The Startup CPG Podcast

03:09 Jessi - Welcome to the Startup CPG Podcast. I'm your host, Jessi Freitag. I'm so excited to bring back a very popular guest from last year, Jenna Cameron, for another food service episode. We released episode number 74 with Jenna during December of last year as part of the First Hire series and our conversation focused on first hires for food service sales. Our community seems hungry for food service knowledge and so we asked Jenna to come back on the show to walk us through the biggest players in food service from distributors to operators to buying groups and more. Jenna is currently the sales lead at Simulate and has over 10 years of experience in plant-based food service sales for emerging brands. Listen in as Jenna shares about key term definitions to frame the conversation including operators versus buying groups versus redistributors, major distributors to know in food service including details on Dot, Cisco, U.S. Foods and more, plus other regional distributors and how to work with each, some of Jenna's favorite operators from campus stores to Disney to Red Robin and others and specific nuances, an overview of key buying groups like Compass and Aramark and how to get started with a buying group, C-Store or convenience store channel ideas, resources for finding a regional broker for food service or an advisor and right at the end we cover Groceraunt which are the restaurants within grocery stores and Groceraunt is incidentally my new favorite word and more. Please note that Jenna drops a lot of detailed information in this episode and if you're worried about catching all the company names that she's dropping, fret not. I have included all the distributors, buying groups and operators that she mentions in the show notes with links just for you. Now let's hear from Jenna. Hi Jenna, welcome back to the show. So good to have you back here. How are you doing today?

05:01 Jenna - Hey Jessi, I'm good. I just got back from my honeymoon and kind of like catching up on work and stuff like that and it's been a crazy May and June, like absolutely crazy but good.

05:11 Jessi - Awesome. Well I'm so glad that we could have you here. Your episode that we did last year about food service and first hires was really popular and people loved it and so it's great to have you back by popular demand to talk more about food service and kind of some of the big players in this space and so before we kind of dive into that for those that may not have listened to our their other episode with you, can you tell us a little bit about your current role and also last time we talked you had just started your other role so we'd love to kind of hear how it's going, it's simulating and what you do there and to kind of kick us off.

05:38 Jenna - Yeah absolutely. So my name is Jenna Cameron and I have been in the plant-based food space for the past 10 years. Currently with Simulate, so Simulate makes delicious indistinguishable plant-based chicken. Our current products we do breaded and unbreaded. We have nuggets, tenders, we have crispy cutlets, we have unbreaded pieces and we do food service and retail. We actually started in 2019 as a direct-to-consumer brand and developed this awesome cult following of about 150,000 D2C customers and then launched into retail in 2020 slash 2021 and then food service right after that. So I have been with Simulate for I don't know like eight months or something and they brought me in to build out the food service channel. So you know just like our last episode for a food service hire, super relevant to what I do. So right now I'm just like you know working in on building out distributors, operator partnerships, you know launching new products, stuff like that. In my previous startups like I said I've been in the space for 10 years. I was with Just the plant-based egg company for six of those years and joined extremely early on. They had you know maybe like 20 employees when I joined and then by the time that I left we had 200 plus employees of brand new headquarters, much much bigger company and then after Just I briefly worked for a plant-based dog food company called Wild Earth. Ryan Bethencourt is the CEO. It's a shark tank company. Mark Cuban's one of the investors and then after that I was with Alpha and Alpha makes like amazing breakfast sandwiches, burritos, all kinds of plant-based products.

07:10 Jessi - Awesome, that's great. Yeah so are are you able to share some of the projects and channels that you're working on at Simulate right now? Like which areas that you're focusing on?

07:20 Jenna - Absolutely. So without giving away too much detail at Simulate, we are working on launching a very exciting new product sometime later this year, early next year. If you go over to our Instagram you can see a couple of early photos of it. So that is what I will say. It's not on the market yet so on the product development side we have a lot of fun things happening and then more generally because Simulate is newer in food service, the things I'm working on right now are just building the building blocks of food service. So we're stocked in Dot which is super helpful. I just attended the Dot show. We had some great leads and conversations following that and Dot is they're basically a big food service distributor, their redistributor and about 70% of their business is actually selling to distributors like Cisco, US Foods, BiRite here in California. Pretty much everybody uses Dot so it's a really good opportunity to get in front of new distributors and then they also have a national accounts team. So in addition to working with distributors, they also work with big national accounts and have good relationships there. So yeah, so one of the things I just wrapped up, I got married, I did the Dot show and then I went on my honeymoon but it was a really important show for us to be at. And then looking forward in about two weeks we are attending the NACUF show and NACUF is an operator specific show and it stands for the National Association of Colleges and Universities in Food Service. So we're going to be talking to a lot of C&Us in about two weeks.

08:36 Jessi - Awesome, that's great. Yeah and the kind of information you just provided on Dot is exactly why we're here today so I love that and excited to hear more from you about the other players in the space as well. Can you also define some kind of 101 terms for us as well like you know operator, distributor, buying groups, like can you describe some of those terms and any other terms you can think of that you're going to be using throughout our conversation and we can clarify as we go to but I wanted to give you a chance to kind of set up some of the terms for those folks that might not be familiar.

