The Startup CPG Podcast

00:00
Dwight Richmond
You.

00:02
Daniel Scharff
All right, everybody, welcome to another episode of the startup CPG podcast. Today we are thrilled to have Mr. Dwight K. Richmond, who is a seasoned expert in the grocery sector. With over 30 years of experience spanning roles from retail management to senior category management, Dwight brings a wealth of knowledge to the table. He has worked at Whole Foods Market, Dean Deluca, Kehi Earth Fair, CA Fortune, the fresh market, and now is the director of center store at town and country markets. So get a snack, tune in. We're about to explore the intersection of entrepreneurship and consumer goods with our guest, Dwight. Dwight, thank you so much for joining us. And it was great to see you this week, actually at the Fancy Foods Las Vegas show. How did you enjoy the show?

00:53
Dwight Richmond
Yeah, no, it's great to see you too, Daniel. Thank you for having me on, and thank you all for listening today. It was a good show. I always like fancy Food winter show a lot because it's kind of the beginning of the year. Everybody's sort of relaxed. The pressure of the holidays are passed and vacation worried about your vacation, and the weather is kind of passed, and everybody kind of comes together as a family, and we kind of celebrate the beginning of the year. And so I've always found this show to be really kind of delightful and just a great way to network and get the deeper connection with the vendor community.

01:26
Daniel Scharff
I like how you describe it. It did feel very relaxed. To me, it's not sort of the craziness of expo. That's my second time at the show, and it really was interesting to me to see just actually, there were so many buyers there and like, very high quality buyers. For know, having run a West coast brand, there were a lot of the people that I would want to see. And if you looked at it per capita, it was even more impressive. Just know, comparing to the audience and the number of brands there, it's like, well, this thing is actually pretty stacked. Did you see any sections or brands that you thought were particularly interesting?

02:03
Dwight Richmond
I'm going through all my notes now. I really enjoyed, I think this year more than ever, I think SFA has really dialed in the incubator and entrepreneurial section for first time exhibitors and some of the incubator brand co ops that they have. There really good quality brands in that area, a lot of them very ready to go to retail. So I think that's a credit to kind of the incubation programs at a lot of universities and a lot of programs. I also think it's credit to the entrepreneurs who are really starting to pay attention and understand that what they need to do to survive and thrive in CPG, they're learning quickly and adapting quickly. And the other thing is, they're very hungry and they're eager to learn from buyers like myself and others on what they can do to improve trend wise.

02:53
Dwight Richmond
We saw a ton of yuzu, not surprising because of Japan being one of the big sponsors countries of this show. Saw a lot of bubble tea, which was interesting because I feel like that trend is sort of passing us by. But that's okay. Sometimes that happens in shows as we've walked a lot of expos over the years, and you're kind of scratching your head saying, why is there so much of this around quietly? I noticed, and I don't know if you noticed it too, kind of the couple of steps backwards on all things plant based and a couple of steps forward on kind of rebalancing everything as far as, like, meat versus plant based, which is the way I think it should be. I think it should be a balance approach to what we see at the show.

03:38
Dwight Richmond
So overall, it was a good show. I really liked kind of the mix of products that we saw there.

03:45
Daniel Scharff
It's super interesting to hear you talk about it because I just wouldn't perceive it the same way that you do. But I definitely noticed those incubator sections. I thought the included section for me was just the most interesting part of the show. And, yeah, I like how you say it. Those brands really are very well prepared. A lot of those brands are part of our community. I know them. They're super savvy founders. Yet Miles comfort foods in there, who's just a great entrepreneur, we had him on the podcast a little bit ago, the Sobo team, the dumplings, and I mean, they're very experienced as well, and they're kind of stacked with founder experience and product development experience as well. So they're coming correct to market.

04:29
Daniel Scharff
The Toto Verde team, the funky, mellow team, we just love all these guys, and it was great to see them shine. And there was a ton of excitement around that section. And I was really excited to meet with the SFA team there also at the show and figure out how we can get in the mix with our community and brands for the future shows to help them amplify that. So that's great to hear from know Dwight, I mentioned your background, which is hard to even fathom, man. You've been everywhere, like a kind of dream list of the natural channel and specialty retailers. Just what's that been like?

05:06
Daniel Scharff
Can you just maybe tell us a little bit more about your career journey and what it's like to have been at some of these different places and how that's contributed to how you think about this whole world of CPG and been.

05:22
Dwight Richmond
I'll be honestly, I pinch myself because I've been blessed. Right? Like, you think about a guy from the midwest and going to the places that I've been and meeting the people that I've met, it just kind of surprises me, even still to this day, all the things that I've been able to watch and observe and be part of over the years. So, yeah, it started for me as that I'm actually a third generation grocer, skipped a generation. My great grandfather actually owned a grocery store. And I came to kind of learn that over time that he, in a bit of despair and career chaos. And my grandmother reminded me of that and said that it was a very honorable and noble profession to feed people and give them a quality of life, of good food and being better for themselves and their family.

06:12
Dwight Richmond
But also, she told me this little story about my grandfather saving a black walnut farm in the area that he lived in. And that kind of started catapulting me on this idea of the true meaning of what win partnership means. I kind of thought about it even before. I know it's kind of a core value at Whole foods and other places that I've worked in. But really, I have the article from the 1940s still, where it talks about how he personally invested in this little community that he lived in to save this black walnut industry there and bring it to Kansas City and sell it in the grocery stores and stuff like that.

