The Startup CPG Podcast

John Lane
Foreign. We got multi generational shoppers, like, they've been coming here with their grandma, their mom, and then now themselves. I know personally, I was a kid and I was shopping at Raley's, and it was actually the produce team lead at the time who kept, you know, trying to get me to apply to come work at the store. So they just kind of see you grow up. So we have all those shoppers that just been around for a very long time and very loyal, dedicated base. And then the other cool thing is we also have a whole lot of new shoppers that come into our market. They're just looking for stuff that they can trust. They're looking for, you know, brands that they know are going to better for you. And that's kind of what Raley's represents. Is that better for you?

00:45
John Lane
Option versus some conventional grocers out there?

00:50
Daniel Scharff
Hello, startup cpgers. Can I just tell you I am absurdly excited about today's episode. It's a buyer spotlight with John Lane from Raley. Why am I so excited? It's because Raley's is a Northern California powerhouse retailer. They are absolutely beloved by their communities, but at the same time, I actually knew very little about them before this episode, so I was overjoyed to learn so much about them. They've got 120 stores under four different banners, and John, who's now a category manager for snacks and commercial bread, was in pantry before. He's been with them since 2006, so he really knows them in and out. And you're going to hear about it to. Today, we talk a lot about Raley's as a retailer, what's important to them at a company level and to him as a buyer and how brands can work with them.

01:34
Daniel Scharff
We learned a lot about healthy snacking trends and so much more. You will love this episode, I promise. Enjoy. All right, here we go. John Lane, welcome to the podcast. Do you mind starting us off with a quick intro?

01:50
John Lane
Yeah, Daniel, that'd be great. Thanks again for having me on here. It's really exciting to introduce you and your community to Raley's. My name's John Lane. I've been with raley's for about 18 years. I've worked in five of our stores, and I spent time as a merchandising partner for about a year and a half. Through that time, I've held every position you could possibly think of within store operations, all the way from bagging groceries to throwing freight on night and even doing books and every leadership role in between. Most recently, before coming over to sales and merch, about eight months ago, I was a store team leader in Oakdale, where me and my team, we led the company. We were number two in customer service.

02:22
John Lane
We almost took that number one spot, but we've always had customer first focus, and that's just something we do here at Raley's. And it's been really exciting hopping onto sales and merch. Eight months I've been on the pantry desk, and just a couple weeks ago here in the beginning of January, I'm moving over to snacks, working with commercial bread and DSD and all the fun, tasty, healthy treats out there.

02:42
Daniel Scharff
Okay. I love it. So aside from your current role in sales and merch, and aside from the team leader role, which of your positions in the store was your favorite? Was it bagging or, like. Like Night Freight or which one of those did do you kind of miss the most?

02:56
John Lane
Okay, so out of all the positions in store, besides leadership roles, I'm gonna go with produce. I spent seven years of my career in the produce department, and it's just like the central hub of the grocery store. That's literally where all the city gossip happens. Everyone comes in, talks. They just want to tell you the stories you hear about the families, and then plus, you're working with fresh stuff all day long, so you. You just really feel good when you go home at the end of the day, you know? And who doesn't like trying apples with some sales from some customers out there, you know?

03:27
Daniel Scharff
Yeah. I feel like I would be really healthy if I worked in produce. I would always just be eyeing big, fresh produce, and that would probably make me eat more of it instead of some of the bad choices that I make.

03:38
John Lane
I know. I totally learned how to try, like, some new, exciting apples, like, you know, the honeycrisp and the opals, Things I would never even thought to buy if I was just a normal consumer. So.

03:47
Daniel Scharff
That sounds delicious. Okay, so now let's talk about Raley's for a little bit. I know about Raley's. I lived in California. A lot of people may have heard of it, but don't really know a lot about the stores. Can you give us a little bit of Raley's 101?

04:02
John Lane
Okay. Raley's 101. We operate as a modern company. We have a proud legacy, and we've been evolving to serve our communities both here in California and Nevada. We were opened by Tom Raley's back in 1935. So it's really exciting because we're at our 90th anniversary. So 90 years later, we still got our third generation family owner, Mike Thiel. He carries on the legacy of the grocery industry innovation. Really cool. With that industry innovation, the Raley's family of stores, we're actually now part of a larger enterprise. It's the Raley's companies. So the Raley's companies, we bring together other businesses, including Basha's Field, True Organics, Fildera through shared values with a focus on creating a more sustainable and responsible food system. We want to educate people about healthy food choices out there.

04:49
John Lane
And together, all of our brands under the Raley's companies really focus on those synergies.

04:53
Daniel Scharff
All right, that's awesome. Well, congratulations on the 90th anniversary. And can you tell me a little bit about each of the banners that you guys have also?