09:11 Jenna - Yeah absolutely and I feel like this comes up a lot in conversation whether that's internal and I'm sharing with a Simulate team member like hey what is food service or if I'm talking to someone else who works in the startup space and they're trying to unpack food service it can be a little confusing and there's a lot of like terminology and lingo but essentially the way that I look at food service is it's anywhere that you eat when you're outside of the home so that could be like a hospital or where you go to school, a college university, it could be a restaurant you know like Burger King or Panda Express so it's basically anywhere you eat outside of the home and within that that bucket there's a lot going on behind the scenes to support food service. There are operators, there are distributors and then there are buying groups so operators just means any like end customer so anything that you go and you like see it right like you can like order on DoorDash or you go and you like sit down and you eat out so this is like you're interacting with the operator it can be a college university, a restaurant chain, a theme park, it could be you know like a corporate cafeteria at Linkedin or Twitter and then distributors are the people who are servicing all of that business so distributor would be like Cisco or US Foods or BiRite here in California. They're the folks who are actually like ordering all of those products from manufacturers like Simulate in order to supply the restaurant or the C&U with that item and then there are buying groups so buying groups are also a really crucial part of food service because they help operators get the products that they want and they can even do a lot of that work and staffing for them so a buying group would be Compass Food Buy, Sodexo, Aramark so they basically take care of all of those purchasing decisions and those ingredients in order to supply the operator with all of the menu items that they want and need.

10:59 Jessi - Interesting okay great that's super helpful and where do you where would you like to dig in first in the spaces buying groups or distributors what do you think makes the most sense?

11:09 Jenna - Just because I am kind of like fresh off the Dot show let's start with distributors. Yeah. In general when you're building out food service strategy it's really important to develop that like push and pull strategy so that's why it's it's equally important to focus on distributors and operators so you're essentially you know you need to sell into an operator so there's a demand and so when you have a product stocked at a distributor people are actually buying it because if you don't do that it's just going to sit there and you might have to pay to get it there and nobody's buying it so yeah the operator distributor relationship is super important in food service.

11:41 Jessi - Yeah okay yeah let's talk a little bit about distributors and can you describe for us too how distribution within food service is a little different than maybe retail distribution like you know I believe that like UNFI does some food service distribution but it's a little different so can you tell us a little bit about that to set us up as well?

12:00 Jenna -  Yeah absolutely um in food service especially in food versus beverage there are tons of distributors and I think in retail it's a little bit more it's just a little bit easier like there are a couple of big players in retail and if you have your product stocked at like UNFI and KeHe you can pretty much reach like any natural retailer like Sprouts or Whole Foods whereas in food service there are so many different options and it actually can be a little competitive so that's one of the things that is hard for manufacturers to understand in food service is like hey where is our product going? It is can be extremely difficult to get data from food service on an operator level but yeah so because I was just at the Dot show I will start with Dot. I really like Dot as a partner they're very focused on supporting young companies plant based brands, better for you products and they really are known for being leaders in that space and like I mentioned before they are a redistributor so Dot will sell to pretty much anybody. They work with the big national accounts or national distributors like Cisco and US Foods and PFG and Gordon Food Service but they also work with the smaller distributors like BiRite and Chef's Warehouse and Vegan Distribution here in Hayward California and one of the things that they do they help manufacturers like Simulate because they stock all of our products so when a new distributor wants to order our products and they're not located near one of our warehouses right like they can't pick up from us it doesn't make sense for us to deliver to them they maybe can't meet our minimums we say hey we're stocked at Dot and that really helps so that has allowed us to get into a lot of other regional distributors like Vegan Distribution and like Cisco Memphis for example. It also helps drive those item code creations so whenever you get into like a Cisco or a US Foods you have to go through this process of getting an SUPC which is a Cisco item number or a US Foods item number and this allows you to be ordered from any of the other Ciscos or US Foods all around the country so I think if you can as a young brand get into Dot it does take some time you know you have to build those distributor partnerships and show that there's a demand for your products but they are super super helpful and then on the flip side they help distributors because they can order a lot of different products from Dot like they don't have to just order one whole truckload of Simulate nuggets I mean we would like that but they can also kind of like touch or sit together with other things that they need so they could have like you know a half a truckload of frozen plant-based chicken nuggets and anything else frozen that they need as long as it's the same temperature they can order it all on one delivery and then Dot typically delivers once or even twice a week to distributors that are moving a lot of volume so they'll deliver on like Tuesdays and Thursdays for example so it really helps the whole supply chain process of food service I think you know by by having Dot as kind of that like big redistributor other distributors will do some redistribution too like you brought up UNIFI. UNIFI will also do some redistribution there are some other smaller redistributors like there's one in the Pacific Northwest called Alpine but Dot's really the one that I've worked with for the longest I'm most familiar with I think I've been to their trade show like seven or eight times in St. Louis, Missouri.

15:15 Jessi - Yeah that's awesome and for Dot in particular so to get set up like is that something is it like an application process is it is it going to a show like do you have to be working with them to go to a show can you tell us a little bit about that piece of kind of getting in there and getting set up?

15:33 Jenna - Totally so the person that I work with at Dot the most is Rod Willis he's been there for a long time and he is the director of national and specialty so he has done a lot of the pioneering for the plant-based brands so he's a great advocate however you do have to show that you have business and you have some distribution before you can approach Dot because they're not going to work with you know every small brand that doesn't have you know just like some sales that can can go through Dot they're all about moving cases they're not going to move any cases if they're not selling to anybody and to attend their trade show you do have to be a Dot supplier you have to be stocked at Dot so it takes a little bit of time to get to that point maybe like maybe like even a year or so but once you get to that point then you're in and the good news with Dot is that they also service retail so Dot supplies big retailers like Walmart and Target so if you happen to be a plant-based brand that started in retail and you have a foothold in retail you can translate that to food service too because you're already working with Dot to support your retail business so that does help.