06:50
Dwight Richmond
It just really touched my soul, literally, and kind of the North Star for what I do and guides me and all what I do is to really honor his legacy, because he was a really great man. So that kind of pushed me full steam ahead, know this wonderful world of CPG and grocery and whatnot. And I kind of figured out that the best way to get into it and learn it is just to get into it and learn it the hard way, right. And understand supply chain, because I knew pretty early on that I didn't want to be in operations. I didn't want to be a store manager. But I really enjoyed tinkering and building sets and working with vendors and having those aha. Moments about when we discovered an idea of a great product.

07:34
Dwight Richmond
And even that was happening in the stores because I was really blessed. Know, whole foods really gave us a lot of autonomy early on in those days to kind of be our own little owners of our shops. Right. And the bug met me at that point, and I really went after it, and I really felt the best way to be the best at what I do was to really understand every side of the supply chain. And so I took a dive into learning supply chain in distribution, brokerage, and working with brands and consulting with brands in different areas. And I feel that sort of gives me a balance to be understanding on all sides of the equation when it comes to working with brands and retailers. So that's kind of a sum up of where I come from.

08:21
Daniel Scharff
And just for me, as somebody, I've moved around a ton. Like, I've never lived anywhere for more than a couple of years. I've always just been so interested in the opportunity. And just for better or worse, I've not been tied anywhere and been able to move around a little bit. What's that been like for you? Because you've been moving around a bunch also, is it exciting for you? Are you just kind of really just focused on the great opportunities?

08:45
Dwight Richmond
Yeah, I really tried to focus on where I wanted to go with my career long term. Right. And so I knew that needed to make me more nimble and mobile and moving around. Right. So I've always been open to the exploration of what is next and always asking the question of why. And I think as we talk about products and stuff, you'll find that's kind of what I do. I don't assume that I know everything about anything. So asking the questions why and exploring the opportunities has really always been key to me. And not pinning myself down to saying, I will be unmovable in this area except for core values. When it comes to sourcing and quality, I don't move on that. But when it comes to being like, do I live in Seattle, or do I live in Charlotesville, Virginia, or Austin, Texas?

09:33
Dwight Richmond
I love all of know I enjoy going back and visiting all these places that I've lived in and sharing memories with friends and eating great food in these cities. And it's just been a great.

09:48
Daniel Scharff
I mean, it just, the track record that you have is really incredible. I mean, to have been at Whole Foods, earth fair, fresh market, and now town and country. What a lineup. Just to pause real quick, I hear like a notification coming in off your computer or something. Can you close the program?

10:06
Dwight Richmond
I turned it off, yeah.

10:07
Daniel Scharff
Okay, great. Just hard for us to edit that out. What was I going to ask? Okay, so, Dwight, you mentioned how you think about a set. How do you think about a set. What is the perfect set for you? What does it look like for a particular, for your whole store? How do you think about for center store the size of the different sets and then drilling into a specific set? What are the key things you want to accomplish?

10:35
Dwight Richmond
Sure. The one thing every buyer will tell any CPG brand is there's only a finite amount of space and it doesn't grow. We have the space we have and we have to make the best of it. Right. So it's a bit of process of science, it's a bit of process of your gut. It's a bit of following trends and understanding where the consumer is going. I think the biggest thing, the biggest challenge is as I'm watching kind of what the beverage you're drinking is, sometimes we have to just be aware that things change and we have to adapt our categories and our sets to them. I'm looking at poppy and some of these probiotic better for you sodas. That set did not technically exist two years ago. Right.

11:20
Dwight Richmond
And so as a category merchant and steward you have to be aware that something's got to shift and something's got to change. And so you got to go look at the categories and say, okay, well, what's in decline? Or what is the consumer saying they're not interested in as much because I've got to create this new set that they are interested in and make it make sense, make it legitimate to the shopping experience because that product can't just exist with Kombucha and it can't just exist with Coke and Pepsi. Right. Because there's enough brands and enough energy around it consumer wise that you need to give it the proper respect that it deserves. So when we're looking at sets, you kind of look at things that way. I look at it from a couple of different points of view.

11:58
Dwight Richmond
Most importantly, I look at the brand, which is the store. The store brand is really important to the essence of what you want to focus in on and how you want.

12:08
Daniel Scharff
To build sets out.

12:09
Dwight Richmond
Right. So when I understand that and when I understand what we would kind of call an incomparable category or destination category, we kind of know then the foundation of what we're trying to accomplish to the consumer, the guest as they come in the door and how we message to. So then the sets are a reflection of that. You know, for know, we live up in the Pacific Northwest and it's rainy almost every day of our lives here. Tea and coffee should be one of those things that when you think know town and country, you think of tea and coffee. Right. So we would proportionally give them a little bit more space, look at the set adjustments, make sure we're covering off all the local bases, make sure we're covering up the national leading brands, but then really hone in on innovation.

13:00
Dwight Richmond
And these are categories that people come to discover and learn more about what they don't know when discover their next favorite item. So that's kind of some of the ways I look at set building.

13:13
Daniel Scharff
So you mentioned earlier about the fancy food show maybe kind of a back to reasonableness of the plant based stuff from what I would say was a huge probably fad at the past few expos, just plant based everything alternatives. It's always interesting at expo, right, because you always can remember what was the fad that year? And maybe it was mushrooms or it was CBD a few years before. And so it's funny to think about, do we know it's a fad or do we think it's a trend? Right? Like something that might be flash in the pan or. I mean, I don't know. I think I was at least convinced, like, no, plant based is not the fad, it's the trend.

