Food Biz Wiz – Details, episodes & analysis

Just found the Food Biz Wiz podcast? Welcome, wiz! My name is Alli and I’m a former wholesale buyer turned wholesale consultant and the creator of Retail Ready®. We help CPG (consumer packaged goods) brands with how to land on more shelves and have high sales once you’re there. You can expect to hear tons of honest, industry insider information, tough love, and advice for building a business that works for you! Check out our Listener Guide HERE to find the most relevant content for your business RIGHT NOW and be sure to connect with us over on Instagram. I can’t wait for you to get into our content, so click play on a full episode below!

Welcome to the 250th episode of the Food Biz Wiz podcast, wizes! We are thrilled to have published 250 episodes of valuable, hard-to-access information from the packaged food and beverage industry.

As it’s our last episode, this episode is a bit different. It’s a short welcome episode for those just discovering the Food Biz Wiz Podcast Library for the first time. You’ll hear me share more about...

• How you can navigate our hundreds of podcast episodes with our BRAND NEW listener guide
• Ways to make the best use out of our content
• And how you can help us celebrate this milestone: leaving ratings and sharing our social media posts!

Did you miss our announcement on why we made this decision? Check out episode 249 just below this one. Click here to grab our listener guide so that you can access the most useful episodes NOW and find our full show notes here!

Download the Food Biz Wiz Listener Guide and make the most out of our 250 episode library! Get our curated playlists of top episodes on sales pitches, wholesale buyers, founder mindset, marketing, and more. Fast track your learning by downloading our free Listener Guide HERE.

Hearing "your SKU is underperforming" from a retailer can easily put brands into a panic. It's natural. We don't want to be on the chopping block when category reviews come around.

That's why we're thrilled to share this "Is It Worth It, Charlie?" episode. In it, Mary Bentdahl, the Co-Founder, CMO, and Director of Sales for ShroomEats, joins Charlie to discuss how she was able to react and to adjust when she heard from a retailer that one of their SKUs was underperforming. You'll hear their conversation on...

• The importance of keeping cool when you learn of a SKU's underperformance
• How staying proactive in your retailer communication can support your SKU success
• What harnessing consumer feedback can do for course correcting sales

We're thrilled for you to listen into this episode and want to know which piece of Mary's experience resonated most with you. DM us on Instagram or LinkedIn, which are linked in our full show notes here. You can also find more about Mary and ShroomEats at our full show notes!

This episode is sponsored by our mini Reorder Checklist! As Mary mentioned, it’s valuable to have a list of go-to actions for selling off the shelf. This checklist can help you be more likely to sell off those shelves and receive reorders. You can find our simplified version at the link here OR, if you’re a Retail Ready® student, you can find the longform version and training directly within our course platform!

Download the Food Biz Wiz Listener Guide and make the most out of our 250 episode library! Get our curated playlists of top episodes on sales pitches, wholesale buyers, founder mindset, marketing, and more. Fast track your learning by downloading our free Listener Guide HERE.

This week, Charlie brings us another episode of the “Is It Worth It, Charlie?” series. In it, Charlie e-meets with Annabel Kalmar, director of Tea Rebellion, to discuss if she should continue to work with a distributor. Working with a distributor is perhaps one of the most critical things you’ll think through when trying to expand into more retailers. In this episode, Charlie and Annabel consider the following:

• What benefits Tea Rebellion has experienced from working with a distributor
• What challenges arise
• How Tea Rebellion’s mission, values, and logistics fit with working with a distributor

After talking through all these considerations, Annabel has a clearer understanding of her next steps! Charlie Berkinshaw is our VP of Student Success here at Food Biz Wiz, as well as the Founder of Element Shrub, a RTD and concentrate beverage line, and a Founding Partner of The Fountain Inn, a spirits tasting room in Washington, D.C. Charlie supports our students day in and day out, answering questions just like this in our private Retail Ready® student community and on our bi-weekly coaching calls. Click over to our full show notes here so that you can see more of our resources and can check out more about Tea Rebellion.

Download the Food Biz Wiz Listener Guide and make the most out of our 250 episode library! Get our curated playlists of top episodes on sales pitches, wholesale buyers, founder mindset, marketing, and more. Fast track your learning by downloading our free Listener Guide HERE.

A well-crafted story can make the difference between apathy and commitment. Join my discussion with Adam Force, the founder of Change Creator, to hear more about how to leverage storytelling to drive sales for your food or beverage business.

In the episode, Adam shares:

• What does storytelling have to do with your business
• Why storytelling works to land sales over other hard marketing tactics
• How to tell if you’re already using storytelling in your business, and what to do if you’re not
• Why storytelling is a learned skill that we have to practice and hone, and how to do so

If you’ve ever wondered how to warm up those wholesale buyers and turn your online followers into raving fans - this episode will dive into that! Check out our full notes as well for Adam’s resources and how to check out Change Creator.

This episode is sponsored by our 100 Wholesale Buyer "No's" Workbook, where I walk you through 100 different ways the Buyer might turn down your product. Using this resource, you can prepare yourself to be READY to respond to these No's and turn them into Yes's! 

Get the free download here!

