Category: Costco Broker

Business, Club Stores, Costco Broker, New Brands

Smith Outlines Selling to Costco During SFA Webinar

14 Feb 2023

“Costco is a channel unto itself like no other,” said Jeremy Smith, a specialist in Costco strategy, during last week’s SFA’s webinar “Succeeding at Costco and the Club Channel.” Smith is the president and founder of LaunchPad, a food brand strategy business, and has worked in strategic sales, branding, and marketing for over 35 years.

Costco has become a popular option for consumers seeking value and carries opportunities for specialty food businesses, but it tends to require more work than other retailers to drive success, Smith said. During the webinar, he provided insight into the steps food businesses need to take to determine if their product is viable for the space, and if so, how to launch a profitable strategy.

“The one retailer that can fundamentally impact the course of your company is Costco, but you also have to decide if Costco is the right fit for you,” Smith said.

Costco’s larger-format pack sizes and lower price points can make it difficult for an emerging brand to find its footing, as many specialty food items cannot be effectively sold in that format at a lower price. Smith explained that when it comes to “value-at-cost,” the brand must sell the items for at least 20 percent cheaper than if they were a distributor.

And once on the shelf, each category has a different weekly sales benchmark to continue working with the club. For example, to become a regular item in the yogurt category, the product must sell at least $1,500 a week per location.

Brands also need to be able to keep up with Costco’s velocity. Smith calls it “moving at the speed of Costco,” which refers both to following up with requests and information in a timely manner, as well as shipping items quickly and efficiently. The product’s supply chain needs to be in order.

Despite the difficulties in working with Costco, the benefits can be transformational. Smith mentioned a “sales halo effect” that occurs with products at Costco stores, wherein, retailers in the club’s area are more likely to want to stock the items as well. This can be helpful when launching specialty food in new markets.

Smith also mentioned how important taste is in Costco’s decision to strike a deal, as well as packaging design. Because Costco locations are warehouses instead of supermarkets and favor larger packaging, brands often must change their packaging strategy. In hotter areas and in states that experience heatwaves, like Texas, clubs often turn off the lights during the day, which poses an even larger problem for brands to communicate their product effectively.

Strong color blocking and visually arresting patterns that stand out on the shelves are good tools to consider when designing the packaging. Smith also advised keeping certifications like USDA Organic and GMO-free on the front, as they carry weight at the club. Its organic business generates $4 billion in sales annually, and is focusing on cleaner labels, banning ingredients like high fructose corn syrup from offerings.

To learn more about how to sell to Costco and other warehouse clubs, watch the webinar on demand in the SFA Learning Center.

Brand Building, Business, Club Stores, Costco Broker, New Brands

Building with Costco | Heritage Radio Network Episode 163

Heritage Radio Network Episode 163 Aired: Thursday, July 14th 2022
Listen to the full episode here.

Jeremy Smith is the founder and CEO of LaunchPad, a full-service strategy, branding, and broker group focused on Costco. He has spent over 35 years in strategic sales, branding, and marketing, and has worked with some of the world’s most iconic brands including Apple, Chobani, Krave Jerky, and Bob’s Red Mill. On this episode of ITS, Jeremy breaks down Costco for the emerging brand: When it makes sense, what we need to have nailed down before the launch, what motivates a Costco buyer, and perhaps most importantly, when to decide you’re NOT ready.

Heritage Radio Network the world’s pioneer food radio station.
HRN is home to transformative exchanges about food. Our 35+ member-supported food podcasts empower eaters to cultivate a radically better world.

Business, Club Stores, Costco Broker

Ep. 59 – Jeremy Smith on the Future of Brokering Part 1

Listen to the Podcast Here

Dr. James Richardson:

Welcome to episode 59. One of my interview with Jeremy Smith of LaunchPad about the future of brokering in CBG. Welcome, everybody. This month, we have a special treat, which is a two part interview with Jeremy Smith of LaunchPad USA, and if you don’t know who Jeremy is and you haven’t heard of a retailer called Costco, then shame on thee. But Jeremy, thanks for being here.

Jeremy Smith:

Thank you. Glad to be here. I’m probably the first guest you’ve ever had that can only talk about one subject really, which is Costco.