13:59
Daniel Scharff
And it's going to be just kind of the way plant forward and anything, because it was underlying so many of the other fads that you might see just about plants and kind of more, I guess, away from meat and things that are worse for your heart and all that. But I guess bringing that back to your set, are there times where you've made a decision about your set, whether it's at town, country, or any of the other places that you worked where you were like, we nailed it. We saw that trend coming and made the appropriate space and the set for it, and then we crushed it because that's what our shoppers were looking for.

14:35
Daniel Scharff
And then, conversely, is there a time where maybe you were working somewhere that's not quite as nimble as town and country, and you felt like, okay, yeah, in hindsight, we could have moved on that one faster, and then we had to wait until the next reset to get some of those products in there.

14:51
Dwight Richmond
Yeah, I would say one of the big ones would have been cold pressed juice back around 2013 14, I think. Whole Foods, we nailed it. We got in there really early on. It was a challenge by leadership for us to figure out the juice category and dug into it. And the beauty, especially, like Whole Foods, was that we had national data and we had all these little seeds of great cpgs like suja juice and blueprint juice and evolution, fresh juice and genesis juice, they were all just really small companies in that era, right? And so were looking at that, and were. We got all the juices together, and we're like, why are people not drinking odwala naked anymore? Well, it's because they're full of sugar. They're not really juices. They're sugar beverages.

15:36
Dwight Richmond
Now, when you looked at them on kind of the fundamental basis of what are they trying to accomplish, right? And so we found these things called cold pressed juices, and we're like, these things are phenomenal. They're refreshing. You don't have to take big gulps of water to cleanse your palate. Super nutritious. Generally lower in sugar. Right. And whatnot and hold a lot of their nutritional density, because at that time, it was a new technology for most people called HPP. And so I think we nailed it. And to your point, when we nailed it, the next know, cold pressed juice was know everybody had a cold pressed juice, right?

16:15
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, I love it. I love cold pressed juice. I have a big thing of evolution fresh in my fridge right now. I grew up with Tropicana, and my parents still have that, and I'm like, guys, you don't know. There's, like, really good stuff out there. But I think, amazing. Just the, I don't know, kind of crazy sugar stuff that a lot of us grew up drinking and still a lot of people don't know. And, I mean, it's expensive, obviously, for the cold pressed juice, but for me, I really enjoy it. I had Jeff Church, who is the founder of Suja Juice, on the podcast.

16:50
Dwight Richmond
A little bit ago.

16:50
Daniel Scharff
So were talking about that, and he told a similar kind of story about the growth of it and the importance of whole foods. But the part of it that's really interesting for me to hear from your perspective is picking up that trend and deciding to go all in on it. So it sounds like you did that by looking at the sales trend of a couple products like the aywala and just figuring out what's the commonality? Oh, they're really high sugar, and then figuring out where people might be moving to and what categories could capture those and help consumers more. Or how exactly did that happen?

17:23
Dwight Richmond
Yeah, I mean, Jeff and I have known each other for a really long time. He's a great guy. And I remember when I discovered Suja, because it was really late at night, and I was pouring over data, and I came across this anomaly in the southern Pacific region of whole foods. And so I was texting her. I maybe even called them, and I said, what is this thing called, suja? They're like, oh, this is the best thing ever, right? And I'm like, oh, I got to figure out what this is. Because their growth rate was phenomenal. It was totally off the charts, and sometimes that's misleading. You got to really be discerning on that. I just had one of my buyers yesterday was, like, seeing 16,000% growth on something. I'm like, nothing of nothing is something, right?

18:05
Dwight Richmond
So we got to be careful about that. And what I was looking at was the unit trends and the velocities of that item. And I was like, because the dollars were high, because it's a higher, expensive, more expensive item. But I saw this dollars continuing to rise or the units continuing to rise, like, there's something really to this. And so I got more information reached out to Jeff, and that's where we started to make the connection of that and really kind of understand that. Well, there's these suja in the west coast. There's these guys called blueprint in the east coast, and there's a couple others in between. Right? Evolution fresh was coming online, and there was a great little brand up here in the Pacific Northwest called genesis, which I kind of forgot about.

18:46
Dwight Richmond
And they were one of the ogs of cold pressed juice and HPP juice. And I was already selling them before I moved to Austin. And I'm like, oh, wow, I forgot all about, you know, that was really the key, was just kind of understanding of when for good buying and good know, entrepreneurialism. It's really listening to what the consumers are trying to tell you because they sometimes don't know how to verbalize it, but they definitely verbalize it with their wallets and how they're shifting their patterns. Right. You're talking about plant based. I don't think plant based is dead as a trend. I just think plant based is leveled off to its reality, and now it's actually going to grow sustainably. I've said for a long time plant based was not growing sustainably.

19:33
Dwight Richmond
And I also have a deep fear and concern that the consumers were going to kind of begin to push back on plant based once they realized kind of the scientific concoctions that were being put out there as plant based, which were really more food based nutrition, as much as they were trying to say, well, we're not animal based food. Right? Because I've seen that trend really, basically in my whole entire career of natural foods was people who are really into this industry of healthy eating and better living for themselves. Really just want pure, transparent ingredients, know where they're coming from, and they want as minimal amount of processing as possible to deliver the best possible flavor. And that is an almost near impossible task for a lot of your CPG friends here.

20:20
Dwight Richmond
But that is really what consumers ask for and that's what guides them.

20:24
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, it makes sense. I was pretty interested in some of the plant based stuff early on. Impossible beyond, kind of blown away by it. And then I think just me personally, over time, I was like, well, I don't know if this feels like the thing I should be eating, but it did get me to then start looking towards things like Dr. Prager's and things that to me felt like more simple ingredients that weren't necessarily trying to be a burger, but they did taste pretty good. And you throw a little cheese on there, you got yourself a pretty good little mean, I think huge impact, no matter what happens, of just helping people, I think more about what they're eating, which probably as a society we can all use, including myself. So that's really interesting to hear.

