Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Shelf to Scale
| Titre | Date | Durée | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How to Get Your Product on Shelf in Canada | CPG Distribution | 10 Sep 2026 | 00:37:45 | |
Jim Kavanagh spent 49 years in Canadian grocery as a Sobeys and Metro category manager, a distributor, and now a food broker. He explains what getting on shelf actually costs. In this episode: - Why a $30,000 listing fee can be the wrong move in year one, and what to take instead. - What a category manager is thinking the moment you sit down: what am I removing for you? - Off-invoice programs, free fills, shrink allowances, and the costs founders never model, - How to read a store before you pitch it, including the dust ring trick - Why retailers now demand non-GMO certification instead of accepting the claim on pack, - The signs Jim uses to decide a brand isn't ready for a broker yet Jim founded Brandseed Marketing in 2014 after leaving a senior grocery role at 51. He represents better-for-you brands into Canadian retail and works as a master broker into the US. He turns down brands that compete with each other on the same shelf, which is rarer in brokerage than founders assume. Website - https://www.brandseedmarketing.ca/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jkavanagh/ Shelf to Scale is a weekly podcast for CPG and FMCG founders navigating distribution, retail, and international scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani. Follow on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. | |||
| How This Ice Cream Brand Went From 200 to 700 Stores | CPG Pivot | 03 Sep 2026 | 00:27:33 | |
He was in 200 stores with pints. He killed the entire product line and went to 700. The idea that did it came from his sister, talking about her toddler's baby food. Sam Rose founded Rosebud Ice Cream and spent two years making every single pint by hand. Wake at 5am, teach boxing, drive from Denver to Longmont, make ice cream from 2pm to 2am, then deliver to Whole Foods before they stop receiving at 11. Two years of that got him to roughly 200 stores. Then he pulled pints entirely, put soft serve in a pouch, and landed in about 700. This episode is the full mechanics of a CPG packaging pivot:
If you are a CPG or FMCG founder fighting for a shelf facing that only opens when someone else loses theirs, this is the episode. GUEST Sam Rose, Founder and Cream Executive Officer, Rosebud Ice Cream LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samuel-rose-19998b1b0/ Website: https://rosebudicecream.com/ SHELF TO SCALE Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail buyers, co-packers, and international scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani. New episodes every Thursday. #CPG #RetailDistribution #FoodAndBeverage | |||
| He Did $1M Running In-Store Demos. Here's What Works | 27 Aug 2026 | 00:35:40 | |
Matthew Kubick has run tens of thousands of in-store CPG demos since 2015, and he says a profitable demo can still be a failed one. Here is how he reads the numbers.In this episode:- Why he tells brands to take a loss on every unit sold at a demo- The metric that tells you whether the problem is your rep, your price, or your product- Costco roadshows: what six figures in four days actually costs you up front- Why the same product ships in different pack sizes to GNC and Walmart- Why 90 percent of CPG brands should sell direct to consumer before retail- The reason he turns down brands who negotiate on a ten demo minimumMatt founded Local Demo Service in November 2015 after a prayer, a farmers market booth in Honolulu, and a job bagging coffee for nine dollars an hour. He now runs demo and field marketing activations nationwide for brands including Laird Superfoods and Alice Mushrooms, and this year the business crossed a million dollars in revenue. He also runs the activations for the two best-selling beverages on Sprouts shelves right now.If you are planning your first retail demos or you have a Costco roadshow on the calendar, this is the operational detail nobody publishes. GUEST Matt Kubick — Local Demo Service LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-kubick/ Website: https://naturalbrokerage.com/ SHELF TO SCALE Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani #CPG #FMCG #RetailDistribution #CostcoRoadshow #FoodAndBeverage | |||
