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Welcome to the Community Call Podcast.
I am Melissa Travers, Director of Community here at BevNET & NOSH, here with my co-hosts Mike Schneider and Shauna Golden.
If you're enjoying the show, please follow and review us on Apple Podcasts, or your listening platform of choice.
Shauna, you've never been on the Community Call Podcast before, I'm so excited to have you here.
I'm so excited, thank you for having me.
So I know everybody knows who you are and what you do, but if there are any folks out there who don't, please tell us.
I mean, you're like world famous.
Yeah, I mean, like every time we're at a show or whatever, people are coming up to Shauna asking for autographs, but please humor me and tell us all a little bit about what you do over at NOSH.
Sure, so I am the editorial assistant.
I have also proclaimed myself as the resident sugar fiend of the team.
You did not need to proclaim that.
We've seen it, we've seen you in action.
You should see Shauna down a bag of Sour Patch Kids.
Ooh, do you get the sugar sweats or are you a pro?
Oh, I'm a pro.
How do you prepare?
Because I don't know, man, if I even get halfway into a bag of sour candy, I feel like I'm gonna have a heart attack.
What are your top tips for people who are looking to increase their sugar intake?
I think it's a lifelong training thing.
Yeah, you also gotta, you just play the Rocky theme song while you're going at it.
Wait, which is the, how does that go, the Rocky theme song?
Ready to eat.
I'm picturing you running up and down the stadium steps with a bag of sour gummies in your hand.
I do appreciate that while so many people in the natural foods industry are looking to cut their sugar, you're going for it.
I love it.
It's perfect that you're here because you just got back from the sweets and snacks expo.
Perfect for you.
Yeah, so how was it?
Was it a dream come true?
It was the perfect experience for me.
There was a good mix of better for you sweets and then your more traditional, like your sweet tarts, lemon heads, things like that.
Just what I gravitate toward, obviously.
The highlight for me was all of Ferrara's new products.
So the NERS gummy clusters, they're coming out with seasonal ones.
So got 4th of July colors, Halloween colors.
Wow, that's exciting.
You know, I never think of 4th of July.
4th of July is being a seasonal food season, but that's-
You don't?
I mean, yeah, like the-
What about those cakes?
Those-
No, those don't count.
I mean, I'm talking about like pumpkin spice and peppermint.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, it's lesser.
There's definitely a GT's flavor that comes out around 4th of July, but you're right, it's not like classic seasonal flavor time.
Yeah, seasonal candy was big at the show, I guess.
It actually accounts for 64% of candy sales every year.
So yeah, there are a lot of seasonal innovations going on.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah, you know the pumpkins similar to candy corn?
Yeah.
What are your thoughts on those?
I love them.
I know that's like a hot topic of debate.
What are your thoughts?
Well, I mean, I think they're super polarizing.
For me, I'ma leave.
I'll leave those for you.
But I know who to give them to now.
Yeah.
I love them, but I love to eat all candy until I pass out, so I usually avoid it.
They now have mallow creams, which I guess is like the main ingredient in those pumpkins, but now in like pumpkin spice flavors, and they're all little leaf shapes coming out.
I saw in your article on nosh.com, which is up right now, which everybody should check out for the full layout of what happened at the Sweets and Snacks show.
I saw that you were talking about freeze dried candy.
So that's become a huge thing on TikTok.
It's really blown up over the past few years.
Over the past few months, a lot of the brand founders I was talking to at the show, one of them was Astro Freeze, which is located in Orlando, Florida.
We're actually crediting TikTok for sort of starting the craze of that.
There are quite a few brands that have launched in the past four to five months.
You know, I feel like I see Bethany Frankel on my TikTok feed, all that.
Do you guys see Bethany Frankel, or is that just a me algorithm thing?
I think it's a you thing.
Algorithm thing, yeah, she's...
Maligarithm.
Maligarithm.
But she was eating freeze dried candy, which is how I knew about it.
I'd also like to thank you because you brought me back a very exciting treat from the Sweets and Snacks show.
We were talking about this at one of our staff lunches.
Yeah, cow tails.
I mean, cow tails are just, they're nostalgic, they're delicious.
Yeah, but I've never had this flavor before.
These are honey bun flavors.
I've never even seen, I've never seen a cow tail that's in a flavor other than original.
D, N, S.
These are excellent.
See, I've never had a cow tail.
I've had the bullseyes, but I didn't know that it came in tail form.
Usually they come, like they're a lot longer.
These are sample size.
These are tiny tails, maybe like a chihuahua tail or something, but that's what these should be called, chihuahua tails.
Or like the vestigial human tail.
I'll let them know.
Welcome to Community Call.
We've seen a lot of Better For You gummies, better sours.
I saw that Mesa Chihada from Behave was there.