05:01
John Lane
Yeah. So we have four banners. We have our Raley's Bel Air, Nob Hill Foods, and our Raley's One markets. All of them operate fairly similarly. The big call out is our Raley's One markets, which stand for organic nutrition and education. And those stores are all about really putting the best, healthiest products forward for you. We have a whole list of banned ingredients that are not even allowed in some of those stores. So you can always trust that you're really getting clean label ingredients when you're shopping at Raley's One.

05:31
Daniel Scharff
That makes sense. Yeah, I haven't been into one, but I was just looking at some pictures of the storefronts and it sort of was giving me the like Whole Foods or Fresh Time type vibes. Looking at the signage on the outside. So that looks pretty nice.

05:44
John Lane
Yeah, no, it's great. Those stores have some very unique SKUs too, that get introduced exclusively for them.

05:50
Daniel Scharff
Okay, so Raley's 120 stores total. That is massive for California especially, obviously one of the biggest players in California. So there are other grocery stores in California. Can you tell me, how are Raley's different from the other grocery stores that are out there? Why is a consumer going to Raley's instead of some of the other options that they have?

06:12
John Lane
So there's a couple things that are really different about Raley's. One of them is our store layouts. I mean, a lot of our Raleys have been built throughout the years and you can see all the different form factors and layouts, and they're really designed to, you know, be one one with the community in which they serve. So the stores have characters. And the best thing about the characters of our store Layouts, it translates to the character of our store team members. So the big thing that's going to separate us from everyone else is our team members, just how much they care. They're always there to make sure that we're doing whatever we can to serve our customers. And that's what I think separates us from everyone else. Not to mention unbiased opinion. Highest quality meat and produce.

06:50
John Lane
I can speak from the seven years in produce on that one.

06:53
Daniel Scharff
All right. It's always good if you hear someone who works there say that. So, I mean, I imagine also that just for a lot of people, it's just the brand that they grew up with. Right. Because you guys have been around for so long. So it's just part of the culture and fabric of the community. Right. People who grew up going to Raley's, it's been there for 90 years. And so it's just part of the community probably in a lot, in many senses. What do you think?

07:15
John Lane
Yeah, that really speaks to who our shopper is. So our shoppers, we got multi generational shoppers, like, they've been coming here with their grandma, their mom, and then now themselves. I know personally, I was a kid and I was shopping at Raley's, and it was actually the produce team lead at the time who kept, you know, trying to get me to apply to come work at the store. So they just kind of see you grow up. So we have all those shoppers that just been around for a very long time and very loyal, dedicated base. And then the other cool thing is we also have a whole lot of new shoppers that come into our market. They're just looking for stuff that they can trust. They're looking for, you know, brands that they know are going to better for you.

07:53
John Lane
And that's kind of what Raley's represents. Is that better for you option versus some conventional grocers out there?

07:58
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, it's something that I think is overlooked a lot, but it really is true about grocery stores and, like, why people just keep going back. You know, it's like just part of their routine and it is. It's part of their sense of self. Like, I am a Raley's shopper and I hear people talk about Raley's that way all the time, but I never really stopped to think about why. And I think that kind of loyalty will keep meaning more and more, especially as, like, we move to things like self checkout. Right. And you, like, lose a little bit of some of the human touch that you have at the Grocery stores where that might have historically built the bond, like the true connection you have with the community probably will endure.

08:31
Daniel Scharff
I know, at least like the grocery store I grew up going to, now it just feels like I don't know what this thing is. It's like a corporate grocery store. You don't talk to anyone. No one seems very happy. The lights are very dim and it's self checkout. You're like, I don't need to keep coming here. This isn't really who I am anymore. But my guess is Rally's has really actually kept up that sense of who they are and people really feel it.

08:52
John Lane
Yeah, no, we definitely have kept it up. And one of the things I remember when I was first starting as like a checker was, you know, we're always taught to make sure we're bringing the next person over into our line. But we have such generational shoppers that have been coming with us forever that they'll stand and wait in that line so they can talk to Steve because, you know, they want to catch up with Steve because he's been their checker, you know, for the last 20 years. And so they don't mind waiting that extra time just to have those conversations because all of our team members just really care.

09:19
Daniel Scharff
I love it. Speaking about Raley's and the company, do you guys have any bigger company initiatives that you're all working on?

09:26
John Lane
Yeah, so we have some initiatives that we've worked on over the years that have really helped, like build that trust with our consumer base. One of the things that we did is were leading the grocery industry with health and wellness. We went ahead and removed all tobacco products from our stores a while back. That was a huge thing that not many people were doing at the time. And then we converted all of our checkout stands, all for better for you products so you won't see all the unhealthy impulse things that everyone wants to buy when you walk through the check sand. But it's all going to better for you. You know, really geared to that healthier lifestyle. We've done some initiatives where we raised awareness about sugar.