21:08
Daniel Scharff
And then, yeah, conversely, is there any trend you feel like, oh, I was a little late to that one. I wish I had gone all in on it early on. As soon as we saw the early signs.

21:20
Dwight Richmond
There is one sort of coming top of mind you have that missed that one moment, I would say I don't feel like I really drove CBD as quickly as I could, and I kind of missed the bubble on that one. Got it. And obviously the bubble has already passed on that one. And I think I got in a little late on that one. I think Covid sort of messed that one up a little bit, too, because it kind of came right at the same time. It was really more of just trying to understand it and understand the rules and the regulations around I. And I also feel a little like, I don't know that I've missed it, but I'm still a little confused by the whole era, the mushroom trends. I don't know if I'm missing it or the consumers are missing it.

22:12
Dwight Richmond
So I've been trying to figure that one out.

22:14
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, me too. Yeah. The perception of mushrooms is super healthy, but I think I'm still figuring out, like, okay, but how do people actually want to eat them and what products do they want to see them in? Kind of stuff. So I guess probably time will tell. And the data and the wallet, as you say. Yeah. When you look at your set right now, what are some products that you're super interested to see out there when you're going to the trade shows, any big holes in the set or opportunities or types of products you're looking for right now?

22:49
Dwight Richmond
Usually snacks and beverages are always a churn. Right. And trying to stay ahead of the wave of the consumer trends and kind of just the brands, what they're coming out with is always something I'm looking at. So I'm never not in the space of inquiry about that. And I think that's really a good pause point to just say when you're looking at categories and sets, never underestimate any of them really. And always be in a state of inquiry that you don't know what you don't know. Right. So when you go into shows, I'll have a mild shopping list, but I also go to just discover what I wasn't expecting, what I didn't know. I obviously will take a good pass through my data.

23:33
Dwight Richmond
We partner with spins here so I can kind of get a good look at what's up, what's down, what's all around. I got my own internal data that I look at.

23:42
Daniel Scharff
And what is the data that you see? Is it just for town, country? Is it the total channel for natural channel? Is it total grocery? What are you most interested to see?

23:54
Dwight Richmond
I generally will look at town and country. So I call it the mirror and the lens. So I look in the mirror first. That's me looking at town and country. And I say, I got some dirt here and here, and I need to clean it up, or, hey, I look pretty good there. And then the lens is where I really say, okay, now I need to look at what others are doing around me. So maybe looking at my region as a whole, but then also where is the innovation come from? And that usually comes from the coast. So I usually look at the coasts. So the rest of the west coast and the east coast in certain categories, especially.

24:26
Dwight Richmond
So, like in the east coast, I really look at certain pantry categories a lot more because I think they're more innovative and they tend to be heavier consumers of certain categories. Whereas on the west coast, that's where the innovation of snacks and beverages come from. You think about some of the things are birthed from. We're just talking about cold pressed juice or some of the raw trends and keto trends of the know. They're really birthed on the west coast, and some progressive know that come out of that. That's. That's how I look at it. Not to disclose anything from the midwest. Midwest is more of a validating region for me than anything else.

25:04
Daniel Scharff
Yes. From California to the world. It's super interesting to live here and see just the emergence of a bunch of trends. And actually at Expo west this year, I'm doing a panel called tastemakers, the SoCal retailers. So we'll have a bunch of them on there and just a little bit more of trying to understand how are they sourcing some of those trends and putting a lot of fuel on the fire for them, as on that data front, a little bit more. So for me as a brand, if I'm talking to you about my product, I might say something like, hey, do you know that your store under indexes on this particular category trying to imply, like, maybe you need some more skus in here so that you can capture the growth that the rest of the market is seeing.

25:49
Daniel Scharff
Is that the kind of stuff that you're looking at in the mirror that you described? Are you looking at just kind of sales trends per category, up and down and velocity, how certain categories compare to others in your store? What specific data points do you look at for yourself and then through the lens?

26:06
Dwight Richmond
Yeah, I mean, I'm looking kind of at customer traffic, unit traffic. So some categories are better in dollars than they are in units, but yet units really pay the bills and justify the shelf space, whereas dollars kind of depending on the gross profit and whatnot you're working on, they are relevant or they are irrelevant. Really. A good example of that is like, I think a lot of us chase the trend of high priced ice creams back in the day. So the $9 and higher ice cream pints because we saw the dollars of them. But when you looked at the units, the space to sales ratios were just all wrong. You weren't actually driving the category forward by trying to just pump dollars into it because there weren't enough units to support and sustain that trend. So you had to really kind of adjust it.

26:57
Dwight Richmond
I do look at that a lot. What is a trend? What is a fad? And then where is the real growth? Where is the consumer going? Because in a macro level, you have to look at the economy too, but you also have to look at kind of, what is the elasticity from your guest point of view of the retailer that you're in to understand what they will or won't buy. For example, we'll say, I've been spending a lot of time in coffee and tea, and I've been spending a lot of time in pasta and pasta sauce lately. And I've come to realize, okay, that the average consumer in Seattle says, I won't pay over 1599 for coffee. Just won't do it right, because you see this huge drop in the units at that point. So we kind of know where the sweet spot is.

27:43
Dwight Richmond
And so when I'm talking to brands, I'm kind of like, okay, you can bring me a really expensive brand, and I will listen to you, but I'm going to tell you up front, probably not going to sell really well, and here's the reasons why. That said, I love to be told I'm wrong. I'm first to say, I love to be told I told you so, that I am the best thing out there. I usually will say, well, that just depends on how well you want to drive it. Right? How aggressive you want to be in market and how much you want to follow the programs that we can offer to help you get your name out there.