Dr. James Richardson:

I’m a fascist host. You pegged me right. I’m one of those guys. Jeremy, let everybody know just briefly who you are and why everybody should have already heard of you, if they haven’t.

Jeremy Smith:

Well, they probably shouldn’t have heard of me because the brands are supposed to be the showcase of what we do. It’s not the Jeremy Smith show, it’s the brand show. So we’re about brands, as to where a lot of brokers are about themselves, and so my goal is not to build the best relationship with the buyer because I don’t work for the buyer. The only time … I always tell clients, “It’s the only time I receive money from Costco is the rebate check that I get on my Costco credit card.” But that also means I spent money with them. So I don’t work for Costco, I work for the brand. I think that that’s a big difference between us and why we’ve been so successful. We like working with entrepreneurs and founders like you do. We built a reputation for honesty and integrity, and we don’t bullshit our clients. We’re going to tell them, “This will be hard. Or we think this will be a little bit easier.”

Dr. James Richardson:

I’ve spent two years observing Jeremy. He’s made the cut of high integrity, which is how you get on this show.

Jeremy Smith:

Thank you.

Dr. James Richardson:

As you see reflected in all the guests and I don’t have a lot of guests and that actually explains why. Jeremy, I am so excited for you to take my open ended question, the next one, and run with it for my listeners. I trust your version of this story. What the hell went wrong with the broker world in CBG? I’ve never heard of a class of stakeholder more maligned.

Jeremy Smith:

Well, I think first of all, there was this myth that the brokers created that they have great relationships with the buyers. Most of the buyers, especially at a retailer like Costco, you’re not going water skiing with these people or taking them to the Super Bowl. What people get confused is, I always reference and now he’s in the news everywhere, Alec Baldwin, because of the sales movie he did years ago where ABC, Always Be Closing, which basically, ABC, Always Be Closing really stands for listen to me, I’m not going to stop talking for 45 minutes. I’m not going to listen to you, the buyer, I’m just going to talk and you’re going to love my presentation and you’re going to buy my product.

Jeremy Smith:

First of all, the Costco buyers, that’s who they want to meet. They don’t want to sit with a broker for 45 minutes and listen to the broker talk.

Dr. James Richardson:

Oh my God.

Jeremy Smith:

And it’s sort of like imagine if you bought tickets to go see Denzel Washington and he rips out the script and just sits in a chair reading from the script, you’d be more excited by listening to somebody read Green Eggs and Ham.

Dr. James Richardson:

Yeah, exactly.

Jeremy Smith:

So why are you allowing your broker to do it? And the other issue is no one does any damn rehearsing in the industry. A buyer … Who’s your typical broker? “Bob, we’re all set for the meeting. Meet me 15 minutes outside the Livermore office at Costco in the Bay Area before, and we’ll go over a couple of things there.” That’s the strategy. That’s the rehearsing that goes on. And so what we do that’s different is we talk to the client, and say, “Okay, these are possible subtopics that the buyer will bring up in the meeting. Let’s talk about how you’d respond. I’ll play the buyer. You go ahead. I’ll ask you, “Why is your product so expensive?” And what’s your response going to be?””

Jeremy Smith:

So the first time we let the client go through and then we refine it and we say, “Well, if you say that, that’s going to open you up and the buyer’s going to say, “Well, when you get your costing all fixed up, come back and see me in five years.””

Dr. James Richardson:

Oops.

Jeremy Smith:

So we do a lot of rehearsing because we don’t ever want to ask a question in a meeting.

Dr. James Richardson:

Oh, I know.

Jeremy Smith:

That we don’t already know the answer to.

Dr. James Richardson:

Yeah.

Jeremy Smith:

And then lastly, brokers are so interested in driving and talking in the meeting that what happens is there’s always moments of when a good question gets asked by the broker or the brand and there’s awkward silence, and the client or the broker will then interrupt the buyer and not allow the buyer to respond, and you never get an answer to that question because they’re uncomfortable with silence. We’re very comfortable in that. I’ll sit there for 30 minutes with the buyer to get that answer because we need the answer to that question.