10:02
John Lane
So we had sugar call outs on some of our tags where we've identified, like what pasta sauces have added sugar, what cereals are really low in sugar, because we just want to add that transparency to our customers. Another cool thing in our meat department, we have 100% sustainable seafood, which I think is just fantastic. But my favorite thing, bar none, is the shelf guide that we implemented. So we introduced this self created Shelf guide that has a whole bunch of label call outs to make shopping easier for our customers. So you can walk up to any tag and you can quickly see if it's gut friendly or if it's clean label. And when you see that clean label tag, you know, that product we vetted that it does not have any of our banned ingredients. I just think that's the coolest thing.

10:45
John Lane
And to make it even better, our website, you can shop those collections. So you can hop in if you only want to search gut healthy items because that's the lifestyle you're choosing to live right now. You can just click one button and all of our gut healthy options will pop up. And I just think that's really cool.

11:00
Daniel Scharff
I love this, John. I'm getting very excited about Raley's talking to you about it. I love all of these initiatives. I think it's so responsible of a company also to get rid of the stuff in the checkout, like the impulse buy candy items. One, I bet parents really appreciate it because you see kids, like kicking and screaming if they go through the checkout and they don't get a candy bar sometimes. And it's just like, we don't all need that stuff. I say that as somebody who used to work at Mars Chocolate and, you know, was like really focusing a lot on the roi, on the kind of space of the checkout. And I know those big companies will actually pay you a lot of money in slotting and spacing fees to actually get that checkout.

11:37
Daniel Scharff
So for you guys to actually make that decision and live by your values, I know is one that has heavy financial impact. So I can tell you must really mean it if you are doing that as well as all the other cool initiatives. So, I mean, I guess on this vein of snacking and healthy snacking and trying to help people be healthier, what are you up to? Because you're the category manager for snacks, right? And also commercial bread. But within snacking, what are you guys doing around healthy snacking?

12:02
John Lane
So actually, it's funny because we're actually going through review season right now. And some of the trends that I've been seeing out there in healthy snacking, it just feels like there's been a higher focus on macronutrients, making sure that we're paying attention to what we're putting into our body. I've seen a lot of trends regarding portion control. I feel like 2025 is really shaping up to be the year about protein snacks and gut healthy snacks. That's just been Where I see the market going and we really are looking for things that are just more functional in our diet. We all love to like indulge, but at the end of the day we know it's not necessarily the best thing for us to be snacking all day long.

12:38
John Lane
So I think what has me super excited as a parent is the introduction in the snack category of more brands that are being conscious of allergens and making sure they're making their products allergen free. I think that has a huge impact because I have my daughter who's already graduated high school. It's a completely different world where now my son who's in first grade, like the amount of things that are not allowed to be brought into a kid's lunch and brought into the classrooms or brought for school parties to celebrate birthdays has grown tremendously. So it's really cool to see in the healthy snacking world that we're focusing more on allergen free and you know, safe for school.

13:16
John Lane
But the best thing, and I know if you've been trying some snacks recently, Daniel, you probably can attest to this is healthy snacking no longer means it tastes like cardboard. The flavor profiles have really stepped up. I know I was trying some cookies the other day and I couldn't tell that it was not like a standard like all butter cookie. Like the flavor was just so good. That has me happy and excited for healthy snacks because now I can have some guilt free pressure, you know.

13:43
Daniel Scharff
I totally agree with you and I think it's actually changing my taste buds because I'm going to be honest, I am a basic kind of dude. Like I actually when I worked at Marsh Chocolate, I loved that candy. It's like crap but it's, you know, like Snickers and M's and I would legitimately really enjoy it. And I thought the brands were really fun and but just it was delicious to me. And you know, now I think when I go back and try those products, I think because now the quality of better for you stuff that now I'm really accustomed to is so high, there's like just really great work being done to bring those products to market.

14:20
Daniel Scharff
The development, the constant improvement of them that now when I go back and try those old candies, like not very high quality food, I would say it just actually is not satisfying to me in the way that it was. So I think that's a really positive sign overall. I never thought about it that way, but I think that is what's happening. It's just I don't know, maybe it's the moats are lower now for an early brand to come out with something that is really high quality, people have better access to strong product developers, freelancers, people who have honed their skill sets at some of those big companies. And it's not as hard to bring a product to market now. You can do it on E Commerce. You don't have to rely on getting that distribution with Walmart or whoever day one. Right.

14:59
Daniel Scharff
They're like great regional grocery players, all of that stuff. So that is pretty interesting. So within snacking, what is the top moving stuff? Is it like chips and bars or like, you know, what would the top couple things be that's getting most of the shelf space for you?