She was excited because it was her first trade show, and I'm excited to see that brand just going place because it's so tasty.
Did you get to catch up with any of the Better For You gummies?
Yeah, so I actually talked with Mesa a week or two beforehand, and we were talking all about that brand recently just reformulated.
They now have cane sugar instead of monk fruit sort of to get rid of the sweetener aftertaste.
Super yummy.
I really like that brand.
And then I also caught up with Better Sour, whose products are globally inspired from the two founders' childhood in Hawaii and their Iranian background.
And they'll be launching a passion fruit flavor in the summer, their first single flavor offering.
I love both of those brands so much, and I'm excited to try the new Behave.
I like how there's a slash through it because it's really don't behave, but you know how you say it?
Behave like that.
I love that brand so much.
I love Better Sour too.
Those are two of my favorites.
See, those are brands where you can eat the whole bag and you're not sweating afterwards.
We met the founders of Better Sour at Snack Shot event to Expo West ago, and they gave me a bag of their product, and I'd eaten the whole thing before I knew it.
While I was talking, they're just watching me.
Next thing I know, I'm like, it's gone.
They're like, it's okay.
Your compliments to the chef.
Yeah, my compliments to the chef.
I was also excited to see that Elavi was there with a new brownie.
Did you get to try the brownie?
No, I missed that.
Oh my gosh.
I want to try the brownie so much, and I also told them that I want a bluey.
I don't know if you two have had their blue frosting.
I can't get enough of that stuff.
I will eat a whole tub.
It's bad.
It's so good.
I mean, it's bad.
I'm just like, ah, getting it all over the place.
Your tongue turns blue.
It's blue from spirulina.
Spirulina.
Chana, thank you so much for that overview and also for the delicious Cow Tales.
Cinnamon bun flavor, who would have thought?
Cow Tales, apparently.
Mike, I see that you have something.
Perhaps we can chase these Cow Tales with over there.
Really?
You think you're gonna chase?
I mean, we can.
It will be a very interesting combination.
I guess it'd be Sweet Heat.
I've got some of Zweta's Harissa here.
I love Harissa.
Are you familiar with Harissa?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, you?
I am not.
It's a condiment that's made with garlic and sun-dried chilies and spices.
And it's just like, it can just get you.
Like, it's awesome.
You can put it on anything.
And this is Zweta's mild non-spicy variety.
I know they also have like Shakshuka starter and other products, too, that are awesome.
But I haven't really gotten a chance to try the Harisa yet, and I'm really excited to do it.
All right, Shauna, so you did a really great job kind of talking about some of the great stuff that you saw there.
Was there anything particularly hilarious or horrifying that you'd care to share?
So the first horrifying thing was a nerds gummy cluster mascot.
Sort of looked like, I don't know, like a COVID particle come to life.
That was interesting.
And then the second thing was Jax Links, the meat stick brand.
They have the Sasquatch, so front and center.
I did question, is there someone in there?
Is it just a prop?
That day, it was just a prop.
The next day, I walked by again, and they did have someone in a Sasquatch suit.
Well, how do you know it wasn't a real Sasquatch?
That's fair, either way, I did run away.
Either way, that's a horrifying...
Dimes to dollars, this one has seen Sasquatch for real.
You have, right?
Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure I saw Sasquatch in a men's bathroom once or twice.
You guys should have been here for the pre-mancer when Melissa admitted to, yeah, sometimes I just somehow just end up in the men's room.
I don't...
What?
I just walk in, I'm like, wait, why are there urinals in the women's room?
It's not infrequent that I'm not paying attention when I go to use the restroom and I get in there and I'm like, huh, there's a urinal in the women's restroom.
And then I'm like, nope, that's not what's going on.
Yeah.
Well, Shauna, thank you so much for all of that.
You have certainly enriched the Community Call banter beyond all expectation.
It's been so nice to...
Do you think you'll want to come back?
Watch out what you agree to.
I also wanted to give a shout out to Dalton from Dreamland Kufucha.
I talked to Dalton just this week.
He has a product again called Dreamland Kufucha.
It's a lightly fermented coffee beverage that uses a scoby similar to a kombucha, which is so interesting.
I don't know that I've heard of a fermented coffee product before.
Of course.
So I just wanted to say hi to Dalton.
Happy to have you in our community.
Everybody out there can join our Slack community at slack.bevnet.com.
You can join us in there for some fun educational posts.
Our entire team is in there posting news updates.
And sometimes you get some crazy weird fun stuff as well, like a Sasquatch in a men's room.
So slack.bevnet.com, join us over there.
Or AI Melissa.
Shauna, again, so great to have you here.
Thank you so much for telling us about the Sweets and Snacks Expo.
All of the brands you saw are either on RangeMe or would like to be on RangeMe, I'm sure.
