Issue 7 of Insightful Bites is here! Our round-up of all the latest trends and insights in the world of food and drink to get your teeth into!  This month is something of a feast – a Bread & Jam Festival special with a wealth of insights for food and drink brands and start-ups…. Bon Appetit!

Bread & Jam – the must-attend festival for start-up food and drink businesses

Last week saw AJ providing expertise to emerging food and drink businesses.  She sat on the POD POD panel, as well as giving talks on “Why the Founder Story is so important for a Start Up” and “Marketing & PR for Faster Growth”.  She was part of a first-class line up of experts and successful business founders, who took time out to share their experiences.

Here’s a summary of some of the speaker sessions that a few of the team managed to join:

The Seven Principles of Challenger Sales

Dan Pope from Manilife, the ‘mind-bendingly banging peanut butter brand’ talked us through the Seven Principles of Challenger Sales to help you become a pro at landing listings in key retailers.

1. Be a purple cow – find your point of difference. Ask questions not statements, make the retailer feel something.
2. Turn cold emails warm by taking your lead from Fleet Street – think pictures, stories, suspense. Make follow-ups insightful with news about the brand, your team and even market data.
3. Sell like a brand manager – use the right language – use some pictorial language and take your comms to the next level.
4. Energy + conviction = influence
5. Be generous and give, give, give, when it comes to samples. Do some instore sampling to improve your chances of going off shelf.
6. Slow partnerships win the race – work together to build the brand….ask human questions. Use added value such as recipe cards to achieve brand depth and encourage trial.
7. Do things that don’t scale. It takes time to get product into consumer hands. Be prepared for things to take time – it’s a long game.

We particularly loved Dan’s point about brand awareness v brand depth. While brand awareness is essential, brand depth is all about using non-scalable activations to speak to and create your die-hard fans – something experiential such as a café pop-up to communicate your brand depth.

Getting Inside the Mind of Retail Buyers 

A Shoptalk panel discussion featuring buyers from Whole Foods Market, WHSmith and Gate Group revealed some top tips on how to best make your approach and what they are looking for:

• Airline Retail buyers are all about space, sustainability and products that can be wrapped and kept clean. 
• You need to nail your pitch to retailers the first time; they only have 5% of their time to spare. 
• They have little time for unsolicited samples, it will take a while to follow up with these samples. However, if the samples are presented in a beautiful gift box or fun calendars are much more likely to catch the team’s eye! 
• Timing is everything! – Sending in your samples at the right time can massively impact whether they are chosen. Ask for the specific range reviews dates. 
• New products chosen are reviewed every 8-12 weeks. It’s not just about getting in it’s about staying in! 
• There is usually a 1 in 1 out policy. 

The No-Fluff Recipe for TikTok Success – How to become the next Little Moons on TikTok

Daniel Simmons from Populate gave some great insights and tips on how to make the most of this exciting social media channel:

• 40% of TikTok users are Gen Z (age 10-25).
• It has the best organic reach for a social platform, it is also the leading platform for sound.  
• Post at least once a day. If this seems a lot, set a 30-day challenge. 
• TikTok is the most opened app and has a higher watch time than YouTube, despite having shorter videos. 
• Not every post will do well, consistency is key. 
• You need to be active on the platform and interact with other users, this will boost your algorithm.  
• Follow who you like and spend time on the app to be knowledgeable of the trends and content. 
• Register for the TikTok Creative Centre. Here you can see who/what is trending.  
• Set up an online store or shop in the app to boost sales. 
• Go Live! Posting live videos can really help increase sales. For example, you can say “Whoever orders xxx in the next 25mins will receive 30% off.” This could be during a behind the scenes of packing orders, doesn’t need to be polished. 
• Content is less formal than Instagram and has a raw, unfinished quality. All you need is a smart phone to shoot engaging content.  
• Check out @Mallowsbeauty for an example of TikTok done right. 

TikTok content ideas for food & drink producers:  

• Packing an order. 
• Making a product. 
• Behind the scenes. 
• Come to the factory. 
• Eating product. 
• Recipes. 
• Replying to questions (This is great for bulking up content.) 
• Day in the life. 
• Sunset to Sunrise in your business.  
• Debunking Myths.  

And finally….

Did you know that Google Analytics is changing?  Google Analytics will no longer be available from July 2023 and all historic data will be lost if not exported before. To avoid this, businesses should Install GA4 now so by the summer of 2023 they have data available.  

Other things you need to know:

• Third party tracking cookies are being phased out. GA4 doesn’t need cookies and uses AI.  
• Unlike GA, on GA4 you can track specific audiences and events. Additionally, the bounce back rate now measures engagement on a site rather than time – this is more accurate.  
• However, if you are a business only wanting to track users and products, there is no need for GA4, you can use Shopify.  
• GA4 is a free tool. 

 Check out all the latest client news and team news at Sharp HQ.