15:15
John Lane
So our snacking category is pretty divided up. So we have chips. Chips are dedicated. Chips are going to be king all the time. But when you move on, we're going into cookies. Cookies and crackers are going to probably be the next like top snacking items. And that's where we've been seeing a lot of the innovation come through is a lot new flavor profiles in the cookie world, which to me is just exciting. But yeah, there's not too many really big players that will top those two categories. Unless you're looking at bread. But it's not really a snack. Some people might argue it can be.

15:47
Daniel Scharff
I mean, man, you get some good olive oil on that thing. I'm pretty interested to see. I personally think that we will see a very large shift in market share coming in the next couple years where just brands like Oreo start losing a lot of share to smaller companies that are coming up with just better stuff. It might not be as inexpensive, but you know, I think like, hey, we've got like the red dye news coming out, the awareness. I think people are just starting to really think about what ingredients are in their food and just kind of what's been in a lot of the mass market stuff. And that's. It doesn't perform so high on taste, where they're going to be able to fend off the companies that are really focused on better ingredients.

16:28
Daniel Scharff
So I think the news that emerging brands are taking share is not new. That's like what all of us are trying to do and what we're all building toward. But I think at some point there really will be a seismic shift where you just see the big companies really start to panic because all of a sudden their businesses, I mean maybe they were able to grow them last year with price increases. It seems like this year they are not seeing the volume increases and now they're going through an acquisition strategy. And I think then, like, next year probably is going to be the year where things really start to actually decline and reverse and who knows what they'll do to react. But they are big cpg, so they will figure out something.

17:06
John Lane
I totally agree. And like, when you're looking at this now with how tight the economic situation has become, people are really just looking for value. And value does not always relate to like, the cost on the shelf. So people are willing to spend a little bit more because their perceived value is that it's going to be more indulgent, is going to better for their lifestyle. And when you have these, like, major players that are starting to creep up in price, the difference now is kind of minimal. Do I want to spend a dollar more for my health? Probably.

17:33
Daniel Scharff
Especially in the Ozempic world. Right. Where people aren't just getting as much food as they might have been before and they're just going to crave different things and probably have a little bit more budget if they're not spending as much on their overall checkout because of the volume going down a little bit. So. But you know, speaking of which, like, still you guys have a grocery store. You need to have options and solutions that your consumers are looking for. So you do have a lot of those legacy brands, let's say, on shelf. How are you balancing shelf space and like, your attention and secondary space and all that stuff between those legacy brands and emerging brands?

18:08
John Lane
Okay. Yeah. So on this one, I'm going to go back to like, my pantry days, which was like a couple of weeks ago. So with the legacy brands and emergency brands, one of the big things that you have to think about when you're looking at your legacy brands is some of these brands are literally on like grandma's recipes card. And if you have a holiday dinner that you're making and it says a national brand that you walk into a store, you don't see that you're probably walk behind the rest of the holiday shopping list. So we really need to make sure that we're keeping, you know, the legacy brands that have, like this tried and true, like, flavor profile that everyone knows that they can depend on consistently.

18:44
Daniel Scharff
I feel like we're talking about Ragu, but I don't know why.

18:48
John Lane
Who knows?

18:51
Daniel Scharff
Just a wild guess, right?

18:52
John Lane
Yeah, but you definitely need those guys around because you have to think that those guys are going to be the ones that will really turn the velocities for the category they're going to be moving the units, they're going to be driving the dollars. And then now your category managers, we can go ahead and pick the brands that we're really passionate about and allocate some sales space, you know, and see if we can help work to kind of grow that brand a little bit more. It's really about having a new brand that really has a mission and wants to be disruptive to the category that we can kind of focus some extra attention on. But we only can do that if we have legacy brands that are still bringing in the profit share for us.

19:26
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, I spoke to another head of center store and he was explaining to me like, yeah, look, we have those legacy brands on shelf and it is a very heavy percentage of our overall sales. But actually the amount of time that we spend with the emerging brands is very outsized because like, yeah, we meet with those big brands, we need to understand their new item swaps and their promo plan for the year, all that stuff. But most of the stuff that we want to do that we are doing is spending time figuring out what emerging brands we're going to actually then slot in. Because the other stuff we can kind of put on automatic in a lot of cases and then we can get to the stuff that we're really passionate about.

19:59
John Lane
Yeah, the big brands, they just have such a dialed game plan because they're not only doing it locally, they're national players, maybe even international players. So they have a full portfolio that's worked out and proven strategies that they just can go ahead and execute on. So definitely those legacy brands have an important role in ourselves.

20:18
Daniel Scharff
Okay, so John, at this point every brand listening is like, I need to work with John and Rayleigh's. What kind of brands are you looking for? Is it a lot of the ones you talked about like, hey, I want to see brands that are working on all of the nutrit stuff and allergens or you know, what specifically.