In this episode of Community Call, I talked to Vir Satyan about how brands can put their best foot forward on the RangeMe platform.
Vir will explain what goes into an expert profile to attract buyers, describe the buyer's dashboard, discuss special retailer programs, and provide tips on maintaining an optimal presence on a limited budget.
Please enjoy.
On June 12th and 13th in New York City, hear from Ora Bora, Haywell, Tip Top, Mom Water, Full Frame, Diageo Ventures, Spins and more during the leading event for the beverage industry.
Learn more at bevnetlive.com.
Do you have a recent product launch, new hire, marketing campaign, distribution news, or some other exciting company announcement?
Let us know.
With our new self-service PR portal, submitting your news is easier than ever.
Just head to submit.bevnet.com to get started.
Today on Community Call, we are thrilled to welcome Vir Satyan, SVP of Supplier Success at RangeMe.
RangeMe is a preferred submission platform for key retailers.
Vir is going to take us behind the scenes and give us a peek at the buyer's dashboard, tell us about special retailer programs available through RangeMe, and talk about how to have an effective RangeMe presence on a limited budget.
Vir, thanks so much for joining us.
This is a real treat.
Thanks so much for having me, Melissa, and I'm very excited to talk through all things RangeMe, from where we started to how buyers use us and share the best insight, tips and tricks with the entire community.
Fantastic.
We're thrilled to take a peek at behind the scenes.
Why don't we start off by understanding how long has RangeMe been a platform available for the CPG community?
Sure.
So RangeMe started around 10 years ago now, and fun, random, but not so random fact as well.
We started in Australia where, like the UK, they call them RangeReviews instead of CategoryReviews.
So the concept of RangeMe would be, as a brand, you go to a buyer and say, when is your next RangeReview for coffee or beverages?
And so that's why we thought of the name.
Nikki Jackson was our founder, and she had worked in big CPG for many years, Kellogg's, Pepsi.
And then when her daughter was really young, her daughter had really bad eczema.
So Nikki worked with the local chemists to come out with a really cool concept and a product called Dermababy.
And she thought, I have all the Rolodex, I have 15 years of relationships with buyers, there should be a breeze.
But Nikki, the entrepreneur, was no longer Nikki the Pepsi SVP, and therefore was shut down, was ghosted on calls, and she said, there's gotta be an easier way for me to one, make it easier for emerging brands to get seen, and two, make it easier for buyers to find those brands.
And that's how the concept of RangeMe began.
Well, that's certainly why we're all here today, so that buyers can find brands on RangeMe.
Could you talk a little bit about the ways that retailers use it?
I mean, certainly search, submissions, how are retailers using RangeMe to engage with brands?
The types of retailers we work with are very varied.
It can be everyone from national chain banners, Walmart, Target, Albertsons, more regional players, H-E-B, Ivy, all the way down to Independence, mom and pop stores.
We also have non-traditional and food service retailers too.
So universities will use us, restaurants, Delta and United Airlines.
Essentially, anyone that carries CPG products, even if it's one shelf of product, we're happy for them to use RangeMe to discover brands.
And they do so in one of two ways.
One is through the search, which we'll look at in a few moments while I screen share.
And then the other is by putting out open calls on RangeMe for brands to apply.
And we call those limited time applications where they really go on for one or two weeks where buyers have a specific need for a specific category or criteria of products, and they want brands to apply to them and they look at every application.
Well, we certainly want to dig into that.
To start with curiosity, are there any other kinds of decision makers who are using RangeMe?
For example, do investors use RangeMe to discover brands?
Today, it's only retail buyers and some key distributors.
So the likes of Keiki, UNFI, Cisco, McLean, Gordon Food Service.
The plan is down the road to expand that, to allow other people that are part of the CPG community to be able to interact with our emerging brands as well.
And which retailers exclusively use RangeMe for their submission process?
So there's about 150 chain retailers that have us embedded on their corporate website.
So in their new vendor portal and submission.
And of course, if you are lucky enough to have a direct contact to them, they may entertain that discussion outside of RangeMe, but their preferred way is for you to do so by applying through that.
It keeps it in one standardized format for them so that it isn't a thousand different brands sending them emails or PDFs or spreadsheets or cell sheets.
This way they can simply say, send me a RangeMe link, and they can look at all the information they need over there.
Well, I think we're all chomping at the bit to see what retailers see when they look at RangeMe because their dashboard, of course, is very different than what our brand partners and suppliers see.
So please take it away and show us what buyers see, please.
Thank you.
Happy to do that.
So I'm going to start sharing my screen.
The first thing we'll look at is a couple of those examples that I talked about where we're embedded in the corporate buying process for these top retailers.
What we're looking at now is the Albertsons new supplier portal.
