agents send out reps to go try the product, give us their feedback.
So it was another kind of qualitative just kind of pulse check on how consumers were receiving the product and what they were thinking about the product.
I think we need to hear more about digital demos.
Okay, sure.
How do those work?
Okay, so there's a few different companies that did it.
We partnered with field agent.
They have reps that go out and they'll accept the project, and they'll go and go to the store, purchase the product, and then they answer some questions about it.
And you can do it within two or three days, depending on how many samples you do.
We did 50 to test, so we had that over a week, and we got the results and the feedback.
So it's just a really good vehicle to get some feedback and understand what people are thinking about the product, and you can give them a specific store to go to to purchase the product, so you know that the product is there.
Yeah, so that was a great program.
We got a lot of qualitative learnings from that.
And then also with Whole Foods, they have a sampling program that we just, for Fiona, if you want to talk about that, that just went out recently.
Sure, so yeah, so you'll see on the left, this is a list of all the tactics we tested in the last six months at Whole Foods, but also at other partners.
And by the way, so and Jen mentioned this, but I'll just point it out.
This picture, the picture that you see on the furthest to the left, that is a nutrition, dietitian, end cap at Stop and Shop that we were selected for.
And so you can see our roasted chickpea snacks are there, as well as the Tasty Thins line.
So there, again, the learnings here are across multiple retailers.
You'll see that from the bullets on the left, the full list of bullets, there was multiple ways that we did the sampling.
There was in-store demos, digital demos that Jen just talked through, and then the sampling through a retailer, so retailer-driven programs.
And so this image that you're seeing in the middle on the far right that says sampling WFMOA, so people have engaged with Whole Foods at a national level or multi-region level.
You may have heard of this.
They pronounce it WFMOA, and it stands for, I believe, I think it stands for Whole Foods Market on Amazon.
They have an app, Whole Foods app, within the Amazon platform.
And so they have obviously a huge number of orders that are coming through that app, and they have specific programs where you can, through this program, and you pay a fee on a specific date or a specific week, they're distributing samples of your product.
And you'll see that.
So underneath that phrase sampling, WFMOA, you'll see there's a little, yeah, so there's a clear cast plastic bag, and there's like five, four or five samples inside.
So I guess, you know, my point is just that we know for this product line that the experience of the food is amazing.
And when people try it, and they combine it with the benefits of the product, people really do love it.
And we know it's a very sticky product, like the repeat purchase rate is pretty high, very high.
And so we knew that getting the snack into people's hands and sampling was really important, but sampling is very expensive.
And so the question was, you know, what types of tactics, let's try like different ways to get people to try this product line, what's the most efficient way.
And I, you know, a lot of times founders talk about demos and like it absolutely makes sense as to why, because they do work.
But the challenge is that when you scale a product line, you can't have a demo person in every single store, in thousands of stores every single day, right?
You have to figure out like, what is the tactics that allow you to get that trial, like push hard to get that trial at launch.
And so we did try these three different tactics.
You know, the Wolf & Moe program, that was a pretty good sizable investment because it was a distribution of 10,000 samples.
We did the math on if you were to try to sample that many people by sampling inside of stores, like actually the fee that Whole Foods has is actually very, very reasonable if the sampling program actually works.
So we were excited to try it out because of that reason.
Because keep in mind when you're...
It's one thing if you're doing a demo yourself, that's hard enough, but when you're managing a whole team of people who are doing demos all across the country, there are particular challenges right now of doing demos because still there are limitations and difficulties getting inventory into stores.
There's difficulty scheduling a demo.
There's just so much coordination and work that has to go into an actual demo being successful.
So that's why we opted to try this sampling program.
We haven't gotten the results back from this program because it literally just got executed like a week ago, but we're very excited to be able to try different tactics, such as this one.
That's great stuff.
Did you use an IRC coupon on the product that was on the WFM OA program?
Is that how you worked that?
No, we did not include an IRC.
We just included the sample.
So we had to create a small sample size bag.
It was kind of like a lunchbox size, I would call it, to go with that.
We do have some questions here.
All of us have so many questions.
Christopher Beals, thanks so much for your question.
Christopher wants to know if there are any tactics that surprised you and outperformed what you were originally expecting return-wise.
Surprising tactics.
Jen, you want to tackle that first, and then I can follow on?
I'm curious to know what you're going to say, actually.
Yeah, I'm trying to think.