16:31 Jessi - Interesting and when you talk about being able to show that you have like demand is that you know when you're on the smaller side is that like having information about like reorders from like individual colleges and universities that you're working with or like what kind of data are you approaching because you mentioned the data is tough in this channel so I'm curious like if you're going if you were helping someone approach Dot like what kind of data would you ask them to prepare or would you ask if they had access to before submitting?

17:01 Jenna - I would the good news is when you're smaller and especially if you're going direct you have a lot more access to data. For example if you're let's just say you're not in distribution yet at all and you're sending all of your first initial orders directly to the operators that's pretty common and the operators for the most part will be open to that too if they're also on the smaller side if they're a lot larger if they're a national account they're going to have distribution they're going to have their system and you're going to have to work within their system but if you're a small brand and you're just working with like mom-and-pop restaurants let's just say here in the Bay Area and you're trying to get your product into all the Bay Area like best chef driven restaurants you're trying to get into all the like Michelin star restaurants or all the vegan restaurants just as an example you could maybe supply them directly to start and then if you're supplying them directly you're getting the purchase order from the operator you know what their what their movement is what their use is so you can then take that to distributors so if I were starting a brand from the ground up like here in the Bay Area I would probably make a list of all of the restaurants or coffee shops or college universities that I wanted to get into as my like target list and then once I have enough business flowing through there directly I you know I'm ready to approach distributors so then I would take that list of operators go to a distributor like BiRite here in the Bay Area and see if they'll stock my product and say hey I have you know X Y and Z restaurant I know they already work with BiRite we're bringing you new customers let's take it from there and then once you kind of build that distributor strategy you can take that to Dot too and kind of do the same thing with them approach them say hey we're working with U.S. Foods and Cisco and BiRite and Chef's Warehouse and we'd love to you know come up with a solution to better service all these distributors.

18:42 Jessi - Yeah okay very very interesting and for working with a redistributor is that something also that you have to do some planning on the margins because already with with working with a distributor you've got to plan the margins for the distributor you got to plan the margins for the retailer or the operator you have a redistributor like is that something that you plan ahead for or that you think of reaching a first a certain stage before working with the redistributor to make sure that the the dollars make sense?

19:12 Jenna - Yeah that's such a good question and I think every brand I've ever worked for has gone through some like growing pains there because in food service you absolutely have to protect your margin and if you if you start out with a really low price which obviously is great especially in food service if you start out with a really low price that doesn't factor in those distributor programs whether that's Dot or Cisco you're going to have to take a price increase and then your initial brands who are your your loyal early adopters be like why are you increasing my price as you grow like it definitely causes a lot of it can cause a lot of frustration so going into it I would make sure you protect your margins Dot is going to have like a it's like per pound they'll have like a per pound program and then the distributors will all have their own programs too and let's just say like let's just say like a three to five percent marketing program to work with a distributor attend their trade shows get the product open coded really you know get their team to sell it and be excited about it so you do have to plan for all those buckets and then you'll also have you know national account programs or operator programs as you grow and you can leverage these to also get data so if you're working with like a larger operator and you give them a price discount to be on the menu or get like a you know menu mention often they'll provide reporting on the back end so you can really use those those like that margin to your advantage if you plan ahead right.

20:24 Jessi -  Right okay and for I wonder if there's any differences thinking through like front of house back of house so like for using Simulated as an example if you're supplying like bulk big bags of chicken nuggets to the cafeteria but then you're providing like a ready to heat pack like a retail pack for the student store like is there any differences in getting those different items set up with the with someone like Dot or is it all the same like and is the the marketing materials you provide differently kind of curious about how that breaks down within distribution.

20:59 Jenna -  For the most part just using a college university as an example because C&U by the way is like one of my favorite segments in food service it's just so fun and you can build college ambassadors and brand advocates and there's just so much to do there but pretty much every college university will have back of house and front of house you know there are so many different places you can eat on campus um whether that's like sitting down and ordering a chicken sandwich or chicken nuggets or buying something in the market in the market to take back to your dorm room and heat up and they're usually serviced by different distributors so it can be a little confusing uh just like using UC Berkeley as an example they were one of my very first food service customers I sold them uh just mayo back in like 2014 so they were buying big gallons of plant-based mayo and then they were also buying it for their stores and a lot of college universities will have like five dining halls 10 dining halls six different markets um like you know place places that you can go and buy groceries and stuff like that so there's really a lot of business at every C&U but yeah so they'll use like a unify or a vista to service those little markets the grab and go retail items and then they'll probably use you know like a BiRite or a Cisco for the back of house products so it can be a little confusing the good news is that Dot sells to pretty much everybody so if you are able to get into Dot you can then supply Vistar, Cisco, US Foods, BiRite with you know retail and food service items.

22:22 Jessi - Interesting yeah that that makes sense and for college and universities like you mentioned it's probably sometimes different like buyers that you're working with if like sometimes cafeterias are part of a like a buying group like a like a management company and then like the student store might be owned by someone else so that's super interesting to think through that you might if you use someone like Dot they can service everybody but if you're using you might have smaller distributors that you're working with to service the different the different pieces and with working with Dot what does it look like to set up the relationships with the accounts like are you mostly meeting people at trade shows are orders being placed you know through like finding in the catalog and then you're reaching out like what does it look like for you to ultimately connect with the operators that are purchasing from Dot then it's getting often you know going to a distributor and then it's ending up an operator. How do you maintain the relationship being kind of a couple degrees away?

