The Startup CPG Podcast

Patricia Menegoto
Hey everyone, this is Patricia. Shelfie season is here and I want to just do a quick overview on how can you apply. This information is available on our Shelf guide so you can find the link here in the Show Notes in the Slack social media. Also, we do send reminders every beginning and mid of the month for you to apply with all the instructions. But here is a very quick overview. We have different categories by month. So let's say if you are a beauty or a supplement brand, you have to apply during February month. You have to submit the form and ship your products during this month. So February month send your products to three different addresses and make sure that they arrive by February. Once your month category is over you cannot apply anymore.

00:59
Patricia Menegoto
But you can check all the month categories again here on the Show Notes or on our emails and any questions you can just send to communitytupcpg.com submissions will happen through February to May and then around mid August we are going to announce the finalists and then mid September is going to be the announce of the winners. So even though you submit your product in February, you're just going to hear about the finalists in August.

01:31
Daniel Scharff
Stop the presses. It is officially Shelfies season. That's right. We're back with the 5th annual Shelfie Awards, the biggest free awards program in CPG recognizing the best and the brightest early brands. Today I've invited two of our startup CPG Shelfies judges, Patricia and Kiki to talk all about the program. Why did we start it? How do we run it? Who is it right for? What can you get if you win? And just lots of tips for the brands who want to apply. I want to give a big thank you to our sponsors. We've got Minisocial. They connect brands with micro influencers to post about you to their audience and you get a bunch of UGC through it.

02:05
Daniel Scharff
Our friends at SIN7, the leading provider of inventory management software to CPG brands returning sponsor Social Nature Natural product brands can make offers to their over 1 million conscious shoppers to help you drive trial and velocity on Shelf and the epic Greenspoon Sales, who everyone knows is one of the most trusted national agencies for natural products. And with them we've introduced a new Shelfies category, the Sustainability Shelfie. You're about to hear all about it. All right, let's get into it. All right, here we go. I'm here with Patricia and Kiki. Okay Patricia, it is Shelfie's season. Are you excited? Are you scared? How are you feeling?

02:45
Patricia Menegoto
I'm really excited and overwhelmed at the same Time.

02:48
Daniel Scharff
Okay. Why?

02:49
Patricia Menegoto
Well, last year was our biggest shellfield award, and we got over 1500 products shipped to our house. So at the same time, it's a very cool experience to see all the new brands, all the innovation in the industry, learn about the brands. It's also overwhelming to go through every single product, and that's what the team does, Right? Really want to make sure that we read about the brand, understand their innovation, differentiation, and story. So I'm feeling both ways.

03:19
Daniel Scharff
Okay, fair enough. All right, Kiki, break that down for us. What is it like to get 1500 products? Is like, how many is that per day during the season? What does it feel like? Does your mailman hate you?

03:30
Kiki Huddleston
Our mail carriers definitely get to know us. Well, the postal service lady who delivers to my house, she's like, knows my dogs now, so she always brings three treats whenever she makes deliveries, which is nice. And even after the Shelby, she still continues to do it. Like, if she has to drop something off at my house and we're not home, she'll, like, still put, like, three dog bones on top of it. So you definitely get to know the people that are making deliveries. Oh, my gosh. What does it look like? There were days where I was getting, like, 12 packages in a day, and it would be like, I'm not kidding you. Like, the postal service would come down the driveway, they'd leave 10 minutes later, here comes FedEx. They leave five minutes later, here comes UPS.

04:08
Kiki Huddleston
And it's just like, they think that we have a shopping addiction. Because I told the postal lady at towards the end, I was like, oh, this is almost over. Like, you won't be here every day. And she goes, oh, are you finally giving it up?

04:21
Daniel Scharff
Are they cutting you off? Did the credit card max out? What's going on? All right, I can relate to that. Okay, cool. So, yes, shelfie season is a lot. It's very exciting. I think a lot of people out there are like, oh, that must be so fun to be a shelfies judge. You get all this product. Like, it is true, but I mean, honestly, how much can you actually use? Right? And, like, so, yeah, we're like. And we also all hate wasting things personally. So it's really, like, we want to give a lot of thought to all the products and evaluate them and also really try to waste as little as possible Shellfies. Patricia, we have a lot of history with this. This is the fifth year that we are doing the shell fees. It keeps growing every year. But take us back.