I guess some of the in-store demos that we did early, I think we were expecting to get feedback and kind of talk to consumers, but looking at the store results, and it wasn't consistent across all the demos we did, but I think one store had over 80 units per store per week and several above 50, so that was surprising.
I hadn't really measured that level of details by store, the impact of in-store demos, so I guess that was surprising at first.
Yeah, that's a great point.
And I'm just looking at the question, what do we find was the highest ROI?
I mean, across the board, I think it was, I think display.
I think display is the biggest impact, but I think our learning is, and I got this originally from one of our board members who has scaled other snack brands, but his point was that when you do a program, you really need to layer two to three tactics at the same time.
So I think that's been our other learning is, and some of it makes sense if you think about how programs are executed, right?
So when I say layering, I'm talking about, don't just do a TPR, do a TPR and a display, or do a TPR, and TPR, some people call it promotions, whatever you call it, do a promotion plus a demo, or do a demo plus a coupon.
And so I think the most powerful combination for us was a combination of display plus some kind of promotion, but not just any promotion.
We had to really test the price points and figure out which price points were driving the highest lift.
And we did find a price point that we believe hugely increases the amount of purchases during a promotional period.
And so I think it's that.
Jen, would you agree?
Display plus the right promotional pricing.
Another thing that surprised me with Tasty Thins, but just in general in my experience from working on mature brands to emerging brands, is just the impact of display and how it's used a little differently on emerging brands.
What had surprised me analyzing the results from the displays at Biena is you get that huge lift from display, which you're used to, but the impact after display and the increase in base velocity in the weeks, the sustained increase after display and how important displays are.
So we typically would measure display in the display period, but really there's lasting impact, especially for emerging brands.
When I would analyze mature brands, it would go up, baseline would come back to where it was before.
With emerging brands, it goes up and stays at a higher level than previous.
So that was really interesting for me to look at display results.
What does that tell you?
What do those results tell you?
Yeah, it's really because Biena is a lower penetration.
We have over a million household shopping, but it is 1% of the US household.
So there's just a lot of growth available compared to a brand that might be at 99, 95% penetration.
The more trial and awareness, the more repeat and just kind of feeding that brand.
Great stuff.
We have a question from Kenny Leavitt.
How did you get the IRCs into the marketplace?
So we've done it two ways.
Well, we should have done it three ways.
I'll start with the easiest one and simplest one first, which is your own team or your partners, wherever you have broker partners or your own team, can go into stores and apply them.
The second way I would say is through our merchandising partners.
And so we have two merchandising partners that we work with.
You know, they have, I don't know, I don't know how many people are work representing the brand.
Jen, would you say like, is it like 30 or 40?
Something like that?
So there's, let's say there's 30 or 40 people around the country that are representing the brand inside of stores, so we can do a distribution out to them.
And then lastly, if you can't do either of those, which we've been in those situations too, there's multiple companies out there that you can hire to go in and put the IRCs on the bags for you.
And today, I think that there is like even more companies available than before, because there's a number of vendors and programs like a field agent where it's almost an Uber, like these apps and these companies operate like an Uber type model where it's everyday people who are willing to go into a store and perform an action for a brand sign up to be on the app.
And it's kind of like what job needs to be done when you walk into the store.
And so if the job, I mean, you'd have to figure out how to get the IRCs to them, but yeah, so those are the three ways that we've gotten IRCs into the market.
Can you give us some examples of the last way that you were talking about, the sort of like Uber model?
Well, and I'm trying to think of the names.
I mean, field agent probably is the one that's coming to mind, but only because we've just worked with them.
And I'm drawing a blank onto some of the other partners.
Jen, do you remember?
I don't remember offhand either.
Did you take on any additional partners?
And do you typically take on additional partners to support a launch, whether it's, you know, merchandising-wise or field agent?
What kinds of additional partners are you layering on to help support a launch like this?
Yeah, so we did add merchandisers for this launch, and we've, for a long time at Whole Foods, we've had kind of some merchandising in the stores, but it's really varied year to year based on what's been going on, whether it's kind of just a couple of regions or whether it's like one or two regions versus, I don't know, more regions.
And so for this launch, we did decide to increase the level of merchandising.
We had inside of Whole Foods, and it was specifically because we, as Jen mentioned earlier, we're entering a new aisle.
So we are established within Whole Foods within the alternative plant-based snacks or whole food plant-based snacks.
Different people call it different things.
And we have a shelf block.