So when you go there as a prospective vendor, they ask you to submit your items to RangeMe.
Another few examples of that kind of relationship and partnership we have, on CVS, on their new vendor portal, they ask you to also onboard to be RangeMe.
And one more example of that is Thrive Market.
When you go to Thrive Market's brand partnership portal, and they ask you to submit the brand info, that submission page is routed via RangeMe for you to create a RangeMe profile, or if you already have one, log in and complete that submission.
What this does now, and we're switching over to the buyer side of RangeMe, which as you said, is a view that only registered and vetted buyers get to see.
So for the community to get this, gives them a lot of insight into how as a brand to position themselves.
The first thing that we do with any buyer, no matter who he, she or they are, is to set up the categories that they manage and are responsible for.
It is not a free-for-all where every buyer is looking at every category.
It helps them only look at submissions that are part of the category that they manage.
We cover every imaginable category in the CPG world, but of course, like the larger industry, food and beverage are the fastest and the most active, followed by beauty and personal care, health and wellness come next, and then it expands into your general merchandise categories.
So things like home, houseware, baby, pets, et cetera.
Within food and beverage, there's the option to go even more granular.
So within beverages, there's alcoholic and non-alcoholic, there's coffee, tea and cocoa, and within non-alcoholic, you have things like water and drinks, juices and sports drinks and energy drinks.
For this example today, we're gonna look at the entire non-alcoholic beverage category.
So if I have saved this as a buyer, I never have to replicate this process.
Now when I log on to RangeMe, I automatically see every single brand that has at least one SKU in this category or these categories.
8,000 brands today on RangeMe in the non-alcoholic beverage category with over 15,000 products.
And now for the buyers, the fund starts in terms of their discovery.
There's a wide variety of ways in which they can filter through, but the most common is for them to start simply scrolling down.
And you'll notice one of the key points of when we created RangeMe, which is every single brand has the same size profile on a buyer's screen.
It doesn't matter if you're an emerging brand that's just starting up or if you're doing $100 million a year in sales, we wanted to level the playing field.
And so each brand occupies that same space on a buyer dashboard, which is similar to like an Instagram grid, where each tile is a brand page.
What you'll notice as well is the way you've set up your profile, especially with the banner image and the clarity of the image makes a massive difference.
Buyers have so many options to look through and discover, and grabbing their attention is always a challenge.
And so the better set up your profile, the more likely you are to get success.
Some examples of really well set up profiles are here now, and so I'll walk through some of these.
What I think they've done really well here is they've highlighted the packaging, which is of course very important for the buyer to look at.
But they've also called out all the unique selling points and certifications in that banner image.
This means as a buyer now, I don't have to scroll through and look at each individual product.
Within 30 to 45 seconds, I know everything there is to know about the key unique selling points of this brand.
And I can make a decision whether to request a sample, which is a button they can click on, send a direct message as well, or save this to look at later.
So the banner is of key importance, making sure that you have all of your SKUs there, your value proposition, because that's the most prominent part of your profile?
Absolutely right, spot on.
And taking the guesswork out for the buyer so that you can communicate to them, the unique attributes of your product or your products within that banner image.
I also see the certifications listed right in that profile as well, which I'm sure is on purpose.
Exactly, and they've done a really good job doing that.
So certifications can be listed within the product tiles as well.
So as a buyer, if I did want to scroll down, I can scroll down and look at each individual product, but going back to the time sensitivity that they have and how busy they are, if they can see all of that information, including the certifications in that banner image, then you've already done a great job standing out from the competition.
I was curious.
So the fact that you chose the non-alcoholic beverage category, I think is such a great one.
With alcohol analogs in the non-ALK space, how do you navigate buyers who may buy alcohol, but within that category, you also have a non-ALK line of products?
What we do is we allow each SKU to have up to two categories when the brand sets up their profile.
So if you do have something that crosses over, we typically recommend the brand select up to two categories.
And when you look back at the category settings, within the alcohol category as well, we have a non-alcoholic section, because as you said, sometimes they could be the bio for alcohol that's also wanting to look at non-alcoholic mixers and mocktails.
And a few more examples I wanted to highlight here with again, really well done cover images, all in the non-alcoholic beverages space.
And what I loved about this one in particular too, is of course calling out the women-owned certification, but also their BevNET award.
We love sterile of course.
They've also done a really good job here with their tagline.
That is the line that's right under the brand name.
And they've taken the guesswork out again, instead of relying on a D to C tagline, where a lot of companies could default to best tasting beverage you've ever had.
They've realized that RangeMe is only used by B to B retail buyers and distributors.
So calling out those unique selling points makes a bigger difference.
Where they've written, certified, organic, fair trade, kosher, women-owned, made with regeneratively grown ingredients.
That's what the buyer wants to see versus the best tasting tea you will ever have.