04:59
Daniel Scharff
Do you remember why we did the shelfies in the first place.

05:02
Patricia Menegoto
Yeah. So we started in 2020 doing pitch programs. So it was during COVID We had a box where we ship to some buyers and media and distributors, a box full of brands. But were like, we can make this much better so we can evolve all the new innovated CPG brands out there instead of just a few selected ones that apply for the pitch. And we're like, how can we get higher reach and create a free award program for emerging brands? So we decided to make it free because this is our mission to help brands for free. We have tons of retailers and media in our newsletter involved in our community that get to see who. Who are the winners for the Shelfie Award so they can get exposure, they can get connections with them.

05:46
Patricia Menegoto
And the whole goal was really to elevate the small guys.

05:51
Daniel Scharff
I think that's right. And the free component means so much to me because award programs can be impactful. Saying that you won one of these, that's well recognized. It actually does matter for your business. It can set you apart. When you're one of a hundred brands, emailing a certain buyer that. The problem is it's really expensive. When you're an early brand, you can apply for one of these programs, these award programs, and they might charge you $300 for the privilege of sending them in your product to consider for an award. And if you want to apply for more than one category, it might be double that, which is crazy. If you're an early brand, you don't have that budget, but you do need the recognition.

06:28
Daniel Scharff
And I can't tell you how many times when I was running a brand, I would just get some random out of the blue email from someone like, hey, you've been nominated for Washington D.C. Business leader for your product. You want to pay $1,000 and you can have that award. It's craziness and Right. So, yeah, like you're saying, our mission is to do things for free for brands. And we figured this would be one of the biggest ways that we could do that, to recognize as many brands as possible. And our goal is to do that. We want to have a lot of finalists. We want to have a lot of winners. We want to give you a big obnoxious trophy to put on your booth. So people are like, what is that? You must be special. And, you know, I.

07:03
Daniel Scharff
I think it really has become that, right? I mean, like, did you ever dream that program would get so big? Patricia? When?

07:10
Patricia Menegoto
No, never. I remember that the first year was more just like us. Really? How can we get more submissions and recognize more brands? And then we start to get more and more. Like, last year, we got over 1500 products, even though we have new rules now that you can only submit up to three SKUs. If we didn't have that rule, I'm sure we'd get way more.

07:32
Daniel Scharff
Yes. I really appreciate why buyers have certain restrictions on what kind of samples you can send them now, because, yes, it's a lot. Okay, so let's go through what actually happens when we receive products, because it probably feels like a black box to a lot of brands. Like, hey, I sent in my products during the submission window, and then I just didn't really hear anything. What happened? Kiki, can you take us through on our side? Okay. From the point where you actually get the package, what are we doing?

07:58
Kiki Huddleston
Yeah, so once we get the packages, we go through everything. We taste it, we try it, we look at the ingredients. We have weekly meetings where the judges get together and we, like, talk about the products, what we thought about it, go through the ingredients, we look at your website, your branding, the packaging, we read your brand story. And then another big component of something that we consider when, like, breaking down, who do we think is going to make it into, like, the finalist categories and who ultimately ends up being a winner is, like, we really have to dig deep past just, like, the taste and the ingredients and look at, like, who's being innovative, who's trying new things, who maybe has, like, a cool social cause, and ultimately, like, who is really trying to improve the CPG system.

08:45
Kiki Huddleston
Also, we take a lot of things into consideration during the judging process to make sure that we're really highlighting, like, the best of the best.

08:53
Daniel Scharff
And, Kiki, what would you say to a brand that does not win, that still feels very confident in their product and is like, hey, startup CPG team, you don't know what you're doing. You don't know a good product when you see it, which does happen to us. By. By the way, Kiki, what would you say to those brands?

09:09
Patricia Menegoto
Yeah, we do get that.