The brand is proven and is known with the Whole Foods consumer base within that set.
And so, but then as we realized that we were launching into Salty Snacks, which is a very, very competitive set, many of the brands in Salty Snacks do have merchandisers in the stores as well.
And so at the same time, I will say that I do think the planograms at Whole Foods are much more controlled than before.
And so I'm not suggesting that if you have a placement, you have to have a merchandiser, but because we were brand new, because we knew it was a competitive set, and then one other thing that kind of pushed us in that direction was that we were launching with two SKUs, and it's easy when you only have two SKUs to get lost on the shelf, or somebody else can easily take those two spots over.
And so we really wanted to make sure that we could maintain the presence and strengthen it as much as we possibly can.
So yeah, we decided to increase the levels for the launch year.
It sounds like you may be running a significant number of promos as you launch as well to encourage trial.
Is that right?
The short answer is yes.
We evaluated what the level of promotional activity was in the Salty Snack aisle.
Frankly, I think we underestimated it and going into the set, but as soon as we realized what the levels were, we rapidly moved to change our promotional planning.
And so I would say we're on par with the rest of the set at this point.
How does the promo strategy differ from the chickpea snacks to the Tasty Thins?
Yeah, Jen, why don't you take that?
Sure.
Yeah, I think as Corby mentioned, it's more frequent and display is more key.
Display is obviously impactful for any category, but especially for salty snacks just to stand out because there's a lot of options and price point.
We're seeing more sensitivity to price point and promotional price points as well.
Julia had a comment about the WFMOA program, which I think is, you know, super relevant.
She's pointing out that it's best suited for shelf stable brands.
So with Ithaca, they obviously had to use coupons and had less than optimal redemption.
So it sounds like there really is a benefit to just putting that product right in the bag.
I could totally see that, Julia.
And I think there's other things too, like, you know, I don't know, I think the sampling mechanism for the WFMOA program is very different than an in-store demo.
So, yeah, I could see that there would be a wide range of, you know, opportunity with that.
That's a great point, Julia.
Thanks for sharing that.
All right, well, that was super fascinating.
And I feel like I could talk to you all about that for another hour.
To wrap up the conversation, how are you measuring performance?
The typical metric is really units per store per week.
So that's our key metric.
We look at a lot of different things, but we kind of analyze the set and the brands in the set and the benchmarks.
And there is a units per store per week metric that we really want to hit and are just about there.
And that's really key to obviously staying in the set.
And then repeat is always an important metric because once we get the trial, but we've kind of had those indicators that the repeat is in a great place.
So it's really that units per store per week is the key metric in reference to the set and benchmarking it.
And how do you arrive on that number, your target number?
Yeah, so we kind of analyze the performance within the set of the competitors.
I typically like to divide the set into thirds, so the top third, the middle third, and the bottom third.
So in year one, for six months, we really want to get into the middle third.
We're not going to get to be the number one skew overnight in year one, so it's really getting into that middle tier of just being competitive and just continuing to build from there.
So certainly not all brands are in a position to buy data, but there are sometimes ways to get specific data from broker partners, that kind of thing, that might help you arrive at a number like that.
So thanks for sharing that.
And then last, how about buyer feedback?
Are you checking in with your buyers to see what they're thinking?
How do you interact with them to support the launch and know what's happening in the stores?
Yeah, I mean, we definitely check in with our buyer partners, and sometimes those conversations are formal, sometimes they're informal, just over email or even over LinkedIn or at Expo West.
So really utilizing, I would say, every form of communication possible to connect and have conversations and make sure that there's really an open line of communication.
And we also try to, for the partners where we're working with them to be like a critical launch partner, we try to do a lot of proactive communication as well, because obviously recognizing that they're working with many, many, many brands, and they're obviously not in our data as much as we are.
And so we try to be proactive about saying like, hey, we just concluded this program and here's the performance that we're seeing, or we just tested these three things and here's kind of what worked or what didn't work.
And so oftentimes, I guess one point I'll make is, in my experience, a lot of times buyers just feel really good that you're proactively communicating with them because it's a signal to them that you're focused on their business and it's a signal that you care and that you're like on top of things.
And so that can, it helps to, I think, build a level of trust and relationship and that can be helpful in kind of the feeling of partnership.
It's ultimately about really creating that feeling of partnership, I think, so.
It's a great piece of advice.
Well, thank you both so much for joining.
Oh, let's get one more question in from Julia.