28:14
Daniel Scharff
All right, yeah, super helpful. Thank you. And so, moving a bit more just to focus on town and country, can you give everybody a little bit of an overview of town and country as a grocer? Like location, number of stores, consumer ethos, those kind of things?

28:32
Dwight Richmond
Yeah. No, thank you. So town and country market is a family run business over 65 years. And it is a six store chain in Seattle. Again, one of the last truly independently owned family businesses out there. We have four stores actually in the Seattle area and two on what we call the Kitsat Peninsula side. Varying sizes and formats. Three very large stores, three smaller. Also, because we are asian american owned company, we have definitely more of a slant. And we have stores within stores on asian foods within three of our markets. And there's a fairly heavy presence of them within our other markets as well. So we do want to make our asian american consumers in this area and our guests in this area feel welcomed and be able to find the items that they're looking for on their daily need basis.

29:29
Dwight Richmond
So in an index profile, I'd say we air that think, you know, our consumer is kind of similar to what you might find at a central market in Texas or in Irwan, down in your area in California. Right. They're a little bit more affluent. They're a little more educated. They want to have a sense of discovery when they come into our stores. But then on the other know, there's an amperstand in our name for a reason. And that is that we do also want to offer everyone the chance to come in and do a complete shop and find the value that they're looking for as they're shopping. So it's really important to us to be inclusive of all of our community in all ways. Yes.

30:10
Daniel Scharff
I don't often see a full basket shop at Erwan here in Venice, near where I live. I hosted a Shabbat dinner not that long ago, and we had some generous funding for it, and so we had it catered from know. We thought it'd be cool to try it and it would get people really excited. And my friend who went to pick up the order, just huge boxes of Erawan catering. Walking out, I was like, did people just look at you like, who is this guy that could afford all of these boxes of heroin? This is like a prince of something nice. So, pretty funny.

30:46
Daniel Scharff
But, yeah, having demoed there a bunch of times, it's pretty interesting because it's sort of like a museum gift shore shop sometime where you stand there and you do the demo and you spend a lot of time talking to somebody. And then maybe if you convince them, they buy like, one can of something and it goes with their deli sandwich. Delicious, whatever. Whereas if I go demo at Central Market, I've sold 200 cans in a demo at central Market, and consumers are just like, what is this? Looks clean, tastes good. I'll take ten. Let's go.

31:20
Dwight Richmond
That's a little more of our basket speed, too. Do you know Caroline from pizza girl?

31:27
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, I'm familiar with her.

31:29
Dwight Richmond
Yeah. So she came and did a demo, and she had that kind of experience, too, where they're grabbing three and four bottles at a time and just putting them in the cart, and it was kind of amazing. But that's the power connection for any CPG brand. When you have a good retailer like myself or central Market, where we'll set you up for success within demos, you do the demos best yourself, right? And you will find success when you do that because you connect with the consumer, because the consumers are just hungry. The guests want to make connection to the brands and the people that they are buying from. And you have them for life when you make that connection.

32:04
Dwight Richmond
And the thing is, they're the best evangelists for your brand outside of you, because they're like, I met the owner and talking about the brand, and so their friends and family are like, well, I got to go buy this brand now. And it grows from there. So that's the beauty of the business we're in.

32:20
Daniel Scharff
I love it. I love demoing for all those reasons. And people can look into your eyes and see the passion that you have about the product, and they really respond to it in a way where I mean, you can get great demo people to help, but it's never going to be the same and they're never going to chase people down in the store the way that you would as somebody who really embodies the brand. But yeah, I think it is special for people. I think it's cool too. If I'm in there and I meet somebody from the brand or potentially even the founder, it's super cool. Creates a connection. And I've also met people in the stores who pick up a product and I would look at them and say, hey, that's cool, you chose that product.

32:55
Daniel Scharff
I know I'm friends with the founder and they're like, yeah, I have a friend who knows the founder. So I really like to support the brand. I mean, it can start that way. We're all fighting one by one for fans of the brand who then help us spread our message. And so all of that stuff is fun and very important. So I love to hear you talk about it that way. So I think any brand would be really lucky to be in town and country. How do brands get on your radar if it's not just you finding them at a trade show?

33:27
Dwight Richmond
So pretty open door policy. I'm not shy on LinkedIn. I like to post and I like to communicate with brands. I'm not one of those guys who likes to have submit to the category box and I tell my buying team, I don't like that either. I want them to be engaged with brands as we're talking about the demos and stuff. I want them to make connections with these people because over the years I kind of learned both sides of this fence and understand that there's some people that are generationally passionate about their brand and they want to pass it down to their generations. There's some that are not as generationally passionate and they want to be success and they want to move on to their next venture.

34:08
Dwight Richmond
I think there's space in this universe for both, and I wasn't in that belief system before, but now I kind of understand both sides of that equation. Right? And so for me, we obviously work with our distributor partners and we work with our broker partners to do some sourcing for us and whatnot. We use the trade shows. I'll use stuff like Rangeme quite a bit for sourcing and then I spend an inordinate amount of time reading trades and consumer information. Right.

34:43
Dwight Richmond
So looking at the feeds from Nosh and Bevnet and looking at the feeds from SFA and new hope media spend every day looking at those and just seeing where the little nuggets are that people might miss and just clans and like I said, and then sometimes it's just a matter of just a cold call email, and I see something there and I'm like, okay, well, let's have a conversation.