So kudos to them again, and Sarah from Cirilla doing a great job with her profile.
A few more examples of other good profiles where that banner image is really important, and they've called out what helps separate their product from some of the others.
So this is an upcycled fruit juice brand, and they've specifically called out some of those upcycled attributes.
Squeezed juice, nice job with that.
And some of these other examples mimic the same thing.
So highlighted the packaging, called out the certifications, mentioned some of the key unique selling points within the banner image.
Yeah, I mean, by scrolling through these, you really do get an idea of what the possibilities are to make the most of that banner image.
Absolutely.
And how vital and important it is too, because even as consumers, when we walk past a shelf and we're looking at different products on there, packaging really stands out.
Or also if you're looking at an advertisement, whether it's on social or it's on TV, the way the brand's set up, and if it doesn't give you all that information in that 30 second space, it will cause you to maybe think twice about the decision.
Buyers are the same way.
If they can see everything really quickly and in a nice condensed way, and that's where that banner image comes in, then they're much more likely to respond positively to you and start a conversation.
Do you ever see call out points on the banner images that might be very specific to a buyer that perhaps a consumer wouldn't be interested in in terms of what the pack size is, other attributes that perhaps a buyer would be interested in, but a consumer wouldn't necessarily need to know about?
Not so much in terms of pack size, but I do think that certifications, even though consumers are getting more mindful about some of the certifications, we still see some that we know buyers care more about than perhaps the average consumer might.
So sometimes calling out those certifications really helps.
Even if it's like a food safety standard certification, perhaps not so important from the consumer perspective, but the retail buyer does care about that in their decision-making process.
Well, these have been fantastic examples of how to treat that most important space on your RangeMe page to make it most visible to buyers.
What are some of the other key data points that retailers have access to on these pages?
Yeah, so we talked about how visually it's important to have that good banner image.
The next piece is the SEO and the words you use at setting up your profile.
And so as a buyer, 8,000 brands is a lot for me.
I would come in here typically and put in a keyword.
So I could go low sugar.
And now it will only filter out brands that have low sugar written in their unique selling points or product description.
So the words you use are really important because you want to show up when the buyers are typing in those search terms.
And now we've dropped from 8,000 brands to 615.
That in the non-alcoholic beverage space called out low sugar as a key attribute.
Are there search terms?
I mean, certainly that seems like a very important search term for brands to know about.
Are there any other very commonly searched phrases that brands should know about?
Yeah, good segue.
Low sugar is something we've seen jump up and climb up the ranks over the last couple of years.
We've seen adaptogen become a big buzzword that buyers are using.
Sometimes as generic as adaptogen, but sometimes more granular, like actually typing in mushroom.
And so, of course, that's a big craze now.
We noticed that at Expo West as well.
The buyers are coming in and typing that.
Outside of that, sustainability and diversity are really big.
One of the challenges with both is that buyers don't always know exactly what certifications go into making those or what exact keywords to type in.
So we see them type in more generic, diverse-owned or women-owned or sustainable or compostable.
And that's when we see them use that as a generic search term to get a more filtered grid of products.
And could you remind us where brands should put those key search terms in their profiles?
Absolutely.
So we can go back to one of these brands and look at this example.
Each individual SKU has additional information that you fill out.
And so if we were looking at their summer coffee SKU, which sounds pretty good, there's additional information that they put in, things like where it's currently sold, the approvals and certifications, trade shows they're attending or have attended in the past, distributors they work with, and then comes that SEO piece, which is the description and unique selling points.
And putting in the right keywords here makes all the difference.
There's also the distribution section.
So even though most of our retail partners are in the US, we do also have retailers that we work with in Canada, Australia and the UK.
So if a brand was one that had the ability to sell overseas in those markets, if they added those countries to their distribution capabilities, then those countries' buyers would be able to see their profiles as well.
Before we move back to the retailer view, while you have an example of a brand page up, are there any other pieces of a profile that you find brands get tripped up on or perhaps don't make the most of?
The biggest ones are the description and unique selling points, so using the right keywords, and then that banner image.
And those really make all the difference.
I'd say the only other piece of advice would be fill out as many fields as is possible.
Some of the fields that we have are mandatory and some are optional.
And so there are some brands that will leave out the optional fields like your social media handles.
I always encourage brands to go, if there's a field to fill out, I'll fill it out because the more info the buyer has, the better.
And you never know, there might be a buyer that says, I want to see a brand that's doing well on Instagram.
And if you don't have your social media handle there, then you're losing out on their ability to see that.
Great to know.
All right, would you take us back to the retailer view?
I feel like this is almost like getting the answers to the test by being able to see the retailer view.
You mentioned that retailers have data available to them.
Could you talk about that a little bit?
Sure.