Jeremy Smith:

And one time, I got the presentation before the meeting and I said to the VP of sales, I said, “Have you timed yourself doing this presentation?” He said, “No.” I said, “I just went and did this.” I said, “I went through your whole presentation. It’s 36 minutes.” A Costco average meeting is one hour of which the buyers are usually 10 to 20 minutes late for. So he said, “Oh no, don’t worry about it. I’ll breeze through it.” So we go to the meeting, he goes through his presentation. He’s down to the final two pages. And the buyer says, “Time up.” The buyer said, “I got to go. I got another meeting. You just spent 45 minutes reading a PowerPoint presentation to me. I’ll get … That’s the end of the meeting.” I said, “If you can’t say something in 10 pages or less …”

Dr. James Richardson:

Oh my God.

Jeremy Smith:

“You shouldn’t be at a meeting. You don’t know your brand.” And I said, “And I know that’s not true about you.” No one can tell the story of the brand better, hopefully, better than the founder of the company. It’s an important relationship that needs to be established at the beginning, and if you have a broker that says, “We don’t allow clients to come to the meetings.” That’s your first step that it’s time to hang up the phone and move on.

Dr. James Richardson:

So one of the things that I’m very confused about, that I think confuses my listeners too, I would imagine, is that if the ideal situation is that you are learning how to be a very good salesperson for your own brand, right? So you’re opening up the meetings more or less yourself as the founder, and that’s what I preach because if they suck at that, I mean, there’s a real problem. And I do meet people who don’t work on those skills at all, and they instead spend all this time trying to find the perfect broker, master broker, national broker, whatever, that’ll set up essentially an outsourced sales team.

Dr. James Richardson:

And I’m confused as to what the hell the value would be of having a bunch of outsourced people essentially work for you part time, when shouldn’t you be building that capability internally? And if so, what is a brokerage doing if you have a good sales team? That’s the question that confuses me.

Jeremy Smith:

Well, there’s a simple answer to this. When you’re starting off and your resources are tight, a broker can be a very good option for you in the beginning, but most companies transition when the business builds. So you’re talking about a company that’s usually under $5 million in sales. So their resources are stretched, you can’t build … Let’s say they’re going to pay you 5% commission. You can’t build the sales team for 5% of costs.

Dr. James Richardson:

Right.

Jeremy Smith:

In that situation, finding the right broker can be a huge asset for the brand to start with knowing that plan B is to transition at some point to you handling the business yourself, and also, the broker may not be the best firm to teach you how to sell because [inaudible 00:08:03] about it is some of them have no clue that they’re bad at what they’re doing. You really have to be able to figure that out.

Jeremy Smith:

But one of the other problems and this falls on the brand side is that too often brands call their buddy at another company who’s already successful. And says, “Well, you’ve had a lot of success at Costco. Who did you use?” The first problem with that, your buddy is … Let’s say he’s got a frozen food product and you’re in snacks, that broker may know nothing about the snack category.

Dr. James Richardson:

Yeah.

Jeremy Smith:

But you just assume because you trust Joe and Joe is a great guy and Joe tells you how great they are, but if they don’t know anything about the snack category, then why are you using a frozen foods brand broker to try and take you into the snack department? You shouldn’t be. That’s sometimes the challenge that comes up.

Jeremy Smith:

There’s another issue too, and that’s how brands go about selecting brokers because the first question they always ask is, “Well, what are your relationships like with the buyers?” Yeah, you think they’re going to say to you, that they’re going to tell you the truth that Sandy, they have no relationship with, and Dave just loves them, but we can’t get anything in with Sandy. They’re going to tell you the same … That question can get asked a thousand times and the answer is always the same, “We’ve got great relationships throughout Costco. The buyers switch all the time and so we know everybody at Costco. That’s not the problem for us, even though I’ve never represented a snack brand in the history of the company, we know the category.”

Dr. James Richardson:

Stay tuned on December 15th, the second part of my rousing interview with Jeremy Smith of LaunchPad will go live. So subscribe to Startup Confidential on your favorite podcast platform. Be safe out there.

Costco Broker, New Brands

The H Spot. How does Costco work and how you can sell to them‪?‬

Listen to the interview here.

Presenting one face, and the truth of the internal brand are a big part of today’s discussion. Some of the highlights include where Dave brings up, “With Costco, obviously, very limited selection compared to a grocery store which will have tens of thousands of items in it. It’s a direct ship model, there’s no distributors and they have a very small sort of 10% to 14% margin, very straightforward with vendors. So it’s a very different model. And it seems like their mantra has always been.”