35:13
Daniel Scharff
So brands could reach out to you on LinkedIn? Theoretically. And any other of your team members that are good people for them to try to hit up on LinkedIn, depending on what their category is.

35:25
Dwight Richmond
Yes. Sometimes. I don't know how many of my team are super active on LinkedIn, but usually they're always pretty responsive on their emails. Perfect. And usually I'm happy to farm some off too, if they need to be farmed off. So if I'm not going to be the expert or the decision maker, I'll connect them with the tip person, that is.

35:43
Daniel Scharff
All right. Amazing. So let's say one of these brands listening right now, gets your attention on LinkedIn, and now you're interested, you like the product. What's going to actually make you decide to take it on shelf? Is it they're already in the distribution center that you use or they're offering something on a promotional plan that you think is going to really be effective for consumers? What are the key things you're looking for when you're talking to them about their plan?

36:14
Dwight Richmond
So, first off, I'm looking at the product, right? I always tell brands, imagine yourself on my shelf. Do you make sense? First off, that mirror and lens thing. Be realistic with it. If you look out of place, you're probably out of place. But if you see yourself on the shelf, then you know how to sell to me better, because then you're starting to make a connection with me as a retailer. I will tell one of the little secrets for all you CPG brands out there. If you've never been in the retailer that you're trying to pitch to, it really pisses us off. So don't come and pitch me and don't know who I am. At least go to our website and look at can't. I know people can't travel everywhere, but it really is.

37:00
Dwight Richmond
I mean, in all my stops and then I've worked for category managers and directors above me and below me. The one thing that we all always will get irritated about is, do you even know who we are and what we carry? Right? So real important little nugget there for you to know.

37:17
Daniel Scharff
Yes.

37:18
Dwight Richmond
You'd be surprised how many don't know it.

37:21
Daniel Scharff
I was just thinking, I would love for us to create a repository of just videos from every retailer so people can actually see and feel what it's like to be in the stores because there's no replacement from actually being in there. Like looking at what kind of cars are in the parking lot, what kind of people are in the store, just what's in their basket and what does the store look and feel like. All of those things are just super helpful and really hard to do in any way without actually walking in yourself. And how many sale tags are there and how big is the assortment and what kind of brands are they carrying?

37:58
Dwight Richmond
Well, you can accomplish some of that. If you have brokerage, you can accomplish some of that. Again, if you can't accomplish it, and I recognize some people just can't do it, that's fine. But the beauty of COVID and the beauty of technology is ecom is that we all have websites. We're all pretty open now and transparent. You can at least get a picture of our stores by looking at your category that you're pitching me to. You can kind of see the products that are in my category, right. Virtually. And honestly ask me, if you don't know, ask me. I'm happy to say, okay, well, here's a picture of the set, right? I'm more than happy to do that.

38:34
Dwight Richmond
I would much rather engage with brands who want to know more about me than just want to sell me, because I'm going to sell you as hard as you're going to sell me. That's the other thing. Being on the other side of the desk is I know it's important for you as a CPG brand to feel confident that you want to be in my stores. I'm going to help you get to your success state that you want to be in whatever that success state, right? So that starts with the product, right? I need to see the product. I need to taste the product. I need to look at the ingredients of the product. I will tell you one thing was kind of disturbing to me at fancy food was I saw some products there with substandard ingredients.

39:14
Dwight Richmond
They were there as specialty and they didn't actually have specialty ingredients and they were taking shortcuts. And I called them on that. I'm like, guys, if you're going to come to me and pitch to me and you say this is a great sauce and your first ingredient is ketchup, I have a problem with that. I have a real problem with that because I can make that here and slap my label on it and call it good. Right? So it was said in love to encourage that brand to say, come on, you got to do better than that. Even if you break those ingredients down into their core components and decompose ketchup into its ingredients, do something, but don't put that as your first ingredient. Give me something better. So that's important too. And the attributes are important.

39:56
Dwight Richmond
If I'm looking at a tea or a coffee set and you're coming to me with just straight up conventional, unverified sourcing, blah, blah, I'm going to be probably pretty disinterested in you as a brand. Like, know the attributes that I'm more keen on. Like I'm looking for organic, I'm looking for fair trade. I'm looking maybe for fair trade, but better quality first over organic, certain categories. Organic is not always the first order sort for me because it may not be the best quality. We're looking now more at regenerative agriculture. So like Roc certifications and stuff like, Cause I've been very big in the biodynamic industry for a number of years. I really love it. I think that's way were supposed to be eating in the first place.

40:43
Daniel Scharff
Awesome to hear. I just was lucky to go to the La premiere for common ground. That's all about regenerative agriculture. I was blown away. I'm ashamed to admit I knew almost nothing about it. And after seeing it, very powerful. I really encourage everybody to check it out.

41:01
Dwight Richmond
Exactly. And I think regenerative agriculture is that happy spot for all of us. Between biodynamic, which some people are uncomfortable with for certain reasons, and organic, which others of us are uncomfortable with for other reasons. It really kind of comes into the middle and addresses both concerns. So I'm really happy that this trend, this attribute is really starting to grow and take off because I think people are really hungry for it. And at the end, it really addresses the true root of the problem, which is that we need to all think of ourselves as part of the organism of this planet and the farming system and everything else, the inputs and the outputs. So that's a big key for me. Again, how do you fit on the shelf?