23:14 Jenna - Honestly it can be really challenging in food service it is at the end of the day all about relationships and I tried to I try to build relationships with every point of contact so as a manufacturer who works with Dot we have our own rep so we have someone at Dot who manages our account so that really helps and you know you can work with your Dot rep to approach them with new products to ask about the trade show to put together marketing campaigns on their portal and all kinds of things so I really lean on our Dot rep for a lot of different items and even though he's not usually the person who manages what I'm asking for he will connect me with anybody at Dot and kind of pull those pieces together and then it's also really important to maintain the relationship with the distributor it's one thing to just have your product there and let's just say they bring it in to fulfill an operator request and it's just kind of like a case that's moving through the system that's one thing but you can also lean on your distributor reps to help you get into other operators and when you build those relationships with your distributor rep and they know they can rely on you they know they can call you be like Jenna I have a problem I need a case we're out or something they can also bring you to meetings bring you to cuttings bring you bring you to ride-alongs and introduce you to their favorite customers so I think it's really important to also build those relationships with the distributor reps and then obviously the operators so whenever I'm talking to you know a college university or a restaurant chain I try to find that brand advocate and that person who really loves the product and you know obviously likes me or or the sales rep as a person so I think it is really important to build relationships throughout every area of food service in order to be successful

24:54 Jessi - Yeah oh that's great can you describe for us when you use the term cutting what does that refer to?

24:59 Jenna - Yeah for sure I feel like in food service it's a little bit different than retail a cutting can look like a bunch of different things but it's essentially a presentation of your product if you're working with a larger national account it's going to be a little bit more official ideally you'll have this the CEO the CMO the culinary team is going to be in more of a corporate like a boardroom setting you'll go and prepare the product in a kitchen that is also on site and then bring it in for the team to try or if it's a smaller customer like a college university or a mom-and-pop restaurant you're just going to go back in their kitchen and you're cooking your product using their equipment whether that's like a deep fryer or a turbo chef and you might even take your laptop and put it on the counter and do your presentation kind of like in the kitchen with the the chefs or maybe like two or three people yeah that's the cutting it's just a presentation and tasting and eating your product.

25:41 Jessi - And is that typically set up like when you are pitching the product or is that sometimes happen after you know maybe they've purchased from a redistributor like Dot and they're trying to teach their team about the product like when does that usually happen?

25:55 Jenna - I would say a cutting happens before they purchase it okay so I would go and do a cutting to kind of like put my best foot forward and get them to buy my product if you're doing a training then that could look a little bit different after the you know let's just say it's a regional chain and they've they've rolled out the product in all their locations then you may want to go and do a training for the employees and make sure that they're preparing it the right way that they're not like cooking it weird or mixing in an ingredient that breaks the formula or something like that um so that would be different like a training.

28:41 Jessi - I feel like we could spend the whole time just talking about uh just talking about Dot do you want to walk us through a couple other of the big distributors as well?

28:41 Jenna - Yeah and I will start i'll start with a small one first just because it's on the top of my mind but one of my first customers at Just again with the Just mayo this was back in like 2015 or something like that um her name is Sharon and she runs Vegan Distribution here in the Bay area and I've worked with her on you know several different brands pretty much every brand that I've I've worked with I've worked with Sharon in some capacity so just you know keep that in mind especially in food service even if people go to different roles or different companies most people who are in food service stay in food service and it's a very like close-knit community so if you're able to build those relationships you can take them with you wherever you go and they'll take you you know wherever they go that being said vegan distribution is is a they're not tiny but they're just a bay area distributor and like the name says they have only vegan products and they have a ton of customers here um that they work with and they they work with you know a lot of the strictly vegan places but then also a lot of places who just have plant-based menu offerings and then kind of going out from there one of my other favorite distributors that's kind of on the smaller side is BiRite they're also in the bay area even though they're here they're in just service the bay area they're the 24th largest distributor in the country and people know and love them they they have a great reputation for bringing in specialty items like you know artisan cheeses and stuff like that and also plant-based products I think they were one of the first distributors to bring in the impossible burger and you know really help that grow another one that is great to approach if you they're small but they also have um kind of like a nationwide presence and they specialize in those great metropolitan markets that you know a lot of um plant-based consumers live in and um trendy up-and-coming etc uh chef's warehouse so chef's warehouse I would say they have a really good presence in California and New York which for us at Simulate that's a really good market so chef's warehouse great one again all these people work with Dot and then kind of going up from there I also really like vista so vista and PFG are all one in the same um PFG is more of a traditional back-of-house food service they're going to be carrying those bulk brands but vista they do tons of grab-and-go so as you're approaching for example a college university you can work with PFG on the food service side and then vista on the grab-and-go side they also service this amazing operator called uh fall at bookstores and I think they have about 1200 locations but fall at all of their locations are camp campus adjacent so it's you know you'd go there and get like swag for C&U um whatever else like pens or something and then you could also buy um food and drinks they have coolers they have freezers so that one's really fun and they use vista and then there's obviously Cisco and US Foods everybody uses Cisco and US Foods they will tell you your operator will tell you you know they'll pretty much ask pretty much everybody will ask right away if you are stocked at Cisco or US Foods you know those are obviously the big players it can be hard to gain momentum nationwide but um you can start by building those like regional partnerships and a lot of C&Us C&Us use them too so you know if I were starting my own company I would probably approach college university on the operator front and then kind of build distribution that way it's just an amazing place to start for plant-based and for so many reasons um but you know college students are great advocates and and brand loyalists and stuff like that and then Cisco and US Foods also have really interesting programs that you can become a part of the Cisco one is called Cisco cutting edge I think beyond meat did this back in the day but you basically make a custom flavor custom product um for Cisco or you just have your product exclusive to Cisco for you know a year but Cisco Cutting Edge Solutions is a good opportunity to get your product kind of forced stocked into every single Cisco but then keep in mind you have to sell it too so it's good when you're at a point of larger scale you probably wouldn't want to do that like right away but yeah Cisco cutting edge solutions is a good opportunity I'm trying to think and then I mean there are tons of other like Gordon Food Service based in Michigan they're awesome they have tons of plant-based products and tons of like better for you natural products and they also have you know really cool programs that you can participate in they have um they have these storefronts too so a lot of traditional food service distributors are now offering these markets and kind of more like grab-and-go focus areas I think it's called like the GFS store or something like that um shamrock also has a has a similar program so you can you can target both like back of house big boxes traditional food service and the more um grab-and-go like college university cafe etc.