09:10
Kiki Huddleston
I mean, I would say you just have to be mindful of the competition and who else is out there. Like, we looked over 1500 products last year. It's our fifth year doing it. We're constantly seeing what's going on in the industry and the space. So there are a lot of really good products out there, and it's really hard to narrow it down and make those decisions. And like I said, at the end of the day, oftentimes those tiebreakers really comes down to the fine details. So you probably do have a really great product, but someone else just had one that was a little bit better.

09:40
Daniel Scharff
Okay. Kiki gives it to us straight, which I appreciate. I would also add to maybe just soften the blow for everybody. This is our opinion, right? And we are here doing this program because we want to help as many brands as possible. But we do have to make some choices and we are all using our personal taste, our collective experience, our a lot of data points, a lot of what we're seeing to make these decisions. There do have to be winners and we do want to make sure that we can provide a lot of support to the brands we think that have the best chance of making it. But please remember that we are here to support all of you.

10:14
Daniel Scharff
Even if you don't win, we still want to give you opportunities to sample and we hope you prove us wrong and make it really big and probably a lot of you will. You know this is just one awards program that happens during the year. I as a brand would lose way more of these than I would win for sure. So I know none of you are just going to get discouraged by that and definitely please like say some curse words about us under your breath and keep going and then get those big wins and get all that consumer adoption. Patricia, what do you think? Fair.

10:43
Patricia Menegoto
Fair. I also want to add that you mentioned that it's like our taste. Whenever I get products I get tons of my friends to come. I have invite buyers before to come and we do like three hours tasting. So I do get, I mean the team has done that too but like we do get opinions from outside. It's not just three people trying our product. Like we have people coming over, we bring other people from the CPG industry and try your product or our families and friends to see what else people like because like I know I'm specific and I like very healthy, clean, gluten free things. So and I'm not a spicy girl so I do have to give some like condiments that are hot sauce for people that are around me to try.

11:25
Patricia Menegoto
So we want to be fair with your guys product but and also remember that we are a very small team. We have other things that we do besides the shelf is so even though like you don't receive a notification that your product got delivered because we do not send those out but best way to track is with your tracking number. You can email us at communitytupcpg with any questions. But just remember we are also a very small Team.

11:52
Daniel Scharff
Yes. Thank you. I think that's a good reminder. I just pro tip to brands like emailing us a bunch of times to ask if we got it. Like you know we got it. If you sent it, we got it. Just that's a good way to think about it if you sent it. And UPS does not tell you that it got lost. We did get it and we will get around to it. You, this is not your full time job, is not Shelfie's judge. It is doing tons of support for the community organizing sections and social media, both of you, all of this stuff. And so yeah, we basically do the best that we can. And it's also the shellfies for us is a really important way for us to get to know the brands in the community.

12:28
Daniel Scharff
And you know, the shellfies is kind of meant to find the best of emerging brands. But also this is how we get to know you because we have so many throughout the course of the year we have sampling opportunities at events that we do that buyers are at. Right. We have the backpack brands who get to come and demo at our alley rally party at Expo West. We have sections that brands are applying for at Newtopia and Expo. And I will say, you know, more often than not if we haven't had any experience with your brand, it's going to be harder for us to evaluate you.

12:59
Daniel Scharff
The best way is hey, we've had that product they submitted for the shelfies and now we consider them for more opportunities or when we're looking to do coverage with Caitlin, our editor for different opportunities or affinity months or different product categories. We've had the product, we know we liked it. We know that this is a brand that participates in the community which is another filter for how we look for because we do want to help the brands that invest in the community. You know, our programs and opportunities are not just for like anybody out there that wants to take advantage. We really believe in supporting the people who are part of the fabric of what we try to do and help support others in the community as well. So I've seen some really great uses of the shelfies also.

13:37
Daniel Scharff
I think like let's say the first year that we did this, five years ago it was like let's do this. Okay, we did it. Like that was cool. I hope it was helpful to people. But now it means a lot in the industry which I think is super beautiful. And last year were able to have a boat party to celebrate the Shellfee's. So were in the marina in Los Angeles. We got on a 150 person yacht. We were able to give out a lot of the awards there, take some beautiful sunset photos. But you know, now when we walk around a show we see a lot of our shelfies trophies sitting on brand booths. Even yesterday we did a social media post highlighting one of the winners last year which was 18 chestnuts.

