Is Your Product Right For Foodservice?

The food service industry is highly competitive, net volume driven and constantly changing. Consumer trends, industry consolidation and regulatory changes heavily impact these channels. Local and healthy products are currently on trend and foodservice buyers are increasingly sourcing these products from local companies. Keep on top of current trends as they change over time. There are eight main tentacles, hence the Octopus reference.

These include restaurants, hospitality, convenience stores and micro-markets, colleges, universities and k12, prisons, military, businesses, industry and hotels. Ensure your product fits into one of these channels or the service distributor’s product offerings. Some food service distributors offer extensive product offerings called broadliners (Sysco, US Foods, PFG); others focus on specific categories such as produce, beverages, frozen foods or cleaning supplies and non-perishables.

Foodservice operators have little to no interest in “ME-TOO” products. You must differentiate your product from the competition. There are many ways; innovation, packaging, convenience, price, call-outs and fill rates are just a few examples. Define how your product differs from the competition, and understand and learn the competitors, their prices, pack size and product offerings by either employing a marketing company, expert or internal marketing team. I always say, "The product is the steak, sales are salt and pepper is marketing". You need to focus on both avenues to be successful. There are too many great products that are not marketed properly and buyers or chefs do not hear or see your product. Think of it like an airplane with the right wing as sales and the left wing being marketing.

 

The product is the steak, sales are salt and pepper is marketing. You need to focus on both avenues to be successful

 

Marketing has changed a lot over the last decade and more focus is on social media and online strategy, which I am a big fan of. Grow your social media channels—TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Linkedin seem to be the main platforms to focus on. You might be asking yourself why dedicate resources to social media when food service includes back-of-the-house products. Buyers, chefs, procurement teams or restauranteurs are people and we all, whether you admit it or not, spend time on social media (LinkedIn is my go-to). I have worked with and currently work with super talented marketing people and teams and strongly suggest you budget in some marketing spend to drive demand and education on your brand and product.

Now let's touch on the avenues to sell your product into foodservice. There are two main avenues to sell your product into food service:

1. Direct sales to a food service operator with no distributor involved and shipping directly to your customer.

2. Selling to a food service distributor.

The best way to secure sales to a food service distributor is to generate demand from the end user. If a Chef likes your product, they will want to be able to order it from you. We call that force distribution, where you have an anchor who commits to bringing your product to his or her selected distributor of choice.

Remember, there are national broadline distributors and regional or local smaller distributors. Ask your operator who they use and for introductions to the sales rep or team so you can get your product stocked.