So there's a couple of different things they can look at.
And we've been partnered with Nielsen IQ for over eight years now.
So retailers that are existing, these Nielsen IQ clients, can come into the NIQ data tab on their screens and their profiles.
They can get granular into the categories, so they can go into beverages, for example.
And then they can get even more granular into the subcategories.
And this is all based on Nielsen IQ's categorization.
So I can come in here, for example, and look at ready to drink tea.
And I can look at the last three, six or 12 months.
And if there are products in those categorizations, then it will populate or if there's info, or I can change it to coffee.
And now I'm seeing all the data that comes across from Nielsen in this subcategory.
For some reason, my internet decides to not want to populate everything as we're doing the live screen share.
Of course, that happened.
So I'm going to try another category and see if it actually works better this time.
I promise everyone that's watching that it was working fine just this morning.
That's how it works.
Yeah, just how it works.
So for some reason, it's deciding not to populate on this particular screen share.
But you get the idea in the sense that they can come in and they can look at exactly which subcategory or categories of products, what the year-on-year sales have been, specific to their retail banner.
This example, I'm a high B buyer, but also for the category as a whole.
We have a question from Marika who wants to know if only retailers can see this view, the retailer view, or she's wondering, can she as a brand also see other products in RangeMe?
We get that question a lot, and it is only for retailers and their category managers to see.
As a brand, you can see your own, but you are limited to that, and so you can't typically see the competition and look at some of their specific data points or key pieces of info to put in.
Thank you for that question, Marika.
How long do retailers spend on these pages?
I'm sure there's a range.
What do you see in terms of the amount of time that retailers spend from page to page?
It's changed a lot in the last eight years.
So they used to come on and spend five minutes per profile where they were understanding and going into every single depth and nook and corner of the profile.
We've seen that time go down to a couple of minutes now.
And I always talk about RangeMe as just one of many touch points you need to get that buyer's attention and to show up on their screens.
If you can go to shows in person, do that because then that's another added advantage.
Have a good LinkedIn presence because we know buyers are using that a lot too.
Try to have multiple touch points so that wherever they go, they're reminded about your brand.
And RangeMe is one of those touch points.
So sometimes we'll see buyers come in and they'll type in a specific brand's name.
And that obviously means they've heard about that brand from someone, they've seen it somewhere, and now they're coming in to look at the actual brand's profile.
I did also want to share that we've looked in the browse section a lot and how buyers use that.
But sometimes, and quite often actually, buyers don't know what to look for.
And that's where we have a responsibility to showcase some retail trends.
And so think of it like Hulu and Netflix, when you're browsing through and their collections that are free put for you, we do the same thing for buyers.
The most, one of the most popular is trending on Instagram.
That goes by growth in Instagram followers, not overall.
So you can be an emerging brand that's growing quickly, and you will show up in this collection.
Based on Nielsen IQ sales data, of course there's the sales data for top performing products.
There's a trending on RangeMe collection, which is based on other buyers in your category.
So if you're popular with other beverage buyers, then you surface into this category collection.
And the award-winning brands won.
So any awards, Nexty, SoFi, BevNET Awards, if you've won one, then you can let us know.
And if they're on your profile, we'll actually put you in this collection.
And then two that in particular, we try to push as much as possible, the sustainability one, which goes based on certifications and keywords, and also our supplier diversity one, which is still such a small percentage of the market.
And to give all the buyers that we work with credit, they hungry to carry more diverse suppliers.
In many cases, they don't even know all the different certifications that go into it.
That's WeBank, or Women Own Small Business, or NMSDC, or Veteran Own.
So we've grouped them all together.
And this way as a buyer, I can go straight into View All Brands.
And I've gone straight into the 278 brands that have put in at least one certified diversity certification.
You mentioned that, for example, if you win an award, you as a brand can let RangeMe know.
Does the RangeMe algorithm pick up when you add those to your profile, or do you as a brand need to let the team know that you're part of one of these groups so that you can be catered to?
Combination of both things.
So you can let us know, but we will also follow the top industry awards, like the BevNET Awards, and we will make sure that we add you to the list if you have won one of those.
But then if you add that to your profile, we will pick that up when we, every month we audit the brands as well, so we're able to add new brands to that collection.
And what's the best way for brands to reach out if they did want to give you a heads up on that?
So a couple of different ways.
They can reach out to our team, but for all the listeners here, I'm happy to share, and I'll let you guide me on how best to share it.
I'm happy to share my direct email with all of them for direct contact as well.
Yeah, if you could say it out loud for folks who are just listening and throw it.
Actually, you know what I'll do?
I will put it right in our Slack community after this.
So please tell us what your direct email address is.
So it's my first and last name.
So vir.satyan at rangeme.com, which is rangeme.com.
So vir.satyan at rangeme.com.