14:13
Daniel Scharff
And I saw one of the buyers from Woodlands Market commented and say, hey, I need that in my shelf. What's going on? Please connect me. And we did that and now they're going to get on shelf, which is incredible. What have you guys seen the output of the shelfies been? Have you seen people using them? Have you seen distribution deals happen? Patricia?

14:30
Patricia Menegoto
Yeah, whenever we announce some of the winners before via email, we got a few buyers or media saying hey, can you connect with so and so because they like the product. I also seen people using the icon that we share as a winner on their email signature. I've also seen that icon on their website or like asking on Startup CPG selfie winner and then brands came to me already mentioning how they had conversation starters with some retailers because they said they were startup CPG selfie winner or finalists and the retailers already know about us now and they were like, oh this is cool. Let me pay attention to what you have to say. But Kiki, what have you seen on the social media side or any other aspects?

15:14
Kiki Huddleston
I mean, yeah, I've seen a lot of this, a lot of similar things that you mentioned. Brands get really excited about it, like to be a finalist and to be a winner. Like brands are posting about us resharing it. Like they get really excited which makes me happy. It's like fun to see. And a lot of times this is the first award that a brand has ever won. So it's very exciting for them and kind of makes them feel like, okay, like I'm onto something and it just kind of like revs them back up which is really exciting to see. And I've also had buyers be like, you know, what do you think about this brand? Like should I meet with them? And I'll be like, oh, they were actually a shelfie's finalist.

15:50
Kiki Huddleston
And they'll be like, okay, yeah, that I'm definitely gonna like email them and like link up with them. So brands get excited about it and I've noticed that like other people in the industry and retailers like they're starting to take notice, like they know like what the shelf is awards are and you know, they're kind of beginning to like trust, like our judgment, like, okay, like startup cpg, like made them a finalist. Like it must be good. So I should probably have a meeting with those guys.

16:10
Daniel Scharff
I love that. And I mean, let's be honest. Is there anything that we like more when we hear a brand somewhere on stage introducing themselves as. We are Shelfie Award winning. Right? Best ever. We love that. That gives us tons of energy. And yeah, we love seeing the trophy on people's booths. And I also really love what you said, Kiki, about we like to be the first award that you get that is so much about why we started Whole organization in general is like we want to give your first media coverage, your first awards. We don't want those kinds of things to be inaccessible. And we want this to help you get other awards and other media coverage in the industry because we have in some way helped legitimize you through this.

16:51
Daniel Scharff
And we know how hard it is to get that kind of stuff in the industry. So believe me, we are trying to just give out as much recognition as possible with the platform that we have created. And we love to do it and we love seeing that excitement. I think that is one of the best days is when people actually receive the show Shelfie Awards sent to their house and just we start seeing the unboxing videos and the smiling faces. And the other I think for me is when we do our live awards program for the Shelfies. So we do this on LinkedIn and Patricia, maybe you can talk about it.

17:23
Patricia Menegoto
Yeah, we do a LinkedIn Live because we have brands from all around the US and we also actually have submissions from outside of the country now, which is pretty cool. So we have people from all around the world watching the live to learn about the finalists, the winners, you know who are the winners too. But it's just so cool to see everyone in the chat like excited about who is the winner and they're like, oh, I need this product. Check their website. So I hope one day we can have a whole studio where we can like have the entire team and do like a live from there. But it's just so cool to see the CPG community celebrating each other and being happy about your friend, your CPG founder, like what's they're achieving.

18:07
Daniel Scharff
Yes, there's nothing like the love that you see during the comments section during one of our LinkedIn Live Shelfie Awards. I think last time we had 800 comments during the live which was all people just celebrating the winners. Everybody was a really good sport about it. I love that's just one of the best times of the year for me. So let's get into some tactical tips, right? Because we get all these products, it's not just about the product. Okay. Let's say like, hey, at this point you either have the right product or you don't. But it's specifically about people sending the product. What are some things that you guys appreciate when they're sent to you and you know how people present them to you? What are some things that you're like, well, I kind of wish they hadn't done that.