33:17 Jessi - Yeah oh that's all super interesting and with the gordon foods that was one of my like kind of entry points to learning a little bit about food service was using their like direct program where they would place like small orders and they would just let us ship directly to the operator and that was really awesome as a small brand is that common in other distributors is that a good way to get into working with someone like gordon foods I'm curious about your thoughts on that kind of like direct piece.

33:43 Jenna - Yeah I think the direct component is awesome I think it provides a really good solution and it can also like you said it can help small brands kind of like get their footing in food service I think as a long-term strategy it gets a little pricey um so as you're scaling it you know it can be really hard if you're trying to approach national accounts or even like C&Us and then your product ends up being so much more expensive than than the meat based or dairy based product that they're using um and it can become a little unapproachable but as a starting point I say absolutely there are a few others out there like Webstauraunt and Food Service Direct that if you look on their website they sell tons of plant based stuff and I'm speaking specifically about plant based because that's the area I work in but could also apply for you know just like better for you in general but Food Service Direct Webstauraunt on they're pretty easy to start working with and if you have your product stocked at Dot they're probably going to order it regardless.

34:31 Jessi -  Right and for like US Foods and Cisco you mentioned that getting set up with someone like Dot can help you like get your item numbers within like Cisco or US Foods also have you taken the approach of approaching them directly first like what is that how is that different like do you have to have more volume than when you approach Dot like I'm curious like kind of why what would be the pros and cons of approaching them directly versus like getting set up with Dot first and then going to them.

34:56 Jenna - Probably would want to approach them first to be honest um as you're building your brand you know working directly with the distributors and then going to Dot when you have some distributor pull the kind of downside for working with them directly is depending on where your warehouse is where you're producing your product it's not going to be that cost efficient for you to deliver to them because you're probably going to have a minimum in place and if you don't you should you know whether that's like a palette or four palettes or something like that the last thing you would want to do as a young brand is pay someone to put one palette of your products in a truck and then ship it across the country because it's really really expensive however if you have a warehouse that is near a Cisco which like anyone probably would Cisco is everywhere you could work with them on fob program and have them pick it up from you or deliver it very locally so I think that would be a good strategy to optimize you know where your warehouses are you can begin to build those direct relationships before you work with Dot.

35:54 Jessi - Yeah that that makes a lot of sense and then you mentioned some of the smaller not small but smaller like the BiRites and the vegan distributor you mentioned for an emerging brand like how does approaching those uh those distributors look like can you approach with a little bit less data behind you like at what stage can you pitch those is a little bit earlier how does that process different than from some of these bigger players?

36:16 Jenna - If I were working with Sharon at Vegan Distribution for the first time and I was trying to get my product stocked with her I would probably go to the vegan restaurants here in the Bay area and you know get them interested in the product go do some cuttings get in the kitchen you know figure out who would want to buy my product um and then take that list to share and be like hey Sharon I have you know 10 Bay area vegan chefs who want to use my product like can we talk and you know assuming you have that demand and you have that pull it would probably be pretty easy to get that product stocked right.

36:46 Jessi - Okay and is there anything that you prep on the marketing side before reaching out to these distributors as well or that's unique to any of the distributors as far as setting them up for success to have information to put on the menu or to make sure that they're going to be have what they need to feature the product yeah I'm curious about the marketing side if there's anything you think through when you're reaching out to distributor you mentioned setting aside some budget for the marketing programs but I’m curious if there's any other tips there?

37:15 Jenna - Yeah that's a really good question and I know you asked about that earlier with the C&U kind of like front of house back of house component so i'll try to talk of both of those but yeah so you can definitely build a restaurant kit for operators and I would highly encourage every brand to do this at Simulate I'm super lucky we have amazing branding and everything we send our operator partners looks really nice but this could be it's a wide variety of things right like it could be swag so you can have swag for the employees and they can represent your brand while they're working it's great visibility you know when I started with just formerly Hampton Creek in 2014 we had all the whole foods market employees wearing our shirt with the logo and we would send shirts and hats and stuff like that to everybody and they just like permeated I remember seeing them everywhere I still see them sometimes the original like egg logo but yeah so you can you can do swag you can do static clings you can do freezer clings for the market like grab and go you can do branded toothpicks you can do stickers for sandwich wrappers kind of just depends what your product is and you know how consumers are interacting with your product you could even do like a nugget box for example if you wanted to do something a little bit more expensive and higher end but keep in mind the only thing I would caution about this if your operators get really used to having those and you're supplying them for free it can get a little pricey just depending on the size um let's just say you know you send 500 stickers or like 20 t-shirts and then they open another location they have more employees coming in they're doing training um so just like kind of keep that in mind as you grows those materials can be pricey.