So you’re on RangeMe…but you’re not quite sure about where to go from there. Well this week, I’m so excited for Brandon Leong, the SVP of Marketing and Growth for RangeMe, to join us. In this episode, Brandon and I share some real talk on:

• Why you NEED to be on RangeMe
• How you can shift your thinking to use RangeMe more effectively and stop using hope as a strategy
• The no and low cost way to drive your RangeMe profile’s visibility, plus…
• What some of the biggest recent buyer trends are

This episode was packed FULL of valuable insights for food CPG brands and I know you’ll walk away with actionable next steps. If you want to navigate to RangeMe’s site, check Brandon out, and see our full show notes, click here!

This episode is sponsored by our Masterclass! Click here to watch our free masterclass on growing your food business and to understand exactly what we cover inside our course, coaching & community - plus how to join us!

Download the Food Biz Wiz Listener Guide and make the most out of our 250 episode library! Get our curated playlists of top episodes on sales pitches, wholesale buyers, founder mindset, marketing, and more. Fast track your learning by downloading our free Listener Guide HERE.

If you’re in the CPG space and pursue wholesale channels, you’ve probably asked yourself some variant of “WHAT is going on with this buyer?!” You’ve sent them multiple emails and your sales materials…and then radio silence.

In today’s episode of the Food Biz Wiz® Podcast, I’ll share…

• WHY buyers go quiet on you
• WHAT it means when that happens
• Then, HOW to rekindle the conversation after silence or if they’ve never responded in the first place

I can’t wait to share these necessary pieces of buyer intel with you. Listen in to catch them all!

Click on over to our full show notes, where you’ll find even more information and can group our podcasts by theme!

This episode is sponsored by our Masterclass! Click here to watch our free masterclass on growing your food business and to understand exactly what we cover inside our course, coaching & community - plus how to join our second quarter cohort!

Download the Food Biz Wiz Listener Guide and make the most out of our 250 episode library! Get our curated playlists of top episodes on sales pitches, wholesale buyers, founder mindset, marketing, and more. Fast track your learning by downloading our free Listener Guide HERE.

We’re back this week with another juicy episode of our “Is It Worth It, Charlie?” series. In these episodes, Charlie typically works through a pivotal business decision with a Retail Ready® student. This week though, Charlie dives into the THREE topics he considers essential to think through when weighing whether a decision is worth it:

• Money: COGS, pricing, ROI, and more
• The resources available to your business
• Reflection on this decision’s impact

Whether you’re an emerging brand or have been in business for years, these topics are key when thinking through pivotal decisions. Tune in to hear what they’re all about! Follow along here to our full show notes, where you’ll find even more information and can access podcasts relevant for CPG entrepreneurs like yourself!

Charlie Berkinshaw is our VP of Student Success here at Food Biz Wiz, as well as the Founder of Element Shrub, a RTD and concentrate beverage line, and a Founding Partner of The Fountain Inn, a spirits tasting room in Washington, D.C. Charlie supports our students day in and day out, using this framework in our private Retail Ready® student community and on our bi-weekly coaching calls. 

This episode is sponsored by our Masterclass! Click here to watch our free masterclass on growing your food business and to understand exactly what we cover inside our course, coaching & community - plus how to join our second quarter cohort!

Download the Food Biz Wiz Listener Guide and make the most out of our 250 episode library! Get our curated playlists of top episodes on sales pitches, wholesale buyers, founder mindset, marketing, and more. Fast track your learning by downloading our free Listener Guide HERE.

As founders, we often have to strike a difficult balance between completing the nitty-gritty, day-to-day tasks in our business and the tasks that actually work on our overall business.    

In today’s show, we’ll focus on what the difference between working ON your business is versus working IN your business. We’ll also cover:

• How to know if you’re working ON vs IN your business
• My secret to making time to work ON your business
• How our team here at Food Biz Wiz® can support you in working ON your business

This is the fourth episode of our Original Recipe series, where our student success coordinator Gabby hand-picks timely episodes to re-share. We originally aired this episode in the 4th quarter and its message is still relevant to intentionally setting yourself up for success.

Listen in for all my thoughts on how to get out of that rut and empower your business now!

For the full show notes and to learn even more about how we can support you in choosing to invest in your business and yourself, click here.

This episode is sponsored by Retail Ready®, my online course for producers who want to land on more retail shelves, and have high sales once you do. If you listen to this episode and find yourself nodding along, YOU are the right fit for Retail Ready®. We invite you to skip the line to sign up right here and now!

Download the Food Biz Wiz Listener Guide and make the most out of our 250 episode library! Get our curated playlists of top episodes on sales pitches, wholesale buyers, founder mindset, marketing, and more. Fast track your learning by downloading our free Listener Guide HERE.

As business founders, we have ALL been in a space of overwhelm; of feeling like we have just too many tasks to complete and not enough energy or mental space to do it. That’s why I’m so excited for this week’s episode with Charlotte Smith. Charlotte is a marketing expert who specializes in marketing for agricultural professionals AND mindset coaching to move your business forward and reduce overwhelm and anxiety.

Some of the questions we discuss include:

• What even is mindset and what should we understand about it?
• What questions can we start asking to shift our mindset?
• How can we empower our productive thoughts and recognize our negative thoughts?
• Plus even more!

If you’d like to see more about the resources mentioned or how to connect with Charlotte, check out our full show notes here.