What a great resource.
Thank you for that.
So for example, when you pulled out that first page of non-alcoholic beverages, and you have your top row of beverages, how do those brands get on that top row?
Are they the ones that are most recently updated, the ones that are most viewed?
How does that algorithm work?
Yeah, so with all our categories, we do prioritize brands that have this green check mark and are called RangeMe Verified.
This means that you're doing two things.
One, you are part of our premium membership, and I'll show you the different membership tiers in a few seconds here.
And two, you have the bare basics required for retail store shelves.
So packaging, barcodes, liability insurance, an EIN number, and if necessary, then a nutritional label depending on your category.
No matter what the buyers do, these verified brands show up first.
And depending on the category, it's typically only 8% to 12%.
So as a buyer, I could come in and say, 8,000 brands is a lot to look at.
Let me start by looking at the verified brands first.
And now I'm looking at 625.
I like to talk about this like being on page one or two or three of Google instead of 15 or 20.
And here are the different tiers and plans we have for brands.
Starting as low as $99 a year, and then going all the way up to 24.99, depending on what you want and the different benefits that you want to get.
And if I'm an emerging brand and I have a limited budget, if I pay the $99 a year, does that still get me the verified check?
It does not.
The verified check comes with the premium and above membership, but the $99 a year membership still gets you all the exposure, you're still able to get seen by buyers, and you can apply to those open call RFPs that I talked about, which I've actually segue to and show on my screen now.
We've looked at the buyer side, the tips on how to set up the banner image, the keywords to use and the SEO and how important that is.
Now as a brand, there's a couple of different things that are key here.
Remembering that RangeMe, like LinkedIn, is only as good as the amount you use or put into it.
Thinking of it like a lead gen tool, one of the questions that I get asked the most is, I've been on for a few months or been on for a year and I haven't got a purchase order.
We can't actually guarantee the purchase order because that's in the buyer's decision.
What we can do is guarantee the exposure.
So what you're able to do is a couple of different things.
One, come in here under your brand profile and look at what we call limited time application.
Those are specific needs that retailers have for a short window of time, and they want brands to apply.
They look at every single application guaranteed.
And every Monday, as a best practice, I recommend logging on, looking at what's open to apply, and you can apply to any of these as long as you're at the 99 and above level.
And Mondays, because that's when all of those are updated?
Yes, that's right.
So we reset them on Mondays.
Some of them are on for two or three weeks.
Some of them are on for a week.
Some of the ones that are specific to beverages that are going on right now, the Ajo del Haze USA Supply Diversity Campaign.
You do have to be a certified diverse owned brand.
And the 7-Eleven New Unique Flavor Beverage Campaign.
And you can always get more information about that when you click on each one.
So in this case, 7-Eleven proactively looking out for the latest beverage brands.
If you have a ready to drink beverage that fits that criteria, go ahead and submit.
What's great about these submissions is even if you don't get in, because not every brand will, the education that's involved here is so critical to the emerging brands.
When I go to say apply now, 7-Eleven has an additional set of questions that are outside of the standard RangeMe form that they've asked.
And now I understand as a brand what a retailer like 7-Eleven is looking for when they do some of these sourcing campaigns.
I'm able to go back, and at any point under the Manage tab, I can see all the different campaigns I have applied to, whether I was selected or not selected, whether I completed the submission or not, was I approved?
And even if I wasn't selected, I can go back like the Albertans Innovation Launchpad one that happened at Expo West, and review the application, and see all the questions that Albertans was asking at the time of doing that event.
So it's really good information for the emerging brands, and you're able to do all of these at just the $99 tier.
So just to reiterate, if you go under the retailer opportunities section of your profile, you'll see all these.
And even if it's not an opportunity that you're applying for, there's so much information that helps us understand what the retailers are looking for.
So whether it's something you're ready to jump in with or not, it certainly makes sense to peruse those asks so you know for next time.
That's exactly right.
And while we do cover all categories here, we'll always have the majority of these in food and beverage.
And as you said, you may not be ready for a large chain retailer.
That's okay, but if you look through the questionnaire, now you understand what that retailer is looking for or when they source for that particular campaign.
Well, before I ask you to talk about some of the trends that you're seeing based on RangeMe profiles, is there anything else from the buyer perspective that we should know about and that brands should know about as they're setting up their profiles?
Yes, so I think one of the main points of this is the fact that it's one of many touch points.
And we see buyers often coming in to that example of typing in the exact brand name because they've heard of the brand somewhere else or they've seen the brand on social media or at a trade show and staying ahead on the education piece.
You know, understanding what the retailers are looking for, even if you said it better than I did, even if you're not ready to apply, understanding the kind of questions that especially the larger chains ask are really important.