38:42 Jessi - Yeah and what was the name of the it was book uh book something that services the uh like or that's like near college campuses what was that a distributor or a buying group?

38:54 Jenna - That is an operator so operator yeah Follett Bookstores like I said I think they have like 1200 locations and then uh Vistar is their primary distributor which is part of PFG now.

39:07 Jessi - Okay wow so so with an operator like that you know I don't know if there's other operators uh that you have as examples but I'm curious about like developing a relationship like that did that is that something that came from the distribution side or is that something where you approach them and then you have the distribution to support it because that seems like a really that's a really big operator to get a connection with so what does

39:31 Jenna - it look like to kind of establish that relationship honestly that one materialized from building a relationship with with everybody so we already had some business flowing through Vistar for smaller opportunities and then also we're working with Follett and you know able to provide like marketing and stuff like that um so it really is about building those relationships because if you're working with a large operator like Follett for example or any national account they probably won't want to work with you if you have zero distribution if they say hey I prefer Vistar hey I prefer Cisco they're not just going to want to stock that product in all of their locations if nobody can order it because what's going to happen is it's going to be a special order it's going to be out of stock it's going to have a really long lead time and all of those things are disadvantages to working with you know that particular brand because they can't get it so it really is about that push and pull strategy and nurturing both relationships at the same time.

40:20 Jessi - Right can you take the demand from you know say okay we're not set up yet but like if you say yes can you take that demand to the distributor I know that you know there's like anchor accounts in like the retail space I'm like curious with the push pull if there's like if you can get a certain like ways along and then take it to the distributor and say hey they'll buy if you set us up in your system?

40:41 Jenna - Yeah absolutely I do that all the time and um part of it is also leaning on your account by accounting being an operator so if I was working with a C&U for the first time I went and did a cutting they love the Simulate chicken tender they want to bring it in then I would you know ask the chef or ask the purchasing manager hey can you please put me in touch with your distributor rep and so then you've got that direct connection and your operator is helping to advocate for you or they're like hey we want this so I i myself as like the brand I'm not going to distribute and saying like hey I think the operator wants it you know they might want it it's instead having that direct relationship and having that advocate kind of be like hey we want to order this like here's our usage can you please get it for me and then of course it helps being stocked at Dot because then anyone all over the country any distributor can be like oh great you're stocked at Dot boom it's on a truck.

41:28 Jessi - Are there shows also for just Cisco US Foods like Gordon Foods like are there specific shows or there shows that you go to to see all of them because like Dot has their own show I'm curious about any other show strategy with the distributors?

41:43 Jenna - Yeah definitely the Dot show is awesome I don't mean to keep talking about Dot but I was just there um they had a thousand or fifteen hundred attendees it was 70 percent distributors and 30 national counts so there were a ton of distributors there and you know in addition to having like Cisco and US Foods and stuff there was also shamrock sunbelt um chef's warehouse you know they really do get a good following of distributors who attend and then yes every distributor has their own trade show too and that all factors into those marketing programs and making sure you have the budget for that by right has a really awesome trade show here in the bay area um shamrock has a really good trade show in southern California um Cisco and US Foods all have their own shows and it can be a little overwhelming to think about because there are so many distributors out there and everyone does have a show that you can participate in but as long as you're building those relationships with like thought and care and not trying to go everywhere all at once they're really fun and you usually meet a lot of good customers.

42:40 Jessi - Yeah that makes sense on the operator like national account side are there any other like I'm sure there's a lot but are there any other like national account kind of operators that you wanted to mention here like just you know shout out for anybody that people may you know it may be helpful to be familiar with.

42:56 Jenna - Yeah definitely and this kind of goes when I'm speaking about essentially operators are split up into two buckets um it's commercial and non-commercial so a commercial operator essentially means like a restaurant chain so that could be like McDonald's or Panda or a smaller like local restaurant or regional restaurant chain that has like 50 locations or something and non-commercial is everything else so that could be a hospital a college university um a prison you know a theme park so food service is massive and it can be a little bit hard to understand but I think just like thinking about it that way is helpful for me but yeah so for larger restaurant chains a lot of my experience honestly is working with smaller regional restaurant chains and they're really cool to build relationships with they all have like amazing passionate teams and so much creativity on the culinary side in the menu but just a few that I've worked with in the past I really love Pete's Coffee they have a great team they're based here in Oakland they're really plant-based forward everyone's like super super smart who works there they're just brilliant bear burger based in New York they also have uh I was there for the Vegan Women's Summit a few weeks ago and I had the Impossible nuggets which were on the menu and I swear they tasted just like chicken nuggets and granted I've been plant based for a very long time but it was really cool to just like order that and dip it in the sauce and stuff bear burger is great I've also worked with veggie girl a lot in the past they're awesome uh fills coffee with a z here in the bay area again just like really cool great food great concept Modern Market based in Denver they're part of lemonade now lemonade is also great based in Southern California and then one of my favorite customers uh red robin you know they they have uh they actually are working on a lot of new plant-based stuff they're awesome but one of my favorite customers of all time is probably Disney World and Disneyland they're so cool they have an amazing culinary team it can be hard to get in there and to kind of um you know get your brand established and there's definitely like a lot of branding that goes into that but um yeah Disney has an amazing team.