Dave’s guest, Jeremy Smith, CEO of Launchpad gets right to it. “I think you ask a few vendors and no, they’ll debate you on how straightforward they really are. They like to think they are, but it’s like I always say, Costco will lay out to a broker or to a brand, all the rules, because they have all these rules you have to read. And then you go in and see the Kirkland Signature items which violate 70% of the rules. So just because it’s something as simple as a MasterCard, which is supposed to have at least an inch and a half lip on it, that’s supposed to be a strict policy and certain buyers really enforced it. But on the KS items, it’s all over the place.”

Brand Building, Business, Club Stores, Costco Broker

The Grunt Workers Show

Listen Here:

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Youtube Link Here

Tesla vs Porche, how is their creative process different? And what does that have to do with focus groups and getting a brand into COSTCO?

In this episode, Jeremy Smith tells us about his incredible journey from briefly working with Steve Jobs in the 80s to helping brands get into COSTCO today.

Learn from a creative professional who worked on some of the most iconic brands within the past 30 years!

PLUS

  • Discover why Jeremy says that “Focus groups are a joke” and who inspired him to bet his entire career on that key insight
  • Jeremy reveals his super-successful creative process for developing a memorable brand
  • Learn how a creative company can push back on big store requirements with the story of popchips
  • Find a new approach to developing your next campaign, product, or business – without focus groups

Who is Jeremy Smith?

After more than 35 years in strategic sales, branding and marketing, Jeremy Smith’s senior management and graphic arts resume is a salute to the country’s most iconic brands.

Think Apple, Chobani, Krave Jerky, Bob’s Red Mill and popchips.

Prior to Launchpad, as co-founder of Level One, his relationships with buyers, marketers, strategists, venture capital firms and designers, presents enviable connections in the food industry.

Jeremy was named to Forbes and Circle Up’s 2017 Top Catalysts Dealmakers and Influencers in the Consumer Industry.

Brand Building, Business, Costco Broker, New Brands

The Leadership In Business Podcast

Watch the Podcast Here.

#062 Jeremy Smith, President and CEO at Launchpad advised… “You have to establish your culture day one and decide what it’s going to be, no matter what happens at the company and no matter how high the growth is.”

Jeremy also advised leaders to consider “You have to build momentum. Momentum is the hardest thing to keep going.”

Feel free to reach out to Jeremy at his contact up above, or connect on his website at www.launchpadgroupusa.com

I highly suggest you watch this entire exchange between Jeremy and ⭐️ Todd Westra 📈

Club Stores, Costco Broker, New Brands

Creating A Brand Costco Wants

Are you curious as to what it takes to launch a brand in Costco? Hear CEO Jeremy Smith of Launchpad and Drew Aversa discuss what it takes to launch a brand. You’ll learn what sets successful entrepreneurs apart, the importance of storytelling, and critical insight from someone who has launched numerous brands in the food and beverage industry.

Listen to the broadcast here.

Business, Club Stores, Costco Broker, People

What’s going on with Costco?

Chloe Sorvino
Staff Writer at Forbes

Read on Linkedin

I’ve been distancing at my apartment in New York City, mainly ordering food from online restaurant distributors and different farm boxes until my neighborhood’s CSA starts in a few weeks, but if I had ventured out to where I grew up in suburban New Jersey, a classic off-highway Costco next to a HomeGoods and a Target would have probably been my first stop to stock up. I’ve been a fan ever since I was a kid let loose to search out all the samples, and I still have a guilty obsession with its pizza.

But it looks like many families have turned elsewhere. Monthly sales rose 12% in February as stockpiling started at the chain’s warehouses, but as it picked up at grocers like Kroger and Walmart into March, Costco reduced store hours, limited traffic coming in and also capped purchases of some nonessential items. Instacart orders picked up, but March sales were up a comparatively lower 9.6%.

The bigger shocker came earlier this month, when the publicly traded chain reported earnings, and disclosed that April was its first monthly sales drop since 2009. Most of the hit came from low gas prices, and without that, it accounts for a drop of just 0.5% for the past 12 months all together. But Placer.ai data shows foot traffic has been all over the place, and it has made me rethink a lot.