41:43
Dwight Richmond
So if you're kind of checking the boxes of things I'm looking for, then we're going to start a dialogue and have a conversation about are you in distribution or are you not in distribution? I'm okay either way, really. Honestly, I'm blessed that I can open a DC with my volume and velocity because I have high volume. But I also take that as I respect that I need to then deliver. So I need to pick products that are going to deliver that return for that distributor. Right. So just really meeting the vendors and the CPG brands where they are is really important to me. So what level of education support they need, if I'm really wanting to work with them, is really critical in that stage.

42:24
Dwight Richmond
And then also trying to educate them in their different stages of here's what we expect in trade promotions and what we need to grow your brand. Right. Are you capable of investing in it? Here's my margin expectations of what I'm going to probably show on the shelf. So you don't have any surprises. And here's what we need to help you grow and thrive. Because we're a high low retailer, we're not an everyday low cost retailer. So we need those tags and depending on the category, some of those products need to be more aggressive than others.

43:00
Daniel Scharff
Got it. Overall requirements then. So you want to see a decent promo plan from a brand. Anything else or any other cool options that you have for brands that they should be looking at, like display options or anything else that they should know about?

43:16
Dwight Richmond
Yeah. I encourage brands to grow into the space. There's always opportunities for displays and we have multiple tiers of them. So a lot of times I'll launch a new brand on what's called a coordinated merchandising event, which is a smaller display, but it's coordinated in that it's usually a meal solution or it's some sort of partnership marketing that we're trying to communicate to the guests of a theme that we're running in our stores. Right. And so doesn't cost them anything other than the cost of the promo. We don't charge for it, really. So it's a great entry point for a new brand. It's also a place where I think our consumers, our guests, want to discover something new. Right. They're eager and hoping that they'll find the next great thing through those coordinated merchandising events. The other way.

44:03
Dwight Richmond
I mean, there's just a straight up promo displays, right. And in caps and side stacks and cross merch and other departments, we do that as well. And then obviously we have advertising programs. But the other thing, like we talked about is demos. We don't really charge for demos here. We want you to come in. We want to help you be successful, which I think is very unique as a retailer. And I think that's why we're one of the more successful retailers when it comes to demos. I have learned over time it is not a one size fits all solution for all brands. Right. I have budgets that I have to fulfill. Right. And we have requirements, but I know they do too. And so it's really partnering together and understanding what will make us both successful.

44:45
Dwight Richmond
And that's part of that win that we need to do.

44:48
Daniel Scharff
I saw recently on LinkedIn a post from my friend Pierre Jamaic, who was recently one of our episodes giving brands tips for how to crush Expo west. And he said, he, I think, had a comment from you about how you had launched Fish wife in stores and that it had, quote unquote, really taken off in just the first couple of weeks. So what do you think makes something like that happen? What about the brand can make a product take off like that?

45:15
Dwight Richmond
Well, so I had to give it a supporting guest. Right. I met Becca a year ago, almost a year ago, started talking to her and met her at fancy food. I knew a year ago that I needed to do something to my canned tin fish set, right? Or ten meat set. I had too much of what I would call conventional, little less attribute rich products. And I had kind of extremes of very attribute rich products, but very expensive. And there was a disconnect in the middle there for my guests. And we didn't walk our talk that we talked in seafood in our ten fish aisle. Right. So if I had brought fish wives in immediately at that point, it would not have worked. Right. So what I mean by that is I had to build a supporting cast for them.

46:05
Dwight Richmond
That said, I think we put in over 80 new items. We took out almost 80. Right. To make the room for it. So we really took a time to clean that set up and set them up for the best success, because it's a gorgeous product. I know you've probably seen it. The art on it's phenomenal. The box is phenomenal. The product inside is great, it's wonderful product. But to throw that out there next to a 299 can of something that says it's tuna, you're going to fail immediately. So it was really about saying, okay, how do we subcategorize ten meat and seafood? So how do we work on the tuna category, the salmon category, the shellfish category, all these little subcategories? And how do we blend it out and create experience for the guests so that they can come up and discover fish wives?

46:56
Dwight Richmond
And we did that. And that's why I think they're successful, because people come up and there's this wow factor of look at all these great new items and then, oh, wow. We can evoke emotions of excitement with the way we merchandise. Right? And then the CPG brands complement that excitement when the guest connects with them and says, what's this? Oh, this is great. Right? But they don't do that initially when there's a sea of blah. So it's really about kind of looking at your color patterns, looking at the products that are around it, looking at the price points that are around it to try to say, okay, how do I draw someone in to kind of the star of my show? The star of my show is someone like fishwives. I need to make sure the supporting cast will support that star.

47:44
Daniel Scharff
Super interesting. I'm glad I asked that. That's really incredible. Okay, so we've got Expo west coming up and there are probably a lot of brands that are hoping to meet you there. What are good ways to get on your radar ahead of the know as a brand? I might have been sending a direct email to you with a nice graphic saying, hey, here's my booth. I hope we'll get a chance to finally meet. And then even at the show, you're going to probably have your list of booths to go by, or you're just going to wander and see what piques your interest. If brands aren't already on your list, what's a good way for them to try to meet you?

48:19
Daniel Scharff
I always try to tell brands about kind of ways to maybe engineer a run in or a polite way to try to chase you down in an aisle, but kind of doing it gently so that it won't feel like you're being attacked. What's like the soft touch way that you see brands do a good job of making sure that they get to connect with you.

48:38
Dwight Richmond
A couple of things for me personally, and I can't speak for my other buying colleagues, but one, I don't like appointments. So send me an email, tell me to your point, the pretty picture and the booth number. I will save that email and I will make a note of it. And I usually say politely, I won't take an appointment, but I will do my best to stop by. And the reason I don't like appointments is because I want to discover these brands. And when I look at my calendar and I've got broker meetings, distributor meetings, blah blah blah blah meetings, then I'm looking at my actual show floor time. I've got like a couple of hours, right? And so years ago, I stopped that. I said, screw that, I ain't doing that anymore. I'm there to discover. I'm there to learn.