How are you measuring repeat at Whole Foods Market and other retailers?
Sure, so we kind of have a few different ways of getting that and we're kind of triangulating the data because we don't have the full repeat.
We do get a repeat metric in Nielsen and we can also see kind of the stores after we do a demo and the velocity increasing.
So there's a few different ways we can get to it.
Jen, I actually have a question for you.
What kind of lift are you looking for after a demo?
Like if the curve goes like this, are you looking for it to kind of settle a little bit?
How much lift are you hoping for it after a demo?
Yeah, that's a great question.
And I don't know if we really defined it, but what we've been seeing is anywhere from 10% to 30% lift in the velocities after.
That's another kind of indicator of the repeat.
And another indicator of the repeat is field agent and its directional is kind of intended repeat.
So when we, they purchased it, we also had a metric of would you repeat this product?
And obviously it's intended, it's not actual repeat.
And then field agent has some benchmarks on that as well.
And is that the kind of, Porvi was just talking about retailer relationships and being proactive is smart.
Are you sharing that kind of data?
Is that the kind of information you're sharing with them?
Like we did these demos and we saw this lift, just so you know, is that the kind of thing you're sharing?
Yes, we've done a few recaps since the launch, I think two so far, just keeping the buyer updated on what we're seeing and what we've been trying and what's been working.
So smart.
I was just gonna add one of the first ways that we started understanding that the product line has big repeat, high repeat is at the demos.
We were seeing very strong conversion rates from tasting to buying.
The product had like over 70% of people who tasted the product were deciding to make a purchase right then and there.
So that told us right away in the first couple of weeks, like, wow, if people try the product line, they're really loving it.
Well, I'm glad that's an option to everybody again, to encourage trial.
You both just gave us so much information, and we're also grateful for it.
In closing, could I ask you each to just give a little piece of advice for folks who are either working on a launch or they know that they have one coming up.
It might be the first launch, it might be a line extension.
Is there a way to sort of give a general piece of advice for how to make it successful?
Yeah, I think it just knowing what success looks like and kind of building a plan and just continually adjusting.
You may not have it right to begin with, but keep measuring and getting that feedback however you can and keep adjusting and making those incremental improvements and keep driving the business.
It's definitely a bunch of testing, learning and retrying.
That's so smart.
And in terms of picking those targets, if you are in a position where perhaps you aren't buying data, I don't know, do you recommend founders connect with other founders to find out what kind of movement they're seeing to try and kind of hone in what that target is?
Yeah, I think that's an option.
Brokers, partners are definitely familiar with what it takes to be successful within that section that you're in.
So they're definitely another good source of information, just directionally.
They can't, if you're not buying it, they can't share the data, but they'll know what it good looks like in that set.
Perfect.
Corvie, could you share a piece of advice for folks?
Yeah, I think the main thing I was thinking about that I wanted to share for this question was that as a founder, I think my mindset has really shifted when I think back to when I first launched the brand.
Because if you ask me at the time, am I data-oriented and am I focused on driving trial and awareness in the store?
I really thought I was, and I was.
I was doing what I could at the time.
But I think what's different now is the realization and the understanding that there really are many different tactics and you have to try all of them.
And that different products work differently and different things move the needle.
And even like what Julia said about Ithaca Hummus, obviously different products do behave differently across categories.
But, and I'm very fortunate because I'm surrounded by some very smart people and experienced people in Salty Snacks.
And even within certain parts of the playbook for scaling a Salty Snack brand are consistent with some of the things I've heard from some of these other people, such as board members, advisers, et cetera.
But other things are different.
It's not just because it's a different time, it's really because it's a different product and it's a different consumer base.
It's a different positioning angle.
There's so many things that are different about it.
And so the best that you can do, like it really does come back to what Jen also just said, which is the best that you can do is you gotta just work as fast as you can to rapidly test as many things as you possibly can and then keep what works and discard the rest.
Great stuff.
Thank you both so much.
Is the best way for folks to reach you if they have any questions after this on LinkedIn?
Sure, absolutely.
That sounds great.
Thank you so much.
Poorvi, Petodia and Jen Hoffman.
Thank you so much for joining us from Biena Snacks.
And for everybody else, thank you so much for joining us.
We'll make a tape recording of this call available at bevnet.com/communitycall.
You can also see what's coming up and sign up for future calls.
Thanks so much, we'll see you next time.
Thank you so much, appreciate it.