20:33
John Lane
So I want to see that kind of stuff. But more than that, I really want to see young brands that are looking to become legacy brands. Because I think that's one of the biggest things. A lot of times we get so focused on our current product scheme that we're not thinking, what does 30 years down the road look like? How are we making sure that the kids buying it, that they're going to still be buying it 30 years later and telling their kids to buy the product. So I'm really looking for brands that want to establish themselves as a legacy brand. It can be the ones that are turning units here when I'm getting ready to retire. So that's kind of what I'm looking for with that.

21:04
Daniel Scharff
How are they going to convince you of that, though? Is it like, hey, you hit a certain ACV distribution number? Or I just feel that from you, or you've been around in the market and I can see the growth already.

21:16
John Lane
So part of it comes, you know, just from having the conversations with brands. Sometimes people don't seem excited about their products, and that's really unfortunate. Like, I want to see the excitement in your products. Like, because if you're not excited about it, why am I going to be excited about it? More importantly, why is the customer who has like a hundred other choices on the same shelf going to be excited about the product? So I'm looking for people who are really excited, people that are talking about how they want to be disruptive to the category. What are you doing that's going to really make a shift? Like, why should you be on the shelf? Why do you need shelf space? And more importantly, why do you needing shelves fit with Raley's values?

21:54
John Lane
Like, because there's plenty of products out there that I could think of on top of my head that could turn and make tons of money, but they just don't align with, like, who we are as a company and we're not going to bring you in. So making sure that you really have done your research and you know who Raley's is and why you should be there 30 years from now and not just, oh, we got this one cool thing, but I want to see what are all the cool things you're planning, what's the brand and being able to succeed in your home market and come in with the data. Don't just come in and being all excited because you heard John likes excitement. I also want some data to back it up.

22:30
John Lane
And it's not a free pass to just come in excited and get yourself on the shelf.

22:34
Daniel Scharff
I totally agree with you, especially about that passion part. And it's kind of blows me away that anybody could get to the point where they actually get to come and pitch to you and they wouldn't just be bursting at the seams, just excited about their product and the chance to work with you and, you know, just like, could hardly contain their excitement. You know, I wonder what that's like. It also is kind of like, I wonder if those are salespeople or if it's actually if it's the founder that's Even crazier. You know, I see a lot of pitches. We record a lot of content also. And sometimes it does happen where, like, the founder can just come off as lower energy. Sometimes it might be their style where they're just like, okay, me. Daniel, I personally am very excited about everything.

23:15
Daniel Scharff
I'm, like, big and cheesy and I will go way over the top. Like, that has worked for me, I think, pretty well in sales meetings. There are other people who might just, like, be very analytical and just like that. That's just how their minds work. And I don't know, maybe they figure out ways to like, pitch somebody based off just, like, pure data. I don't know. It works for people in different ways, but just to, like, not have passion about the thing that they're spending their lives doing, no matter whether you're the founder or the salesperson, is not great.

23:45
John Lane
You know, like, yeah, no, I really love when. When I get the combo, I get the person who's heavy into analytics, give me all the data all day long. And then you got the person that really is like, a hundred percent in and can tell you the story and, like, why it belongs with you. I think those are really good things. And you mentioned acv, Raley's. Like, we don't really necessarily have a dedicated cutoff on like, acv. We're always willing to be first to market, but if we're going to be first to market, we really want to make sure that you can support the supply chain. So for us, if you're looking to work with Raley's, you should always be thinking about it. That kind of should be a goal. But use this as a baseline to determine what you're going to need.

24:23
John Lane
You want to make sure that you have built a strong company that you have understand your financials, that you've looked, and you understand the distributors that we potentially will be working with. You or you already have a DSD distribution network that's in place. Want to make sure that as a company, you understand the nuts and bolts and, like, the flow of business. And that while you may be super excited to get your product on the shelf, it may not align with the category manager's, like, review cycle. So get in touch, call our offices, get in touch with the category manager. But they say, hey, I'm doing reviews in May. Make sure you set that calendar reminder and start reaching out and getting ahold of them. But, yeah, I don't think we should be looking specifically at ACV in our stores.

25:04
John Lane
We're big enough that we can take some risk.

25:06
Daniel Scharff
And just so people know, what are the distributors that typically work best for you in case someone's already in them or has an option to open up a distributor?

25:15
John Lane
Yeah. So we partner with a few distributors, the ones that are like top of mind right now unifi and then we both are Stockton, and they're a natural warehouse over in Rockland. But we're open to working with other distribution partners. It's just all a matter of they're in our network.

25:32
Daniel Scharff
All right, good to know. So, John, let's say I've pitched you my better for you Snack brand got set up in Unfi Rocklin. I'm on shelf now. Now it's time to dance, Right? What do I need to do to make sure that I actually cut through the clutter, cut through the legacy brands and get these amazing Raley's customers to pick me up off the shelf? What are the kind of marketing things I can do? Promo things, what really works?