| How to Build in Public and Launch a Food Brand | Cotto | 20 Aug 2026 | 00:33:40 | |
She was blending cottage cheese in a rented New York commercial kitchen and meeting strangers in parks and Starbucks to hand off the dips they'd bought online. That unscalable model is exactly what got Cotto onto shelves at Fairway Market and West Side Market. Kendall Kransdorf started Cotto after health issues forced her to cut foods out of her diet and cottage cheese became her main whole food protein source. She built a social audience before the product existed, used it as a free focus group to lock her packaging before printing a single case, and sold through a commercial kitchen so she could iterate the formulation week to week instead of waiting on a co-manufacturer. In this episode she breaks down the parts of the refrigerated CPG business nobody warns you about: free fills, who actually pays for promotions, the distributor markup between you and the retailer, nine to twelve month retailer review cycles, and why a late freight truck costs you a week of shelf life you can never get back. If you are building a refrigerated food brand, or trying to get from specialty stores into chain grocery, this is the operational reality. GUEST Kendall Kransdorf — Founder, Cotto Instagram / TikTok: @getcotto Website: https://getcotto.com/pages/find-us SHELF TO SCALE The podcast for CPG and FMCG founders navigating distribution, retail, and international scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani, #CPG #FoodStartup #RetailDistribution | |||
| He Lost $120,000 to a Recall. Here's What Saved the Company | 06 Aug 2026 | 00:37:29 | |
One dairy trace cost this Canadian plant based brand $120,000, three months of unpaid shipments, and a public recall. PlantUp founder Aamir Malkani on getting into Sobeys, UNFI, and 1,200 retail stores across Canada. Aamir came to Canada from a textile manufacturing family in India, knew nothing about food, and cold messaged plant based protein suppliers on LinkedIn until one took a bet on him. Three years later PlantUp is in the frozen aisle and the snack aisle at Sobeys, Metro, Longo's, Fortinos, Whole Foods, Save On Foods and IGA. This conversation is the unglamorous version of CPG distribution. How he booked a trade show booth directly opposite UNFI, served dumplings like a food fest, and turned a lukewarm distributor conversation into a national buyer referral in one afternoon. Why he and his co-founder personally walked into 54 Sobeys and Foodland stores in five days and converted 42 of them before a single category review. Why he thinks a Toronto brand chasing national listings in year one is making a mistake, and the 7 million person math behind that. He also breaks down what a broker actually does versus a distributor, why trade spend is the line item most founders underestimate, and why he switched from pea and chickpea protein to Canadian grown fava beans for the snack line. Then the hard part. A dairy trace in the biggest butter chicken bite run of the year, a national recall, chargebacks that kept arriving seven months later, and what he did on a 20,000 member Facebook group instead of going quiet. If you are trying to get a food or beverage brand onto Canadian grocery shelves, this is the playbook. GUEST SHELF TO SCALE Hosted by Devesh Tilokani | |||
| Self-Manufacturing a CPG Food Brand: Why oomé Built Its Own Smokehouse | 30 Jul 2026 | 00:27:17 | |
Distributor or broker? Miki Talebi built oomé smoked tofu into Whole Foods and breaks down the CPG distribution mistake most founders make. If you think signing a distributor means your product will finally get on shelves, this episode is the correction. Miki Talebi, founder of oomé, grew a premium smoked tofu brand into Whole Foods, Save On Foods, Metro and Longos with no CPG background and a PhD in psychology instead. She explains
Essential listening for any CPG or FMCG founder working on distribution, retail, and getting into grocery. GUEST SHELF TO SCALE Hosted by Devesh Tilokani | |||
| How to Choose a 3PL That Won't Lose Your Inventory | Rahim, Get Set Prep | 23 Jul 2026 | 00:36:28 | |
How to choose a 3PL for your ecommerce or CPG brand from a 3PL owner who once had a fulfillment company lose his entire $1,500 order. Rahim is the founder of Get Set Prep, a Toronto 3PL fulfilling for CPG and ecommerce brands across Canada and the US. In this episode, he walks through the complete playbook for finding a fulfillment partner:
He also shares a warehouse tour checklist for spotting red flags before your inventory arrives, and why 75% of brands that outsource fulfillment to him grow sales month over month. If you're a CPG founder comparing third party logistics providers or still packing your own boxes, this is the buyer's guide. GUEST Website: https://getsetprep.com/contact-us/ Rahim's Phone Number: 416-802-0816 SHELF TO SCALE Hosted by Devesh Tilokani | |||
| Rejected by Dragons' Den 3 Times. Now in 1,300 Stores. | 16 Jul 2026 | 00:40:42 | |
An ice cream brand put freezers in the produce aisle, next to the bananas, and sales jumped 200% in six weeks. Yazeed Yasin co-founded NanaShake with his wife Tamara after their son's asthma ruled out dairy and every alternative on shelf made things worse. In this episode:
GUEST SHELF TO SCALE Hosted by Devesh Tilokani | |||
| 0 to 250 Stores in 12 Months Selling Vietnamese Fruit Snacks | 09 Jul 2026 | 00:41:48 | |
David Ngo helped build North America's #1 poop bag brand. Then he bet everything on dried mango from Vietnam and hit 250 stores in 12 months. How do you scale a CPG brand when your first dollar doesn't come back for 9 months? David launched Nam Fruits in May 2025 and will be in 250+ Canadian stores including IGA, Provigo, and Metro by the end of June 2026. In this episode he breaks down the exact math: why a $1 retail product needs to survive a store margin and a distributor cut, why trade shows cost $6-10K and are still worth it, and why he says he couldn't have started this company without AI. If you're a CPG founder trying to crack retail distribution especially with an imported product, this is the operating manual. GUESTDavid Ngo — Nam FruitsWebsite: https://namfruits.com SHELF TO SCALE Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani | |||
| The Pricing Mistake That Kills Beverage Brands | 02 Jul 2026 | 00:40:56 | |
Costco will pull every price you've ever sold at, find the lowest, and ask for 40% under it. Here's how a beverage operator prices so that never happens. Autumn heads R&D at Gnusante (Newbies, Radiate, 52 North) without a food science degree, after a career in ballet, modeling, and scuba diving. She breaks down the real margin math of beverage, the clear-pouch sampling trick that catches dishonest feedback, why a 33% velocity jump came from making the product smaller, and the barcode change that can get you delisted overnight. If you're building a CPG brand and trying to survive the move from DTC to retail, this is the operator detail most founders learn the hard way. GUEST Autumn — Gnusante (Newbies, Radiate, 52 North) Website: https://www.gnusante.com/ SHELF TO SCALE Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani | |||
| From 0 to 1,500 Stores With Cottage Cheese Ice Cream | 25 Jun 2026 | 00:30:42 | |
He made ice cream out of cottage cheese. It's now headed for 1,500 stores. How do you build a frozen category that didn't exist, then get Sprouts, Whole Foods, and a 500-store retail win in your first year? Smear Case is the first and only frozen cottage cheese ice cream. Half the fat, half the calories, and the most protein of any pint on the shelf. Joe coined and trademarked the word "Froco" before he'd sold a single unit, won the Albertsons Innovation Launchpad pitch at Expo West (and 500 stores with it), and is closing in on 1,500 doors nationwide. If you're a CPG founder trying to create a category instead of fighting for shelf space in an existing one, this conversation is the playbook. GUEST SHELF TO SCALE | |||
| He Lost 1,500 Stores Overnight. Here's What He Did Next. | 18 Jun 2026 | 00:36:34 | |
Arshad Bahl built Amrita Health Foods into 1,500 stores across Whole Foods, Sprouts, and Wegmans. Then lost all of it overnight to a product recall. What came next changed how he thinks about everything.In this episode: - Why a product recall was actually the best thing that happened to Arshad's business- The real role of distributors in your supply chain and why it's not what most founders think- How he built his own manufacturing facility for $150,000 using eBay and Facebook Marketplace- Why $10M in revenue at 15% margin beats $100M at 3% and the math behind staying small- What Peter Rahal, the Tom's Shoes founder, and dozens of other big exits have in commonArshad has been in CPG for over a decade — ran co-packers, ran his own factory, ran DTC, ran retail. He's one of the few founders in the space who has operated at every level of the value chain. This conversation is not about inspiration. It's about the structural decisions that actually determine whether a food brand survives. Guest links:- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arshad-bahl-61206373/- Website: https://www.amritahealthfoods.com/ Shelf to Scale is a weekly podcast for CPG and FMCG founders navigating distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani. | |||
