Hunting Season

Speciality Bites with

Paul Hargreaves

Chief executive of Cotswold Fayre

• Becoming a B Corp
• Top trend predictions for Christmas 2021
• Self-sacrifice: The importance of building a leadership legacy centred on others
• Undercover Boss
• Can/should bosses really be close friends with their staff?

September is always the month when we start planning our new ranges with Speciality & Fine Food Fair kicking off the “hunting season”

Several “Dragon’s Den” sessions later and we will be whittling down the ever-increasing number of prospective new suppliers.  The process becomes more and more difficult each year as the number of brands fighting for what is a very small section of the overall speciality food and drink market.  I thought I would look this month at a few of the factors that make it more likely for a new brand in this market to succeed, apart from the obvious factors such as it being a good product in great packaging.  If neither of these two is true then there is no hope at all!  And these are the factors we will be looking for at Speciality and Fine Food Fair next week

1)    Marketing Spend.  Sorry to mention money as number 1 but I am afraid it is actually the number 1 factor now there are so many brands competing for the same space.  As a wholesaler we will simply not take on a new brand (unless it is completely unique and exceptional) if there is not a decent marketing budget.  Gone are the days when a brand could slip quietly into the sector through sales effort alone and lucky for those brands that became established 10-15 years ago.  Now it requires much more effort and money spent on the marketing side, although, take heart, with social media it need not always cost a fortune.
2)    Provenance & Story.  In recent years there has been an increasing trend for new brands to be produced by other companies.  There may be genuine, cost-saving reasons for this, but as a team of people selling other companies brands, it is much better for us if we are talking to “producers” rather than just “brand-owners”.  We and the consumers want to feel close to the people who are actually making the stuff!  In my opinion there are too many “me too” brands out there, many of which are produced in the same factories or packing houses. Story & Provenance are what sells product in this market

3)    Route to Market.  There are a few companies left that do all their own distribution but generally these are long-standing brands.  To launch a new brand quickly into the speciality sector, you need a decent wholesaler or wholesalers supplying the whole of the UK. Once appointed they are then the route to market not you – and it needs to be a trusting relationship with free-flow of information both ways.  Keeping the profitable customers for to deal direct and letting the wholesalers have the low volume accounts might seem like an attractive idea initially.  However, long term, the sales team of the wholesaler will never truly be on board if they can’t present the products to their largest customers.  Been there, done that, and some of those products are no longer in our range!
Now back to dust-off my dragon’s costume!