18:45
Daniel Scharff
Let's be real deal about this. So Kiki, do you want to go first?

18:48
Kiki Huddleston
Sure, I guess I will go first. Something I really appreciate is whenever brands put like their marketing material in the package. So like, you know, a little thing talking about their brand, their story, their product, like whatever you would normally give to like a buyer or something like that can be helpful so I can learn more about the product before I open the box and like dig into it. That's really helpful. Something that I would recommend against doing is sending swag. Sorry, but like I said, we get so much stuff like thank you so much for sending me a T shirt or a pair of socks or whatever, but I don't need it, so leave that out of the box. I know it's tempting to because I know you have so much good stuff.

19:27
Kiki Huddleston
And also like if you're saying to an influencer, like, yeah, influencer package, go for it, but we don't need that.

19:33
Daniel Scharff
That's no joke, Kiki, with the hard hitting truths. I also hate getting swag. I actually like, I'm not going to put it into my regular rot and I just kind of have the stuff that I have. So. I really agree with you. It doesn't make me upset when we get it. But I do hate the idea of just wasting so much stuff. Like I'm probably not going to use the stickers, let's be honest. And I'm not going to like wear the shirt or the hat. Like I'm. I have this hat obviously that I wear that says cpg. That's the hat that I wear now.

20:01
Kiki Huddleston
Just say overall, just cut and dry. Just send your product and about your brand and that's all we need.

20:07
Daniel Scharff
All right, Patricia, what about you?

20:08
Patricia Menegoto
I have to say that I assume swags are really good.

20:11
Daniel Scharff
Okay, point, counterpoint. What swag do you like? What swag do you not like?

20:16
Patricia Menegoto
So we got a necessary, like a little pouch that I use all the time for like my makeup. Some brands that they Have. I think there was, like, a milk powder. They send that, like, thing that you. Mixer. Yeah, I use all the time. What else?

20:32
Daniel Scharff
I know what you're saying, but I've been sent, like, 10 frothers, and I don't really even froth, but I do have one of Those from the 10 that I've been sent.

20:39
Patricia Menegoto
Yeah, I don't use stickers, I'll tell you that. But there are some slacks that if they are cute, I'm gonna use. Like, I see some brands, they have, like, a very cute T shirt. I'll wear that. So. But it has to have a cute. It's not just your brand logo, you know, it has to be something cute.

20:55
Daniel Scharff
I sort of will, like, cheekily ask for something. If there's a piece of swag that I wanted. Like, I wanted one of the happy candy pink hats from. Honestly, because my mom wanted it. She saw it and she's like, I would like to wear that hat. So Maxi and I did a little trade of some swag so that I could get that for my mom.

21:12
Patricia Menegoto
Yeah, I saw the, like. I think it was like a sweater from Milkish. If you're listening to this, just send me your swag. It's so cute. I'm gonna wear you all the time.

21:22
Daniel Scharff
And if we get it, we'll try to feature it. I think that's another thing that I just really want to highlight for people. We take the responsibility of getting samples very seriously. Because I know as a brand what it's like to pay for the product that you have to then pay for the shipping to send to somebody, and then it being a black hole, and maybe you don't get anything out of that opportunity. It sucks. And we're not here to be part of the it sucks experience of cpg. We're here to be part of the we help you thing and make the whole thing better. And so we do try to feature every single product that is sent to us in at least, like an Instagram story. You know, we can't do posts about everything. We can.

21:57
Daniel Scharff
Not everyone's going to get an award, but we do try to make sure that everybody at least gets something out of it. And because we do have Instagram with 27,000 followers, I think today that is something that we'll try to do. And Patricia, Kiki and the team are good at doing that. So we will try to make it lovely as well. But please understand, we do want to try to help as many of you as possible, even though not everybody can win. I'll add just on the tips for sending samples and everything. I know it's not always possible. I do appreciate when people send a note and I wouldn't even always necessarily pore over the note and like, you know, really read it so carefully.