Maybe it was those early reports of fights breaking out. As any true Costco member knows, half the fun of a normal weekend visit is the long and often tense lines, and how taking a break from idling with the cart can turn into wandering through aisles and finding surprises like a value pack of mechanical toothbrush head replacements. But like the samples and the pizza, few of the joys of Costco seem to have a place in a coronavirus world.

Costco has proven itself to be a game-changing channel for hot brands like Health-Ade and Perfect Bar over the years, so where does that all stand now? I asked Jeremy Smith, the president at LaunchPad, who specializes in helping brands get distribution at Costco. “There’s no way to get into Costco right now at this point,” Smith told me. “But by mid-2021 we should be back to reestablishing the emerging brands. Consumers just don’t walk away.”

Pointing to the mortgage crisis and recession, when Costco outperformed most retailers, Smith says he is optimistic sales will improve at the chain long-term: “It’s a choppy environment. As long as people are not confident that they can walk into any retailer and not worry about infection, you’re going to have sales to the negative side, but at Costco the volume is so high that there’s potential even with fewer members walking into the buildings.”

Until next week! In the meantime, I’d love to hear more about new kinds of restaurant delivery models, what it’s like to develop a new food or drink right now, and quarantine-approved Memorial Day recipes. And, by the way, I’m now doing a weekly Live show on the Forbes Instagram account. Tune in on Wednesdays.

— Chloe Sorvino, Staff Writer, Forbes

Brand Building, Business, Club Stores, Costco Broker

COVID-19 Effect

  • “COVID-19 Effect” on your business
  • General Discussion around Costco 
  • Appetite of Costco to learn about new brands (heat check on your view of merchandising and resets) – maybe partially answered in the opening
  • Advice for emerging food brands to use these COVID-19 constraints as positives 
  • General discussion on possible disruptions in the CPG value-chain from COVID-19 

Youtube = https://youtu.be/8isVEfs7MvI

 Audio-Only Platforms:

Business, Costco Broker, Lifestyle, New Brands, People, Personal

Ep. 172 – Powerful Strategies to Immortalize Your Brand with Jeremy Smith

Listen to the Podcast Here

Jeremy Smith, founder of LaunchPad Group USA has impacted iconic brands such as Apple, Chobani, Bob’s Red Mills, Urban Remedy and Kumana. This episode has prime examples of how Jeremy has worked with these company’s and how these companies went to the next level.

A lot of great takeaways for food entrepreneurs and marketers including how to recognize superflourous trends versus trends that stick, with also amazing advice on how to make your brand everlasting. You’ll get so many great examples from iconic brands in this episode that will blow you away.

Jeremy is not shy to say what’s on his mind, but he backs it up with some pretty compelling feats. If you’re a starting brand or even an experienced product developer, you’ll learn something from this episode that might help you on your next project.

Sponsor: Salt of the Earth

I’m happy to introduce our newest sponsor: Salt of the Earth and their new ingredient,  Mediterranean Umami, an all-natural and clean-label flavor enhancer and sodium reduction ingredient that works amazingly on meats, veggie-meats, soups and sauces and ready-meals. My friend, David gave me a bottle and I use it on my pasta sauces, or rice porridge to give it the satisfying umami depth I crave.  Find the 2017 IFT Innovation Award Winner at IFT19 at booth number 2112 where they will be showcasing fresh food prepared with Mediterranean Umami. If you’re interested now, feel free to email them at info@salt.co.il