25:58
John Lane
So if you've already gotten all the way onto the shelf, I'm hoping that you're already a very strong brand advocate for yourself. So brand advocacy, making sure that you're doing some social posts, making sure that you're calling out that is available on shelves at Raley's anytime we can do extra tie ins like that is always a great win. Having coming with a strong promotion plan, making sure that we don't just launch your product and then because you want to protect your price perception, you just launch at regular retail. You're new, let's get you. Let's get some momentum. So let's come in with an aggressive promotion strategy. Really do what we can. Get people to want to try your products. And it's grocery who got people to try your products. So there's other programs that you can get into.

26:38
John Lane
You can work with our sampling teams and make sure you set up demos because nothing beats tasting product. And for a consumer, it's a very low risk of entry. It costs you nothing. You're in the store and someone's saying, hey, try this. Better for you snack. So I definitely think working with our sampling programs are great. And then we have a whole bunch of other programs that we run that I can talk to you in length in any meeting, but I'm not gonna bore everyone with it right now.

27:04
Daniel Scharff
Well, you hit the right one for me. I love demos the most. Even like me personally, I was the CEO of the company. I still wanted to go and run the demos myself because I love doing it so much. I love going in and just like I'm gonna sell out that end cap today. I get really competitive about it and excited. I love the chance just to interrupt people and really talk to them for a second about the brand, cut through the clutter. But obviously it's expensive and hard to be everywhere doing demos all the time. Even when you have partners who can help you with that.

27:33
John Lane
We'll actually kind of talk real quick about demos. So cool thing about demos, I just want to make sure everyone kind of thinks about this is if you're going to be demoing your product, make sure your product's on a TPR during that timeframe, make sure it's an ad and you can partner with me or any merchant and like we can work to try and make sure you have extra display space during that demo period. Because if we're going to have you invest and spend time and money on a demo, like we want to do what we can to try and make it as successful as possible for you. There's no sense in wasting a demo to go to the shelf and be full retail or not be able to find it because there wasn't enough product post out to the store.

28:07
John Lane
So I just think demos are a great time to plan ahead and let's make a strategic plan together to really get the maximum execution for it.

28:15
Daniel Scharff
That is real deal. If I could demo and be on two for five, then 100% of people would buy two. So really effective. And yeah, I mean, just making sure you got the enough inventory there. There's nothing worse than like a wasted demo person's time. They're like, hey, I got there were nine units there, I sold them. You want me to just stand here and like pour samples even though people can't buy it?

28:36
John Lane
Like, nah.

28:37
Daniel Scharff
So I think that's really good to hear. And you know, it also sounds to me, John, like you care about all of these things even from very small brands. Like you want them to be posting to their customers about you, even if they're emerging brands and they don't have the reach of a Kardashian. Like, yeah, you might not have that many followers. We still want you telling them that you're on shelf with us and you know, we want you to telling us when you're doing the demos, even if you're small. So we can just make sure we have inventory to support those. So it sounds like you really do care about these small brands that aren't making up such a heavy percentage of your overall volume.

29:11
John Lane
Yeah, because I mean, if I've taken the time to decide that I care enough about the brand to get it on the shelf, I want it to succeed. No one wants to bring something in and just watch it die on the shelf, and it's just not a good feeling. So I really want to do all the little things I can to help the success of anyone that we're going to do some programs with.

29:29
Daniel Scharff
I love it. So are there any brands you've seen come in and just crush it? Like, they did the right programs or they just did demos, like nobody you've ever seen before. Any recent examples?

29:39
John Lane
Okay, so I got a couple recent examples, but it's all pantry desks, not snacking. So these are some guys that I worked with over the last eight months. So one brand that came to mind and absolutely crush it. Saws, I'm sure you're familiar with them, they came in with a purpose, ready to disrupt the pasta sauce aisle. They had their bright packaging, unique flavors, and they just came in with, like, a hardcore plan of, like, let's be collaborative and let's do what we can to get product moving. So from the moment they launched, went ahead and threw them on a new and now a frame, which is a program that we run. We try to pick some cool brands that we can spotlight as being new to our company.

30:16
John Lane
So they were full in for that, Were willing to come with an aggressive TPR for the entire month to make sure that everyone who saw their product had a chance to really, you know, go for it. And the cool thing was, you know, we saw these huge spikes, and then they kept it mainly from all their extra involvement. And the thing that I think makes them really successful with us is they are a very collaborative team. So I'll get phone calls saying, hey, John, what do you think is going to work next? Like, how can we keep the momentum coming? What coupon strategies should we go with?