22:32
Daniel Scharff
But just the same way, I think I really just appreciate when people send a thank you note after an interview just like kind of check or not check. Did they do that or not do it. It does just make the whole experience feel more personal. And you cannot deny the importance of relationships in this business. Overall, people are never just going to evaluate a product in isolation. Kiki talked about that before. We're also looking at the founder behind the product. Do they have that same passion? Does that run through into the product? We want to see overall the mission which does course through every part of the business. And so when there is a note, it does remind us of that personal touch of it makes it feel like this is something, it's a project that's even more important to the founder.

23:15
Daniel Scharff
I'm not just getting, you know, a Shopify box sent to me. And I know it can be tough, right, because a lot of people fulfill out of 3 pls where they don't have the opportunity to even put like a printed note in it. Which is not a great look by the way. But yeah, maybe you could even just explore another option like hey, I'm sending the materials to you guys or to a buyer whenever, through my 3 PL. But maybe think about just sending them a handwritten postcard. Hey, the product's coming separately. I just want to say thanks a lot for looking at this. It will help you guys, not just with us, but overall to have that personal touch. What do you think, Patricia? Am I talking crazy here?

23:51
Patricia Menegoto
No, I think that's important because you know, at the end of the day, we are human. We were trying to do our best to high to feature you guys, to highlight the brand. So it's nice to think that they appreciate also what we are doing. But here is another tip. If you don't have your final packaging that is going to sit on a shelf or you're going to sell to the customers like that. So you just create your product, right? And you are just like in this bottle, just with a sticker of what's inside, you're not going to be considered for the shell face. You have to have your final packaging. It doesn't need to be like the most beautiful, you know, packaging, but it should be a packaging that at least you're going to sell to a Customer. So that's an important thing.

24:34
Daniel Scharff
Yes. Don't send us like a pl big baggie full of something. It will be a weird impression. The same way you wouldn't do that to a buyer. I know as a founder you're like, but I'm like working on this thing. I just want to get your, like, thoughts on it. I really want you to know about it. Like, that actually is okay. You could even send that and be like, this is not for this year's awards. I know. I just want you guys to be aware of the product because it's going to be launching and I want to just kind of be on your radar. And here's when I'm going to actually have samples, you know. So, yes, I totally agree. Wait till next year.

25:02
Daniel Scharff
We'll be doing this every year, I hope forever, until AI takes all of our jobs over and does it for us. But we'll be ready for that too. So. But I totally agree with that and I think also it, you know, just not just with us, but in general, it is kind of cool to know a little bit about the people receiving your product. So hopefully things like this podcast helps you understand that. But here is a little cheat sheet. Patricia really loves beauty products. For sure. She will evaluate them very carefully. She likes swag related to beauty products. Also, obviously, Patricia also is gluten free and so she has a special place in her heart for the gluten free products. Kiki loves corgis. Kiki loves dogs.

25:41
Daniel Scharff
Kiki is our main go to especially on the pet category just because she does a really thoughtful deep dive on all pet products which not everybody can do. Patty and I don't usually eat all the dog treats and everything that we get. So Kiki's corgis are also unofficial shelfie judges. And then we have Caitlin who is our new editor who will be a shelfies judge this year and. And Caitlin really likes avoiding things with added sugar. She is really big on plants in general throughout all food. She's not vegan, but she really does love plants. You can hear all about it on the episode with her. That's about meeting the new editor that dropped end of January on our podcast. What do you guys think? Any other tips about judges?

26:23
Patricia Menegoto
Yeah, I'd say Caitlin is also a mom, so she will be evaluating a lot of the baby products.

26:30
Kiki Huddleston
Now it sounds like then the plant based category might be judged very well this year because Caitlin's into plants and I've been veg for 10 years, so that's another place that I like really pay attention to. Also alcohol and NA beverages as my background. I was a bartender for a very long time, so I like seeing those things. And there's a lot of innovation in the NA category which I'm very excited to see this year.