Show Notes

Food Startups Podcast
What do you do for a living?: We turn an entrepreneur’s visions into reality.
How did you start launchpad?: I started in the brokerage business. I used to work with Steve Jobs in designing projects with him.
Level 1 Marketing
Chobani
Kumana
Food Brokers: Either strategic people or powerpoint pushers. A Brokerage’s job is supposed to be to set up a movement
Expo West
CBD
Presence Marketing
Urban Remedy
Bitcoin
Tommy Burgers
Mattson
Eric Ree at Market Brand and DAB
Albertsons-Safeway
Steve Jobs: He looked at every experience and improved on it
Bullet Cans
Air Pods
How do you get people to take you seriously?: You have to develop a sense of fearlessness (it took me 30 years). It’s a two-way street though. Companies must also accept negative feedback well
Popchips
Good Crisps
Paul Clement at Urban Remedy
Ultra Fresh – 3 to 5 day shelf-life
How do you convince grocery stores to take a risk on you?: We would find a region that has a heavy concentration of buyers. You have to convince them that you have to be crazy enough to believe in them. What helps is to convince the grocer that people are not going to X store because they re buying the product from Y store.
John Wisgran
Some groceries have different ways of buying
Do you have any advice on starting a food business?: Lots of people are going to tell you no. But you have to believe more than anyone.
Ray Kroc: His determination outweighed the doubt from everyone.
Great ideas fail, bad ideas succeed and visa versa
LinkedIn: Jeremy Smith
Jeremy@launchpadgroupusa.com
Cell: 650-576-8803

Business, Club Stores, Costco Broker, Real Food

How Kirkland Signature Became One of Costco’s Biggest Success Stories

By Sarah Nassauer  Features Dow Jones Newswires

Read the complete WSJ article here.

Club Stores, Costco Broker, New Brands, Whole Foods Broker

Episode 147 – More on Brokers, Costco, and the Evolving Food Space – Jeremy Smith of LaunchPad

More on Brokers, Costco, and the Evolving Food Space.

Listen Here for the full Podcast.

Jeremy Smith is back. If you haven’t heard the first interview, listen here.

There is trouble brewing in the food broker space. Whole Foods sales are down. The market has changed dramatically.

Based on listener response to the first episode and Jeremy’s intuition, we continued the conversation on Costco, brokers, and how to adapt to the evolving food space:

  • Costco pitches: phone vs in-person. Can you do it on the phone?
  • Question: “Does a founder have to live the messaging of the brand before he/she communicates it to the consumer?”
  • Hershey’s and Nestle are not driving the categories anymore ..
  • Thoughts on Whole Foods “decline” ..
  • The types of brands that Jeremy follows
  • Why the food brokerage business is broken. The challenge, how is it impacting companies?
  • Your broker is not doing a good job it could be you.
  • Can you be a food broker?
  • Should you sell directly to Costco or use a broker.
  • Why do some buyers say you should work directly with them and not use brokers?
  • What are Costco Buyers like?
  • Why brands fail at Costco?
  • “Flavor Fatigue”
  • Channel protectors should not sell to Costco.
  • Is there a right time for a brand to go to Costco?
  • Raising money: How Circle Up has evolved
Club Stores, Costco Broker, New Brands, People

Gateway Incubator – Live with Jeremy Smith


This week’s guest: Jeremy Smith from Launchpad. Once a week we broadcast open office hours to address questions that you have regarding cannabis startups. Every week, we gather questions from the community here on Facebook, and via Twitter or Instagram @gtwyinc. Just use the hashtag #GatewayOH and we’ll give you a shout-out if we select your question.

See here on Facebook

Gateway Incubator

Audio Link

Club Stores, Costco Broker, People

Episode 139 – Costco, Chobani, and Becoming Iconic – Jeremy of LaunchPad

Episode 139 – Costco, Chobani, and Becoming Iconic – Jeremy of LaunchPad

Written by Matt Aaron / April 13th, 2017
Podcast Link

Jeremy Smith is fed up with the food brokerage industry. There are a shortage of great food brokers. And grocery buyers have noticed. That’s why he is back in the game.

He previously sold his food brokerage, Level One, and is back with an innovative Food Brokerage and Consultancy: LaunchPad.

Over his career in food, design and advertising, Jeremy has worked with iconic brands.

Think Chobani, Apple, 5-Hour Energy, popchips, EVOL Foods, Promax, Pure Foods, Krave Jerky and Bob’s Red Mill.