44:52 Jessi - So interesting and for for those accounts like with Disney is buying centralized or are you reaching out to like each Disney location or like with Pete's Coffee like are you reaching out to individual locations or at some point is it consolidated into like you know buying decisions for the whole across the whole brand.

45:09 Jenna - Yeah so when you get to that point and you're working with larger customers the good news is they have like a preferred distributor and they have a method kind of set up already so you know for example if you're working with a Cisco you're probably going to have to fill out an ONSA form which is an Operator Negotiated Supplier Agreement and that essentially will put in place pricing any special pricing that you put together for them Disney they do a lot of centralized buying they use a few different distributors and obviously Disney world purchases from different ones than Disneyland because they're in different locations but they you know will let you know who they're using and can help you get it stocked and stuff like that if they like your product there are some smaller ones smaller chains that will use maybe a couple different distributors but it's as long as you have a good relationship with the operator they can help you navigate those conversations and put you in touch with who you need to be put in touch with they're also amazing like regional plant-based chefs and chains that are so fun to work with like Next Level Burger the Founder Matt is amazing he's such a visionary and I think he just opened a couple locations like one in Denver the Plant Power Fast Food team is great too down in San Diego they're also like opening new locations and always changing their menu their food's delicious there are a lot there are a lot of them.

46:15 Jessi - Yeah no that's that's super great and I i also wanted to talk a little bit about buying groups like you mentioned like Compass can you share a little bit about uh maybe some of the buying group players like what it looks like to work with someone like compass and like how you know how to how do you know when a buying group is involved versus reaching out directly like I'm curious a little bit about that.

46:37 Jenna - Yes so working with buying groups can be it's a lengthy process it can definitely be time consuming and it can be hard to get in touch with the right people because the buying groups are massive they have so many employees different sectors and getting that you know top level communication can be really hard so I would encourage brands to find an advocate on a more regional basis and kind of build from there and then kind of work your way into getting a national contract which again going back to margin it's going to cost money to have a national contract with any of these folks I've worked a lot with Compass in the past they're always going to be probably one of my favorite ones but Compass is massive Compass Food Buy has so many different sectors it's such a dynamic business and food service and they really service every area of food service so Compass they have like a college university and a k-12 sector called Chartwells. Chartwells team is amazing um they're always kind of like looking at the forefront there's Bon Appetit that also has a lot of really cool restaurants colleges and universities there's um Levy which does all of the stadiums stadiums are really fun lots of volume great products like very culinary focus and then there's urs that does like corporate cafeterias and stuff like that um like a Linkedin or a Twitter for example so yeah Compass Food Buy is great they're huge and it can take time to get your product in there but really there are so many areas that you can approach because they do the traditional like back of house food service bigger boxes and then they also have a lot of grab and go so if you have a product and you're going into food service chances are you have a product that they would want to order it just can take time to get like the pricing and stocked and all that stuff.

48:08 Jessi - Right yeah no that makes sense I interacted a little bit with Compass for Linkedin like right it was right as the pandemic started I think we shipped a PO for for the Linkedin like headquarters and then it was like locked down and we didn't get a reorder because no one was at the office um so that was my very brief interaction with compass but that that's very interesting and it sounds really intimidating making like regional relationships first like how do you recommend people kind of even approach that like where do you start is it looking at people on Linkedin or like how do you kind of know like how to find someone that's going to be the right person to kind of get your get your way in and who to talk to first.

48:44 Jenna - I would suggest maybe starting in the college university space just because it is such a captive audience and there are tons of self-operated C&U so self-operated just means that they don't work with um one of those buying groups but it's pretty easy to figure out who they do work with if you go to like the Sodexo or the Chartwells websites they'll usually have an area where you can like look up their schools so you could always do it that way and then when you're approaching them Linkedin's great like you can get so much information off of Linkedin so um if it were me I would probably like go on the Chartwells website find one of their C&Us you know ideally located somewhere where I could service it where like a warehouse is or manufacturer is and then try to find out who the chef or marketing people are on Linkedin and kind of go that way if it's purely cold cold outreach you can also get lucky too like you can be talking to or working with a C&U already and they're like oh we're compass food buy and so then you will you know kind of like stumble upon an advocate that way like for the corporate cafeterias and stuff you could always like go in and then try to find out who they use or who they work with are there some other major buying group players that would be helpful for folks to know about yeah definitely Sodexo is great too and Sodexo has a really cool trade show I think it's in North Carolina I've only been to it once but they also do a really good job of bringing in plant-based better for you you know younger brands they have a huge healthcare sector so Sodexo is a great one to approach for that and then they also have some amazing C&Us too so yeah Sodexo is great Aramark I mean they're all huge Aramark is massive and they also have tons of colleges and universities same with Sodexo I would say you know maybe like pick one area for example if you have a product and you're really targeting health care then maybe go the Sodexo route or if you're doing C&U you could do Aaramark or Compass or Sodexo there too but yeah I would just advise brands to not get like super overwhelmed with all of the opportunity in food service in general and just you know see where you have a product market fit and then go that direction.

50:42 Jessi - Yeah that's super interesting and like Aramark I'm more familiar with them on the like uniform side you know like they they do a ton so totally yeah that's so interesting to think about how they're within like food and everything so yeah that's wow is there anything else that you wanted to share about within like navigating some of these like big players or anyone that we missed in any of the areas that we've talked about?