26:56
Daniel Scharff
Yes, these are all good tips. And although I personally am not a Shelfie's judge, I do get involved in the beverage category just because I can't help myself. As a former beverage CEO, I do like to get in on this. I want to know what all the beverages are. I want to try all the new innovation and get to weigh in on some of that. So probably any of the beverage founders out there know that I, yeah, I do take an interest especially in the beverage brands just because I can relate to it so much. So.

27:21
Daniel Scharff
Okay, now what we've covered is about the judging process, about people sending in shelfies, what we look for when we're evaluating brands for the shelfies, what some of the cool things you get out of it are also highlight that we will have some pretty major prizes for the shell fees on behalf of some of the sponsors that we have this year. So I'm really excited about that. We also have a brand new category for the Shelfies this year which is thanks to our partners at Greenspoon. We'll have a sustainability Shelfie award which will span across all the other Shelfie categories. So you don't submit for it specifically. It'll just be part of when you're submitting, you can say what you're doing in terms of sustainability and the Green Spoon team will help us to then award winner in that category.

28:02
Daniel Scharff
So really excited for that one. So maybe to wrap this up, what do you think you've seen some of the most exciting brands who won Shelfies in past years go on to do. Can you guys think of any brands who won a Shelfie early on? And you just were incredibly excited to see their trajectory And I'll start by maybe dropping one that I'm pretty pumped about. So Nowhere Bakery, they were selected as a backpack brand with us. They won a Shelfie award with us. They actually at the Ally Rally were able to meet Azure Standard, which is one of our favorite distributor partners who then picked them up for distribution. So they've really gotten a lot through us. Of course they also got onto Shark Tank and did really well there.

28:48
Daniel Scharff
So just really exciting to see their overall trajectory and just that were able to recognize them with a shelfie during that amazing trajectory that they had. So, you know, just really proud of that one. And I mean, just if you ever tasted it, you know what we're talking about. Out. Everybody here loves their products and they're just such wonderful founders as well. Any particular brands that you guys remember has gotten a Shelfie, and you've just seen them kind of go nuts and get some crazy stuff. Patricia.

29:15
Patricia Menegoto
Well, you took mine.

29:17
Daniel Scharff
Gotcha. I know that's one of your favorites.

29:19
Patricia Menegoto
I mean, I have some of the brands that. It really stood out to me because they have, like, DME or I've seen them use the trophy during trade shows and they were like, this is such a great conversation starter. Some of them were. I think it was House of Kajana was used. Was telling me that being a Shelfie winner, they got to talk to Whole Foods. They are selling at Whole Foods now. So that's very cool to see how again, we do have buyers that are in our email newsletter and involved with us, so it can definitely, like, help you to get in front of great retailers.

29:58
Daniel Scharff
Yes, we have a lot of them. We have a very large list of retailers that like to stay tuned about what's going on with us, and we certainly know how to leverage them to make sure that they understand when we're saying, hey, here's some awesome brands out there. You need to check them out. I also, for last year, Shelfie winners, were able to put them all into our Shopify store. So if you actually go to startupcpg.com and click on shop, you will see all of the hundred finalists and the winners on there, which I'll tell you candidly, when buyers. I just had a buyer from one of the top retailers in the country had a call with him today, and he said, can you just send me some of the brands that you guys work with?

30:33
Daniel Scharff
And I said, look, here's the list of all the Shelfies winners and finalists from last year. That's really representative of who's in our community. So you definitely get a lot of extra recognition that way, which is cool. Kiki, any brand that you want to call out?

30:47
Kiki Huddleston
Sure, yeah. There's a couple that come to mind. I think some brands that I've seen, like, really take off in the last couple of years, whether it be from being a finalist or a winner, is in the Shelfies. Probably an early winner, maybe 20, 22. Don't quote me. I'm my year's off. But Cocoa Foods, I think they were, like, an early one that we recognized. They seem to be doing really great. Funky, Mellow is, like, blowing up. They're doing awesome. They have an amazing product. The most recent one for me and I know we're all big fans and every time we see them, they're just like killing it and doing great. Is paioa. They were a winner last year in the Shelfies and I think every time that I've seen them since, like at every trade show, like there's always a crowd around them.