| The Freezer Aisle Is The Hardest Shelf In Retail. Here's How To Get In | Stush Patty | 11 Jun 2026 | 00:31:50 | |
The buyer conversation most CPG founders get completely wrong — and what to say instead. Opal Rowe started Stush Patty during COVID, delivering hot patties out of her car. Today she's in Whole Foods, RABBA, and four provinces across Canada. In this episode, she breaks down exactly how she got there:
If you're building a frozen CPG brand or any retail brand, this is the episode. Guest: Opal Rowe, Founder of Stush Patty Website: https://stushpatties.com/ Instagram: @stushpatty New episodes every week. Subscribe for conversations with CPG founders on distribution, retail and the real mechanics of scaling a physical product brand. | |||
| A 26-Year China Veteran's Complete Guide to Asia Sourcing | 04 Jun 2026 | 00:38:23 | |
Paul Weedman has spent 26 years on the ground in Shenzhen sourcing products for brands from the West. He says 60–80% of Vietnam factory inputs still come from China. So what is China + 1 actually solving? In this episode, Paul breaks down
He also explains the human side of sourcing: why AI can teach you everything and still get you burned, why a translator is the wrong hire, and how a $10M business still comes down to two people walking a street in Shenzhen and sharing a beer. GUEST Paul Weedman — Victure Group LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-weedman/ Website: www.victuregroup.com SHELF TO SCALE Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani | |||
| A Distributor Blocked Her For Years. She's Still Here. They Aren't. Here's How | 28 May 2026 | 00:38:35 | |
Miriam built Delicious Without Gluten from her basement to coast-to-coast distribution, an 8-year Boston Pizza contract, and a Wegmans pretzel that their own buyers couldn't tell was gluten-free. In this episode:
Miriam started in fashion, moved into packaging design for food importers, then opened a peanut-free bakery for her daughter. When her two kids were diagnosed with celiac, she rebuilt everything from scratch. The factory had to have drains in the floor and lockers outside the production room. The certification took six months. The pretzel that pulled her into retail came from a kitchen experiment her kids actually wanted to eat. If you're a CPG founder who has been told the same retail playbook for years, this episode is the other side of the argument. Guest links:
Shelf to Scale is a weekly podcast for CPG and FMCG founders navigating distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani. | |||
| He Went From Zero to Sold Out on Amazon in 4 Months | 21 May 2026 | 00:35:44 | |
Peanut butter is down 30% a year. Pistachio butter is up 500%. Utsab Roychowdhury and his partner quit investment banking to bet on the gap. In four months he went from a blender in his New York apartment to live on Amazon. Two-person team. No mass retail. $20 a jar. Sold out for two months straight. This conversation breaks down the exact moves:
GUESTUtsab Roychowdhury - Stesh Pistachio ButterLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/utsab-roychowdhury/Website: https://steshbutter.com/ SHELF TO SCALE Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani | |||
| The Laziest Way to Make UGC Ads in 2026 (Zero Creators) | 14 May 2026 | 00:50:12 | |
David, 21 years old, just built three full UGC ad campaigns for Olipop, Feastables, and Rhode in under an hour. No creators. No studio. Just one product image and an AI prompt. In this episode, you will learn:
David, founder of StarPop AI, walks through live demos of Feastables Mr Beast bar ASMR ads, Olipop fridge-grab voiceovers, and Rhode lip balm cinematics, then breaks down a Petco Labs ad where every single frame was AI generated. If you sell a physical product and you're still paying $5,000 to test 10 ad hooks, this is the episode that ends that math. Guest links:
Links that David mentioned on the episode Claude Prompting System YT video - https://youtu.be/f83UH-qmNUs?si=LQQN3jzw3cDjmsKq Claude Agent - https://starpop.ai/claude-agent Shelf to Scale is a weekly podcast for CPG and FMCG founders navigating distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani. | |||
| His Hot Sauce Exploded. Then He SOLD 100,000 BOTTLES. Here's How | 07 May 2026 | 00:45:12 | |
A customer opened a bottle of Lost in the Sauce and it exploded. Fresh mangoes were fermenting inside sealed glass. Karthy pulled every bottle, went back to the drawing board, and rebuilt. Eight years later, he's sold over 100,000 bottles across retail, DTC, and farmers markets in Canada. Karthy started making sauce in 2017 after his best friend Brandon passed away. Brandon's Trinidadian father taught him the recipe. Blank bottles, e-transfers, cash sales to friends. Then retailers came calling. Then TJX wanted 20x his production volume in a single order. That forced him to scale from kitchen blenders to a HACCP-certified co-packer, and nearly broke the business in the process. This conversation covers the real math behind retail margins, every hidden cost most CPG founders miss, and why Karthy believes revenue without profit is the fastest way to kill your brand. GUESTKarthy Subramaniam - Lost in the Sauce (LITS)Instagram: @litssauceWebsite: https://lostinthesauce.ca/ SHELF TO SCALEWeekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail, and scaling.Hosted by Devesh Tilokani | |||
| Astronauts on ARTEMIS II ate his cereal brand. Here is how he did it... | 30 Apr 2026 | 00:46:44 | |
Daniel Carson almost deleted the email that put his cereal on the Artemis II mission. The Canadian Space Agency picked Goldy's strawberry lavender flavor and orders started pinging in during live TV interviews. This episode covers the real mechanics behind getting from a commercial kitchen to 700+ retail doors and a Walmart launch in August 2026. Daniel breaks down the
If you're building a consumer brand and trying to figure out what comes after the first listing, this one matters. GUEST Daniel Carson - Goldy's Website: https://goldys.ca/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goldysjustright Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@goldysjustright SHELF TO SCALE Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani 00:00 — The email we thought was spam (from the Canadian Space Agency) 06:24 — Running events at Drake's house every two weeks 08:36 — The David's Tea of oatmeal that almost existed 14:14 — Mixing oatmeal in a commercial kitchen until 2 AM 17:41 — How Sobeys said yes before we'd even launched 19:27 — The pricing mistake that kills most CPG brands 34:20 — Watching our cereal launch into space 39:42 — Why Walmart in August is the real test 45:25 — The one thing I'd tell myself on day one | |||
| She Built a Popcorn Brand From Prison. Now in 4,500+ Stores Across Canada | 23 Apr 2026 | 00:22:09 | |
She walked out of a federal prison with no money, no manufacturer, and no retail relationships. Today Comeback Snacks is in 4,500+ stores across Canada and Walmart is next. Emily O'Brien built the entire foundation of her brand from inside Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener. No internet. No laptop. Just handwritten letters, a prison library, and a business partner mailing her logo sketches through the post. In this conversation, Emily breaks down the full journey: from popping flavoured kernels in a prison kitchen, to walking cold into a Mississauga factory with no appointment and leaving with a manufacturer, to navigating her first Sobeys listing and learning that getting on the shelf is only half the battle. She also covers
4,500 stores. Built from a mailbox and a library card. Shelf to Scale is a weekly podcast for CPG and FMCG founders navigating distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani. Comeback Snacks Instagram - @comebacksnacks Emily's Instagram - @emz.obrien Website - https://comebacksnacks.com/ | |||
| He Sold 12,000,000 DUBAI CHOCOLATE Bars and Outsold Cadbury in the UK | 16 Apr 2026 | 00:34:18 | |
For a month in 2025, a Dubai chocolate brand outsold Cadbury Dairy Milk in the UK . They launched just months earlier, with nine flavours, zero retailhistory, and a founder who'd failed six times before getting here.In this episode, we discuss:
Mohit Mirpuri spent 15 years in FMCG trading before building Meltz — a Dubai chocolate brand now in 48 countries with 12 million bars sold and 62 SKUs in its portfolio. He launched in four months, hit 200,000 bars a week in the UK alone, and reached the 12 million bar milestone by February 2025. This episode is the unfiltered version of how that happened — andwhat almost stopped it. Guest links:- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meltz_dubai/- Website: https://meltzdubai.com/ Shelf to Scale is a weekly podcast for consumer brand founders navigating distribution, retail, and international scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani. | |||
| Ex-Software Engineer Hits $100K/Month Selling Clay? | 09 Apr 2026 | 00:38:06 | |
A software engineer turned e-commerce founder walks through how Claymoo scaled from $5–10K to $100K a month in under two years and why his technical background was the first thing he had to stop relying on.Matthew Wong covers:- the creative production ladder they use to test every ad before spending real time on it- the meta ad strategy that drives their growth- how manufacturing in-house became a strategic advantage- where AI is actually useful for a brand at this stage — and where it's still a distraction.GUESTMatthew Wong — ClaymooLinkedIn: @ithinkwongWebsite: claymoo.coSHELF TO SCALEWeekly conversations with consumer brand founders on distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh TilokaniTimestamps: 00:29 — From software engineer to selling clay kits — the pivot nobody saw coming04:11 — $5K to $100K/month in under two years: the honest numbers08:15 — How they de-risk every product launch (and the mystery kit trick for dead inventory)11:56 — The meta ads strategy behind all their growth15:00 — The static ad system: one customer review becomes three steps of content18:48 — Stop making polished videos until you prove this first23:31 — You're advertising to the wrong person — the targeting shift that changed everything25:38 — Why his tech background was a distraction, not an advantage36:30 — The one piece of advice for early-stage founders: maniacal focus | |||
| He Got Into 2,000 Stores Before Colgate Copied Him | 09 Apr 2026 | 01:00:06 | |
Rohit Kumar found a bamboo toothbrush listed only in Japanese on a website in 2011, validated it by walking into Bay Area farmers markets with physical samples, and built it into 2,000 store accounts before Colgate and Oral-B released their own versions. In 2026, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude still name his brand as the best.In this episode:• Why the early retail stores are actually the easiest to close and the specific free fill strategy that gets a buyer to say yes with zero risk• How Rohit validates every new SKU across four brands before risking a dollar of inventory• Why first mover advantage is now a six-month window, not a three-year runway and what to build instead.The Indian factory in Gujarat running Chinese machines with Indian workers • • What the India supply chain shift actually looks like on the groundWhy taking VC funding for a CPG brand with no IP or moat could cost you 15 years of your lifeRohit went from Deloitte consulting to a failed web startup to discovering a Japanese-language toothbrush listing online and built a brand that still dominates AI search results more than a decade later. This episode is the real mechanics: how the first stores happened, what free fill actually means, how he sources across India and China, and what he'd do differently at 25.Guest links:Instagram: @itsrohitkumarWebsite: neworigins.comShelf to Scale is a weekly podcast for consumer brand founders navigating distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani. | |||
| TRAILER: Shelf to Scale | 09 Apr 2026 | 00:00:38 | |
Shelf to Scale is a podcast featuring conversations with the founders, operators, and industry leaders behind today’s growing consumer products. Each episode explores how brands expand distribution, navigate retail partnerships, and scale across new channels and markets. From emerging CPG/FMCG startups to established manufacturers, we unpack the real-world challenges of growing consumer products across retailers, regions, and distribution networks. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani, Shelf to Scale brings together perspectives from across the consumer goods ecosystem to share what it takes to scale successfully in an ever-changing market. | |||