49:22
Dwight Richmond
This is an education. This is like education. This is school for me. Right? I make the time to walk the floors. And so I look at that over the course of the days in the size of the show, and I make that work, right. So I'll take meetings before the show starts. I start really early to help vendor partners and brands, like, if they want to make an appointment, and I'll take appointments after the show because it's that important to me. So I very rarely will take anything during the show. I don't necessarily find that there's an implied or a polite way to not to get my attention while I'm at the show floor. I'm usually pretty open minded to it.

50:04
Dwight Richmond
I think the one thing that I always get kind of interesting, and I love the CPG's point of view on it, too, is I think sometimes they think that they're being overlooked on purpose. It's usually not the case. Buyers are. Sometimes we're on a mission buying mission. Like were text, say, hey, come over to booth 235 now, right? You got to see this. This is the best thing. And so we'll blow past them and they're like, hey. And I'll say, I got to go. I've got to get somewhere. I'll be right back. Right. And that right back might mean a day later, but I will get back. And I think sometimes that hurts them and offends them. Don't be offended by that. I really, truly don't.

50:42
Dwight Richmond
Then sometimes it's kind of, if you do that mid aisle tap and I'm engaged in something, don't be upset if I say, okay, well, thank you, and I'll try to stop back by later to talk to you if I missed you. Expo west especially, is an incredibly, as you probably know, it's a hard show to work, especially those first couple of days, because you're really trying to fight through a sea of a ton of different people and a ton of different interests, and buyers sometimes can get lost in that shuffle. And so a lot of times I have to wait till the last days of that show. So the one thing I'd also say is sometimes as a CPG brand, I know you may want to get out of there early, but sometimes as buyers, because that north hall, we can't get through it.

51:27
Dwight Richmond
We may wait till the last day of that north hall in the morning to go through it. If you're not there and I get player b or c, I'm just going to take information and I hope we connect later kind of deal. So there's some of the little things that I've learned and I kind of do over the years with the show.

51:43
Daniel Scharff
Got it. Okay, so we will not ask for an appointment, but hope that you will come visit our startup CPG dedicated section, which is on level three of Acc. We have a 25 booth set with some very cool emerging brands. I hope everybody listening will come and check it out. If you're looking at that main convention hall with the sign in front of it's up at the top left. So we're really excited to welcome everybody there. So, Dwight, one last question for you. I actually recently saw you at an event with our friend Mike Shaw, another super nice guy, legend from the industry. And I just wanted to know. He had given me some cool advice in the industry. And I was curious to hear if you have any advice for just people kind of getting into the industry now.

52:27
Daniel Scharff
He had told me a couple of things that I really kept with me of, don't take anything personally in this industry and don't burn any bridges. I mean, it is a nice, long career that a lot of us are going to have. And you have already had such an epic career. Any advice for the founders getting into it now, just as they think about hopefully long and productive career?

52:53
Dwight Richmond
Yes. A couple of things. One, know who you are as a brand and know that who you are as a brand today will probably change over time. So be flexible and nimble. Don't get too down on yourself when you don't get in place immediately. Right? I think that's the one thing brands start to panic and start to question their place in the universe. Know Whole Foods doesn't take them in that first review, right? Yeah, sometimes. Maybe you don't need Whole Foods in that first review. Go get the town and countries and the Bristols and some of the smaller guys. Be cognitively aware of your channel strategy thinks. Also really important, right? So know the audience you really want to go after and be dedicated to them as they're dedicated to you. I think that's super important. And transparency on that is really important, too.

53:42
Dwight Richmond
So if you want to sell to targets and Walmart's, fine, just tell us that. I don't mind that, but don't come in and sell me that. All I want to be is natural specialty, and I love you guys so much, and I'm never going to leave you. And then I see you in Costco or Walmart or target in six months because, well, they gave me an offer I can't refuse. Be honest, be transparent. That is probably one of the biggest pieces of advice I can give and then the other one I will say is don't get hung up on your packaging because you will change it. So I always think about that, so much so that even right now we're developing private label internally and it's the first time we're able to do it as a company.

54:22
Dwight Richmond
And I tell the leadership here is like, this is version a. I'm already thinking about versions C's and D of this packaging because I know it will change. So that's the other piece of advice I tell brands is like, don't get too upset and don't get too excited about your packaging because you will change it.

54:39
Daniel Scharff
That is true. I've seen that from everybody and yeah, I think they don't know it the first time around, but oh, you're going to change a bunch. That's really cool to hear from you, Dwight, on the other side of it, and also sounds like you'll be understanding of it when we do change. Yeah. Thank you so much. I feel really privileged to have gotten to hear all of these great tips from you. Especially mean given the incredible background that you have. And I know everybody listening will really appreciate it. You'll probably be getting a lot of LinkedIn requests pretty soon. Definitely recommend for everybody to follow Dwight on LinkedIn. He posts some really great stuff. I know you'll appreciate the content and insights that he shares there. So, Dwight, thank you so much for joining us here on the pod today.

55:25
Daniel Scharff
I'm really excited to meet up with you at Expo west and just again, thank you so much on behalf of the whole community for being so generous with your time.

55:34
Dwight Richmond
Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, looking forward to seeing your section up there at Expo west. I'll put it on my to do list first thing.

55:41
Daniel Scharff
All right, perfect. All right, bye, everyone.

55:43
Dwight Richmond
Thank you.