31:30
Kiki Huddleston
I mean a, they have amazing pizza. It's really good. So people are just going there to get pizza. But there are a lot of buyers and media and just like important people in the industry that are just always hovering around them. They just won the Fancy Face off at the Fancy food show. Like they're really doing great things. So it makes me happy to see that.

31:49
Daniel Scharff
I love it. I love it so much and I really love each of those brands that you just mentioned, Kakoa even actually specifically they came up on a call that I had with the distributor the other day that said, hey, we're having a really tough time finding healthy products for babies who do you know? I was like, well, there is a Shelfie winner that actually is doing that. And I was able to connect them, which was really wonderful and funky mellow. I feel like that one. Everybody was just racing to recognize them because everyone loves them so much. And so they won an award from us. They won a bunch of other awards around the same time and they're just having such a great time and bringing such cool products out into the world. So we love them. And paioa. Yes.

32:27
Daniel Scharff
Speaking of just being able to recognize people really early on, I think that's, you know, somebody from our community that we identified as just having a really tremendous product and team pretty early on. I know they were able to get meetings through us like with the Central market team and yeah, just get lots of cool stuff with us. And then yes, that was so good to see them win the Fancy Face off at the Las Vegas show. So they are really coming into our own and we are really excited also that they will be catering the five year slackiversary party that we're having in March in LA at the Leisure Hydration House. So they'll. We'll all get to have paella. You don't have to wait in the line for their booth at the show. You can just have it.

33:10
Daniel Scharff
We're going to have tons of it. It's going to be delicious. You can have as much miso eggplant as your heart desires unless you're gluten free Patty. But everybody else can have it.

33:19
Patricia Menegoto
Wait, wait. They are going to have gluten free options. This is going to be my first time ever experiencing their pizza. And I'm just like, I'm way too excited for this.

33:28
Daniel Scharff
That's so good. Oh my gosh, it's overall, it's just really amazing. And I think the thing that I just want to highlight again here is this is how we meet so many of you. We love meeting you on Slack and just being able to help, but this is how we really get to know your brands, your products, the people behind them. You probably, if you're following us on Instagram, you see we do a lot of store visits where we go into the tastemaker retailers around the country. We go spend time in the stores and try to see as many brands from our community as we can recognize in the stores. The way we do that is through the shelfies because then we see the product.

34:01
Daniel Scharff
And so when we're looking in a store that might have a hundred thousand SKUs in it, the ones that catch our eyes are the ones that we've seen at home that we've had a chance to interact with, that we've seen at the shows. So, you know, I would say maybe final word to everybody is just please participate in the program. A lot of people are not going to win this program. It's just that's the odds of kind of any program. But we are just constantly looking for ways to help you and feature you. And like we do, each of us does end up with a couple products that we love probably especially because it speaks to something within us. But we are genuinely rooting for all of you.

34:36
Daniel Scharff
Really, like if you know me, Kiki, Patty, Caitlin, everybody on our team, there are a lot of other things that we could be doing with our lives. We choose to do this because we each have a really strong passion for helping to improve the CPG ecosystem for sure, helping promote products that we think are doing a good job. But I would say the deepest part of it is our love for helping you guys out there, the people behind the products. That is the thing that actually really gets all of us excited about these programs and all of the work that we do. So please just remember that even if you don't win and we will be out there working tirelessly just trying to think of ways that we can help you in everything that we do.

35:16
Daniel Scharff
All right, everybody, thank you so much for listening to our podcast. If you loved it, I would so appreciate it if you could leave us a review. You could do it right now, if you're an Apple Podcast, you can scroll to the bottom of our Startup CPG Podcast page and click on Write a Review. Leave your company name in there. I will try to read it out. If you're in Spotify, you can click on about and then the Star Rating icon. If you are a service provider that would like to appear on the Startup CPG Podcast, you can email us@partnershipstartupcpg.com lastly, if you found yourself grooving along to the music it is My Band, you can visit our website and listen. Listen to more. It is superfantastics. Com. Thank you everybody. See you next time.