51:04 Jenna - There was one bucket that I wrote down actually two another area in food service that I'm quite fond of is the c store space the convenience space if you're a younger brand and you're trying to break into that space I would encourage you to get like a c store specific broker because it's all about relationships and they can help navigate the distribution the the operator is kind of the opportunity there but I really like the convenience space and a lot of convenience stores are now ordering and using plant-based ingredients you know whether that's like for their back of house like deli they're using a mayo or they're using like a plant-based chicken nugget it's becoming increasingly more popular there's one here in the bay area called loop convenience um they're like a better for you convenience store chain and they're attached to all the shell gas stations and they bring in tons of really cool plant-based stuff there is like 7-Eleven I was just in Hawaii for the honeymoon and I was able to try the Omni Foods spam musubi at 7-Eleven it was such a cool experience it was totally plant-based so that's another area that I would suggest to brands if they have like a convenience forward product and they're trying to break into that sector and then just in general if you are starting from scratch you may want to bring in an advisor or a broker to help you grow in food service because it can be a little bit overwhelming and if you have zero relationships you might want to work with someone who does have those relationships um and can you know help you as a third party before you bring in an internal team.

52:25 Jessi - Yeah no those are all really great notes and I'm glad you mentioned like convenience especially with the focus on like better for you and plant-based you know here in the pacific northwest we have like Plaid Pantry it's like 100 plus locations and they're you know trying to bring in really better for you brands and they've supported a lot of local and even just smaller brands getting them to their stores and you know 100 locations is awesome um so yeah that's that's really interesting on on that piece as far as you know getting help within food service and we talked about this some in our other episode where we talked about you know first hires and but do you have any advice for like as you're growing within food service like when you're super small like how do you know what size broker to look out for I know last time you gave us a few recommendations this was awesome but curious about just kind of any tips for kind of finding the right person to meet you where your business is at right now versus you know reaching out to a broker that's you know going to be way too big for where you're at like how do you kind of navigate the like stepping stones if you're starting from scratch or you're really small?

53:20 Jenna - You could always work with a regional broker there are tons of amazing regional brokers like there's one here in the bay area called her spring gibs I really like and they have a lot of really good relationships they're down in I want to say it's near like Redwood City but there's somewhere further south in the Bay and then there's another one in LA called Acclaim Food Service they're amazing I would definitely recommend them if you're trying to grow in la there's one in Texas called Fiddler Marketing that I really enjoyed working with so yeah you could always go the regional approach I would definitely encourage brands to start smaller and kind of go from there because if you work with a large national broker and keep in mind like there's a lot of plant-based products now so they may already have a competitive brand and they won't bring you in so there's that too they already have a plant-based chicken they already have a plant-based meat or a beef so that can be a little difficult you're going to spend a lot of money training and even getting product samples to those bigger brokers I'm talking like you know 20 offices or 30 offices and then going and training everybody so it can be really expensive if you start big so I would encourage to start small and then grow from there there are also some really cool more like advisors than traditional brokers that have a smaller team with a national presence and can help you navigate the areas of food service that you might not know how to navigate like bids for k-12 for example or you know working with like Sodexo or Compass Food Buy the ones that I've worked with in the past would be Elohi I really like the Elohi team Green Nature Marketing and there is also one that it has more of a grab and go focus that I cannot remember right now but I will remember it and I will send it to you.

55:00 Jessi - Perfect these are all awesome and I will include you know links and names of everything that you've shouted out in the show notes too so that folks can go and grab those when they're in case they're driving or something right now because those are all really awesome well this has been so helpful is there anything else you wanted to share before we wrap up?

55:19 Jenna - I think I covered all my notes oh grocery the grocery space is awesome so if you are starting in retail specifically and you have relationships with like Whole Foods or Sprouts and your product is stocked at UNFI and you're thinking of launching in food service the Groceraunt like you know grocery store restaurant the deli the prepared salads sandwiches huge volume opportunity if you can get in with your product your ingredients are clean like organic non-gmo for example no preservatives that's a really cool area to start in food service as well.

55:51 Jessi - Yeah oh that's great I'm so glad you added that note that's hard to say Groceraunt that's that's a super interesting way to get your foot in the door and yeah I hadn't thought about how you know you're already you're already on the shelves in the store and then you know getting into that space so that's that's amazing well this has been packed with so many tips Jenna thank you so much I mean I will share your Linkedin profile in the show notes like are you okay if folks reach out to you like what's the best way to connect with you?

56:15 Jenna - Linkedin is perfect sometimes I'm a little slow at responding to messages but I always get back to everybody so yeah Linkedin's great.

56:25 Jessi - Awesome well this is awesome it's so good to have you back on the show I'm so glad that you shared with us today this has been awesome thank you so much just really appreciate you and excited for everyone to take what they've learned from the episode and you know grow within food service.

56:40 Jenna - Thanks so much for having me Jessi this is awesome people can reach out with any questions happy to share any other links to that I think of after this.

56:48 Jessi - Thank you for listening in today I'm so honored you joined me for this conversation and I love hearing from you all with feedback suggestions or if you just want to say hi at podcast@startupcpg.com or you can find me on LinkedIn. I you liked this episode we'd love for you to share it with a friend or colleague subscribe so you don't miss future episodes and maybe even leave us a five-star review on apple podcasts if you aren't yet in our slack community of founders and experts we'd love to see you there you can get the free invite at startup cpg.com and find all our other awesome resources there like webinars databases the blog the magazine and virtual and in-person events and if you found yourself rocking out to our intro and outro music which I do every single time make sure to check out the Super Fantastix on Spotify it's the band of our Startup CPG Founder Daniel Scharff I'm Jessi Freitag your host and producer and on behalf of the whole team at Startup CPG thank you for being here and see you next week.