30:46
John Lane
And so just being open about that type of a communication, not coming in, saying, john, this is what we think's gonna work, and this is what we're gonna run with has been really helpful to them and definitely something that our customers have responded to. And then I got one other brand, I think really crushed it. Fish Wife. They came in and, I mean, they had such a strong social media presence already that people knew the brand, they knew what they were about, they knew all the goodness. And went ahead and launched them on our Healthy Choices a frame and our Healthy Choices. It's those products are always picked by our dietitian so as category merchants, we can go ahead and recommend what we think would be good.

31:24
John Lane
But our dietitian vets all those products before they ever end up on a Healthy Choice A frame. So, you know, our customers can really feel good about what they're seeing. So again, like, Fish Wife came in and they had a strong promo plan. Right before Thanksgiving, they went ahead and ran an aggressive shopper marketing campaign while being on TPR to help get those extra digital sales. And then when people were just making their shopping list online, they were able to come in stores, see it on the Healthy Choice A frame, and it was on sale like it was just a great way to come in and just like crush it and really help lift the overall category. Just bringing people back to that shelf stable fish section. So I, I think those two brands right there definitely crushed it for me.

32:05
Daniel Scharff
I love it and I also love always hearing when it's startup cbg, community brands, saws, bunch of our meetups and Fish Wife, no surprise, their head of sales, Pierre, definitely a big part of our community. He did a really epic podcast episode with me that we're going to run again here soon on how to crush Expo West. They just have lots of good advice and they obviously know how to get it done on shelf too. John, man, I really like talking to you. All of this stuff just makes a lot of sense and I feel like I'm really learning a lot. One thing that I think about, like everybody has a unique perspective they bring to their job. What's yours?

32:40
John Lane
All right, so a couple unique perspectives. One I don't think should be a unique perspective. It's. I think business should be easy. I, I don't think to have like very hard struggles in our communication when coming together with a plan. Like, at the end of the day, we're all here to try and make the brand succeed and sell more groceries. So I don't think that should be a unique perspective. But unfortunately I've seen out there over the years that some people just want to make doing business hard. And I don't think that should be the case. But the big part is all comes from store operations.

33:11
John Lane
So with 17 years of being in store and helping people find products and knowing how customers are actually responding to the shelf when they're looking at items, knowing which areas of the stores that they actually are walking to find the products, when they go and ask you, hey, where is this? Because I thought it should be here. So a lot of years of just customer service and learning, like where people think Things should be placed. That's. I just find it invaluable, especially when making decisions for a schematic. It's like, okay, well people think that it should be on like this aisle. Why do we have it over with crackers? Like things like that, just like moving stuff and just being fearless enough to go ahead and do that is one of the big things.

33:50
John Lane
And from being a merchandising partner for a year and a half, I really pay a lot of attention to like packaging and design and how it's going to build displays. I don't know if that's always a thought that people are thinking about when designing their product labels. Sometimes things look great on the shelf. Like it stands out, it looks fantastic. But then you go to build the display with it. You put it where it's customer facing, but it's on a table and the top logo is now facing away from the customer. So it's small details like that I'm always willing to point out to brands and say, hey, you know, think about how is this going to be merchandise, second location, how are we going to make sure that it can stand up in different ways?

34:28
John Lane
And then paying attention to weight distribution is sometimes products come in and like the way they're heavy, like yeah, it looks great when the tray's full but one item sells and then you can never have that tray faced ever again. It's just going to be laying flat. So things like that I'm always looking at when looking at brands and giving that as feedback of like what we could potentially do. Because if I want to bring it in and we're going to make this potentially a legacy brand in the future, I'm going to offer whatever I can to improve the quality of the product because that's going to improve the overall success and execution rate. And the other thing I'm really looking at is like what's our case pack coming in? How big is that box is going to ship to the store?

35:05
John Lane
Because that 18 year old on night crew at 2am when they're trying to unload the pallet, how are they going to dolly it? Is it going to be like too wide? Is it going to be falling over? Is it going to be able to support the stack of other products on top of it when it's getting to the shelf? So really just thinking about where these operational aspects involved at store level more than when it, than just what it's going to look like on shelf and what that TPR strategy is going to be, I think those are some of the big things I bring different from coming from a running a store for.

35:33
Daniel Scharff
A while, that is a really valuable perspective. But also speaking about like coming from the store background. So at some point you also had to learn how to do the category management part, the merchandising part. So I know also I saw that you have the WAFC Retail Management certificate. Can you tell people what WAFC is and how did that program work? What did you learn?

35:56
John Lane
Okay, so the WAFC is the Western association of Food Chains. It's a non profit organization that's comprised of retailers and wholesalers of the western us. Their primary mission is to provide education and leadership opportunities for food industry associates and help advance employees in the successful careers. So for me I took the program Fresno City College, it was online, I was able to complete in 2018 and it really just taught a lot of retail basics. So some of the things that you learn in that program is workplace communications, like how to draft memos, how to write emails, you know, very stuff that now I take for granted. Seems like common sense, but it really teaches you those basics if you're not doing it every single day.