His relationships with buyers and marketers, strategists and designers presents enviable connections in the food industry. Jeremy sheds all kind of golden advice:

  • How to sell to Costco
  • Becoming multi-talented – design, advertising, copywriting, business strategy, etc.
  • What he learned from Steve Jobs
  • On selling his brokerage to Advantage Sales and Marketing
  • The lack of great food brokers in 2017
  • Questions that you should ask a food broker
  • What makes Chobani special?
  • The “Secret Sauce” of Chobani
  • Helping Chobani thrive at Costco
  • How much does a food broker charge a food brand?
  • Why founders shouldn’t stay on after an acquisition
  • “Im scared of losing Whole Foods business if I go to Costco”
  • Various Costco tips and insights (pack size, behavior etc.)
  • Some emerging food brands to look out for
Business, Club Stores, Costco Broker, New Brands, Whole Foods Broker

LaunchPad Lifts Off to Help Emerging Food Brands Win at Retail

LaunchPad Lifts Off to Help Emerging Food Brands Win at Retail
SAN RAMON, Calif., January 19, 2017 

Brand strategy and representation firm set to fuel sales and distribution for tomorrow’s leading food and beverage brands. Just in time for the 2017 Winter Fancy Food Show, brand consulting firm and Costco Broker LaunchPad is opening its doors to food and beverage companies looking to build their brands, grow sales nationwide, and grab the attention of consumers and retailers.

LaunchPad is a new full-service business representation agency focused on market entry and long-term success for emerging food brands. Specializing in delivering strong sales performance at Club Retailers, LaunchPad offers brand strategy, package design and logistics expertise for tomorrow’s leading food brands.

LaunchPad founder and chief executive officer Jeremy Smith brings strong industry experience to his latest venture. As co-founder and chief operating officer at Level One Marketing, Smith nurtured sales and distribution growth for established brands like Bob’s Red Mill and early-stage challengers like Chobani Greek Yogurt, EVOL Foods, Promax Protein Bars and Hope Hummus. He is also currently an advisor to the investment firm VO2 Partners, which specializes in companies in the active & healthy living sector.

LaunchPad has partnered with MarketBrand, an award-winning Creative Strategy and Design firm led, for package design consulting. MarketBrand principals Eric and Deb Read’s decades of food industry experience include developing market entry strategies and impactful packaging for upstart brands like Red’s Burritos, Pure Foods, Promax, Padma’s Easy Exotic, Azuma Foods, Snack to Basics and organicgirl.

“There can’t be progress without questioning the ways things are done, which is why LaunchPad will be like nothing else in the food industry – an anti-agency, a rebel with a cause,” said Smith. ”Our deep business strategy mindset, vision and passion make us the perfect partner for entrepreneurs who approach business with the disruptive mindset of a technology startup.”

Smith continued: “The rise of shrewd retail buyers and savvy consumers means that the old rules of brand building no longer apply. Sadly, the traditional brokerage networks have not grown with changes in the industry and still offer the same old plug-and-play solutions. Their clients are missing out on a big opportunity.

“New businesses that can engineer the right combination of product and execution will have as much clout with retailers as the big CPG brands. The future of the food industry belongs to the dreamers, doers, troublemakers, disruptors and mavericks who are willing to break industry norms to make things happen. LaunchPad will help them think differently, win at retail, and attain sustainable success.”

LaunchPad is available to meet at the upcoming 2017 Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco, January 22-25. Please call (925) 329-6425 x100 or email mailto:jeremy@launchpadgroupusa.com for an appointment or more information.

About Launchpad

LaunchPad is the food and beverage industry’s only full service business strategy representation and branding agency focused on market entry and long-term success for emerging food brands. We are experts on the retail environment, packaging, manufacturing and distribution, with a highly specialized focus on the Club Market. We collaborate with dreamers, troublemakers, disruptors and mavericks to break the rules and accomplish the impossible. We promise to guide you, inspire you and never BS you.

LaunchPad® and the LaunchPad logo® are among the trademarks of LaunchPad Group USA LLC. Other trademarks belong to their respective owners. LaunchPad reserves the right to alter product and services offerings, and specifications and pricing at any time without notice, and is not responsible for errors that may appear in this document. ©2017 LaunchPad Group USA LLC. All rights reserved.

Press Contact: Shawn Roberts
shawn@shawnroberts.org
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Getting into CostCo
Club Stores, Costco Broker, New Brands

Getting Smart on Club: A Playbook for Young Brands

On first glance, club retailers might not look like a good sales environment for younger food and beverage brands.

You may have an image of remote cinderblock warehouses, pallets stacked high with mainstream brands, or buyers that don’t want to work with smaller brands.

But take a closer look: and you’ll see enormous potential. Club members’ have an extremely high average household income and are almost always families buying in bulk.

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