CHAPTER

You have the greatest new natural product, and it is sure to be a smash success! Your friends can’t stop talking about it, so grocery stores across the country will never know what hit them, right? Before you risk thousands of dollars, though, bringing your product to market, keep reading. With this book I will show you how to navigate common problems, emotional pitfalls, and highly expensive traps that start-ups fall into and remain in on the path to success.

I have seen firsthand the many mistakes natural foods manufacturers make when trying to get their new product onto store shelves, costing themselves millions of dollars. For example, launching a product so similar to competitors’ products that customers cannot tell the difference. Changing Universal Product Codes (UPCs) midlaunch and losing every account the company worked so hard to gain. Pushing a product that did not sell, slowly bankrupting the manufacturer. I don’t want you to suffer the same self-inflicted wounds.

Others will try to wound you themselves. Buyers, stores, employees, distributors, brokers, and brand ambassadors all love new products, and surprisingly that is true even when a new product fails. Why? Because all of these players skim cash from your product. You will be encouraged to spend an exorbitant amount of cash on slotting fees, ads, MCB (Merchant Charge Back) and OI (Off Invoice), distributor setups, free-fills, brokers, demos, marketing, promotions, trade shows, table tops, mail outs, samples, and much more without actually increasing your sales. And even if you do, these players couldn’t care less if you didn’t see a penny yourself. I want you to, though.

The first few times that I encountered these mistakes, I thought, “This can’t be normal.” But when I saw them over and over again it left me wondering why new product manufacturers kept making them. In my search for an answer I discovered that there is not a single field guide to entering this trillion-dollar industry and traveling safely through its labyrinthine distribution channels. True, plenty of general business books exist. They explain strategy and global expansion, describe retailing and distributing, and discuss budgets and time management. They show you how to run a business in general, but not how to run a business in any specific industry. This book, however, gives you the secrets to running a natural foods business, including the following:

Determining which retailers to target

Finding distributors

Finding brokers you can trust

Developing an advertising and marketing plan

Crafting an exit strategy

Who am I to write this book?

I am not perfect, of course. I have made mistakes. Better you learn from mine, though, instead of your own. If you can see your product on the shelf, then so can I, and if you have a dream, then let’s dream big. Why not? Many have entered the natural products arena and come out as millionaires, whether they sold out to a competitor or secured venture capital money and became major players themselves.

For example, let me share a great story of the success of an Armenian man with a dream about tea. This man is Arsen Avakian. He saw just how successful and exciting Starbucks is for coffee lovers. In 2003, Arsen and his childhood friends created Argo Tea and set out to be the Starbucks of tea. Argo now has more than forty cafés. They have also taken their café success into the retail world. Their loose leaf teas and ready-to-drink (RTD) teas are in more than 14,000 retail locations, have generated more than $10 million in sales, and have created jobs for more than 500 employees. Kroger did call! All from dreaming big. Really big!

How did Arsen and his childhood buddies become the Starbucks of tea? One way was by turning a negative into a positive. In the face of a real estate recession Argo chose to expand and picked up several café locations in New York and Chicago. They import the best teas from around the world and create their own food and merchandise. In fact, everything in Argo cafés is Argo created. Not only do they want the finest teas from around the world but also the finest ingredients to make quality food for all types of diets. Word traveled fast, and in 2011 the San Francisco Chronicle hailed Argo as the company that would cause the twenty-first-century tea café revolution and get America to drink tea. Time magazine ran a story that agreed. In 2012, Argo decided to launch their RTD line of their best-selling cold teas because the demand was undeniable. Now Argo is in Kroger, Whole Foods Market, Sprouts Farmers Market, Walgreens, 7-Eleven, Ralphs, vending machines, hospitals, universities, and all the top distributors.

The natural products, supplements, and food industry is important because it can change the way we eat, clean, and consume for the better. So don’t treat this book as just a field guide or pocket reference for your success. Treat it as your means to change the world.

First, however, you have to get out of the kitchen and into the stores. It’s time to take your first step.