36:42
John Lane
There were some courses in HR you can learn when you enter leadership roles and like what you should be doing as a leader. But personally, from my own experience, what I got most out of it was just a launching pad to get me back into school. So I took 10 years off of college when my daughter was born. So I never finished college the first time around. Ten years later this opportunity came forward. It was offered by Raley's. So it's something that Raley's fully supports our team members to do. Went through the program, got the certificate and then used that as a reason to go back and earn my AS degree in marketing. With the as, I was able to go ahead get a couple more promotions.

37:21
John Lane
When I felt stable again in my work life balance, I went ahead and got back to school. I went through wgu, earned my BS in Marketing and then just this last September I went back again and had finished my MBA in Business Administration.

37:35
Daniel Scharff
So that's amazing.

37:37
John Lane
It was a great launching patch. So to go from not finishing school because I needed to raise a kid and make sure that she was taken care of to earning my MBA all within like 6 years of finishing the retail management certificate was a pretty like crazy strategy to go back.

37:53
Daniel Scharff
That's impressive man. Well, makes a lot of sense why you're progressing so fast also at Raley's. So maybe last question for you, just on a non work topic is I know you're a big game night guy. So what's your go to game? What do you like to play?

38:09
John Lane
Prior to us moving for this role, we used to do a lot of game nights and it got kind of excessive at one point in time. I like, we had to stop buying board games. We have about a hundred different board games in one pantry just because it was something that we would do consistently. So there's a few that come to mind if we're going the most hours spent in a game. We go with Gloomhaven. You ever heard of it? But basically it's like a modern take on Dungeons Dragons, which it's fun. It's all about socializing with your friends and being able to cook some tri tips and hang out for like a five hour campaign if I'm just looking for a quick time. Settlers of Catan is another one of our favorites.

38:48
John Lane
My daughter, as she was growing up would always jump in on game nights with me and my friends for that. And now that I got my six year old son, we are spending a lot of time playing Life Super Mario Edition and Pokemon Labyrinth. You know, so the board game things has changed over the years, but I got to ask you, do you have any preference? What's your favorite?

39:08
Daniel Scharff
I like the Game of Life. I remember playing that when I was growing up. Man, I don't play a ton of games, but one that I am playing right now because when I was home, I was hanging with my nephew and my niece and I was like, let's play a game. What do we got? And we downloaded a game called Crossy Road. Now this is a very addictive game, people. Crossy Road is not complex. You cross a road, you're a character. You tap the phone to kind of cross the road. There are a lot of things trying to prevent you from crossing the road. And it's very fun. Like, I love these games that are just super easy to start playing.

39:41
Daniel Scharff
You know, kind of like Angry Birds, that sort of style where you immediately get some success and then, I don't know, it's really fun. Honestly, I was playing it in the gym this morning. I was just like on the exercise bike. I was like, I know what will make this go really fast is if I just play this game and it totally works. I was like actually putting in a good workout, had, you know, good BPM and was crossing the heck out of that road.

40:02
John Lane
Right, there we go.

40:04
Daniel Scharff
So more of a solo game. But yeah, anyways, next time I'm up in NorCal, let's get a Settlers of Catan game going. And then I also hope that any brands that are planning to pitch you will put some sort of reference to sellers of Catan or another game into their pitch deck and just, you know, try to connect with you over a shared interest that way.

40:27
John Lane
Right on.

40:28
Daniel Scharff
So, John, what's a good way for people to follow along with you? Like follow you on LinkedIn or what's a good way?

40:35
John Lane
Yeah, so very minimal social media presence on my end. I got my LinkedIn account and that's probably the best way to get a find me and get a hold of me. But if you're looking to connect for business purposes, always following like the actual channels of calling up the office and getting connected that way. But if you want talk about industry stuff and just see what's happening in the trends, find me on LinkedIn. And I'm always game to chat.

40:56
Daniel Scharff
I love it. And you are going to a couple trade shows coming up, right? Do you mind letting people know where you're going to be?

41:01
John Lane
Yeah, so I will definitely be at Expo west and then coming up here in what, next month, I'll be over in Chicago for Rangeme's Winter snacks.

41:12
Daniel Scharff
Amazing. All right, John, thank you so much. Honestly, this was a super pleasure to get to chat with you and just really learn about Raley's. This is the first chance I ever got to kind of do a deep dive in. It Sounds awesome. So thank you so much for sharing all of that and we look forward to seeing you at a trade event soon.

41:30
John Lane
All right, sounds good, Daniel, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

41:32
Daniel Scharff
All right, bye everyone. 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 to more. It is superfantastics. Com. Thank you everybody. See you next time.