And if you are able to consider our premium and above memberships, one of the other key benefits that come with it is the ability to, under tools and insights, in your profile insights, see exactly which retailer is looking at you, when they looked at you, how much time they spent on your profile, and whether they found you by search terms or through a particular collection.
And using this as lead gen to say, even if they haven't reached out, I at least know that they've got eyeballs on me.
And in some cases, if it's an independent store, you can Google them and find their contact information pretty easily.
And which level again is it that you can see which retailers have looked at your page?
This is available to anyone that's on a premium or pro level.
And so they're able to come in and use this as lead gen and look through all of it at any point and see who's looked at them, how they found them.
And in some cases, very granular, like Keiki looking for regenerative organic and this coffee company popped up.
All right, now I'll ask you to move on to some trends and insights.
Certainly, you see so much information about what buyers are looking for, what brands are putting forward as being important in their profiles.
To start off with, what are the percentage of minority-owned brands that you see on RangeMe?
It's something you touched on a little bit earlier before, but I'd love to dig into that a little bit.
Yeah, it's a very good question.
You know, it's interesting.
I'll go jump back into the buyer side.
We still see only about 3% to 4% in each year.
And that's the category as being certified diverse-owned or minority brands.
And there's so much work to do for the industry as a whole.
Buyers are hungry and want to, to their benefit, you know, to give them credit.
They want to carry more diverse-owned brands.
The challenge we've seen on the supplier side is, one, many brands I talk to don't even know how to get those minority-owned certifications.
And then in some cases, it's a little bit of a chaotic process for them to do so.
So I think if you are a diverse-owned brand, and you are able to get that certification, which in most cases is not very expensive, I would highly recommend doing that because from the buyer's perspective, unless you're certified, it's really hard for them to make that decision.
And the beverages are such a good example.
There's 8,000 brands, but when I did select the diversity standards in the Supply of Diversity collection, we saw about 300 of them being certified diverse.
Now that could be a couple of different things.
One, not all the brands updating their profiles, but two, maybe perhaps only this many brands actually have that certification in the first place.
That's a great reminder as well.
I think sometimes just remembering to update your profile can fall by the wayside with everything else that's going on, but certainly as you acquire these certifications, making sure to update your profile makes a huge difference in how you're being found.
Absolutely, and we see that with even outside of diversity.
Say I'm looking for non-GMO.
We see that as, so going back to its sustainability and also organic and regenerative, but I can come in here and use a non-GMO certification.
As a buyer, I cannot presume that there are other brands in the beverage space on RangeMe that are certified but just didn't update it.
I'm gonna look at the screen and go, okay, there's 177 brands that are non-GMO project verified.
I'm gonna look through these and reach out to some of these and start conversation.
Well, last but not least, what are some of the other trends that you're seeing on RangeMe, whether it's categories, whether it's differentiators?
What do you see as being interesting in the industry?
Yeah, so from a differentiator standpoint, we're seeing things like low sugar, so just better for you in general coming through.
It's been good to see the likes of Poppy and Olipop leading the way for those in the beverage space in particular.
Sustainability, especially around regenerative organic now becoming big.
Supply diversity is still very much at the forefront.
And outside of that, we've noticed a lot of the top national chains wanting strong D to C presence with brands.
So they want new emerging brands who've been on this market or in the market for less than four or five years, but have a really strong D to C space because they're all fighting so much with each other to get those shoppers in store.
And we've seen some of those examples where there are brands that are doing really well on social media and on Amazon, and the retailer is much more likely to pick them up because they know that instantly by carrying that product, they're gonna be able to drive more traffic to the stores.
Fascinating.
And D to C is a box you can check on your profile, is that right?
You can put in through your social media handles and your stores that you're carrying in.
So if you put in Amazon and you also put in your social media handle, buyers are looking at that.
That's why trending on Instagram has been one of our top used collections.
Where I can come in as a buyer and go, okay, of all the 8,000 non-alcoholic beverages, these are the top 100, that means they're doing well to have social media following, especially on Instagram.
And I know by potentially carrying one of them that they've already done the hard work of getting brand awareness to consumers about their own brand.
And no surprise to see Prime over here.
No surprise at all.
No, no, certainly not.
Well, that was incredibly informative.
Vir Satyan, SVP of Supplier Success.
It rained me.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Just one more time.
Could you just give us your email address one more time?
Absolutely, and thank you for having me as well.
So it's vir, V-I-R dot S-A-T-Y-A-N at rangeme.com, which is rangeme.com.
You have any questions, you need any help, contact Vir.
He is ready to answer your questions.
Thank you everybody so much for joining us today on Community Call.
You can watch a recording of this show at bevnet.com/communitycall.
You can sign up for future calls there as well.
Thanks again for joining us, and we'll see you next time.
That concludes another episode of the Community Call podcast.
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