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Food Scientist-Turned-Entrepreneur Sees Retail Wins With ‘Magic Beans’

8 Track Foods hits many of the hot buttons that excite retail buyers. It’s a woman-owned brand. Its products are locally-grown, organic, and have a minimal impact on the environment – in fact, they make the environment better (we’ll get to that shortly). Plus, with all of the buzz about the importance of our microbiomes for health, you will find few foods that are better for the gut.

The Chicago-based brand sells beans that are grown on U.S. farms and packaged in recyclable steel cans. Call them “magic beans,” if you will, because buyers from retailers like Whole Foods Market, Meijer, Food Lion and independent grocers have been eagerly scooping them up after connecting with Founder Maggie Sadowsky via RangeMe and ECRM, and can now be found in more than 2,000 stores nationwide (watch my full video interview with Maggie below!). 

From food scientist to entrepreneur

For someone marketing simple, single-ingredient products, you’d be surprised to learn that Maggie’s background is in food science. Her career began with product development at Morningstar Farms, creating products like plant-based chicken nuggets and Buffalo Chicken wings. This experience fueled her passion for natural and plant-based foods, leading her to develop hundreds of products …

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RangeMe, Preferred Partners, Launch CPG Growth Summer Content Series

This summer, RangeMe, and our Preferred Services partners will launch a series of weekly content aimed at providing emerging brands with insights to help them boost sales, maintain strong cash flow, elevate advertising, optimize logistics, and champion environmental sustainability as they gear up for this year’s Black Friday/Cyber Monday season. 

The series, collectively titled S.C.A.L.E (for Sales, Cash Flow, Advertising & Awareness, Logistics, and Environmental Sustainability) brings together the expertise and experience of RangeMe Services members KickFurther, Hawke Media, ShipBob, and Ecodrive to equip brands with best practices to help them grow and thrive.

“Each of our Preferred Partners participating in S.C.A.L.E. have expertise in key areas related to CPG growth,” says Vir Satyan, SVP of Supplier Success at RangeMe. “They will share knowledge gained from their collective experience in helping steer hundreds of CPG brands along a path to success.”

The series kicks off the week of July 15th, with each week featuring a variety of content from a different partner. Following is the S.C.A.L.E. summer content schedule:

Week of July 15: Hawke Media

Digital marketing agency Hawke Media will host a webinar in which Senior Growth Expert & GM of Hawke Capital, David Chon, will discuss how to …

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Lowes Foods Highlights Emerging Brands in an Experiential Tour de Force

The new Lowes Foods store in Winterville, North Carolina aims to create an entertainment-driven shopping experience. It features an array of unique concepts and various specialty food sections that seek to create a “Village of Shops” theme, providing customers with a diverse and engaging shopping environment, complete with interactive elements and a strong focus on customer service.

In a recent fireside chat with RangeMe & ECRM SVP of Retail Wayne Bennett – who was on hand at the store’s grand opening – Lowes Foods SVP of Merchandising Glenn Figenholtz discusses the new concept and how it fits in with Lowes Foods overall strategy for delivering a truly unique shopping experience to its customers. 

Take a virtual tour through the Lowes Foods Winterville Store

ECRM: Tell us a little bit about your background and your role at Lowes Foods.

Figenholtz: I lead merchandising at Lowes Foods across our entire store, and I’ve been with the company for about two years now. I have a long history in the retail space, over 20 years now. I started my career at Walgreens and ran many of the food and beverage businesses there for quite some time. 

ECRM: How does the Winterville store showcase

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Do-It-Yourself Nutrition Labeling for Emerging Food Brands

Food entrepreneurs have a lot on their plates. From sourcing the best ingredients to finding the perfect packaging – there’s no shortage of tasks to take up your limited time and resources. However, no matter how dialed in your product is, you can’t start taking over retail until you conquer compliance. 

Nutrition labeling requirements can make startups feel lost. This feeling often leads businesses to fork over tons of money for consultants to take care of their nutrition labeling. In this article we’re going to cover how you can quickly create compliant nutrition fact panels so you can put more of your hard earned cash back into your business. 

Do I need a nutrition fact panel? 

While the FDA always requires ingredient statements and allergen declarations, there are actually cases when nutrition fact panels can be optional. There is a small business exemption for companies that have less than $ 50,000 in food sales and less than $ 500,000 in total sales. However, even if your company falls beneath this threshold, it’s important to think about where you want to sell your products. If you’re looking to make your products available in any major retail chain, you need nutrition fact …

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How Walmart Sets Suppliers Up for Success: Q&A With Jason Fremstad

Walmart is not just looking to give emerging brands a foot in the door with the largest retailer in the world, it also wants to provide them with the education and resources to succeed once inside, according to Jason Fremstad, Senior Vice President of Supplier Development. 

In this fireside chat with ECRM & RangeMe SVP of Retail Wayne Bennett, Fremstad shares how Walmart has created several tailored pathways for suppliers based on their origin, category, and maturity level and how its innovative programs, including its Growth Summits and Open Call events are designed to support suppliers at different stages of their journey. These initiatives help suppliers understand and navigate Walmart’s processes while ensuring a steady pipeline of new and capable suppliers and products for customers.

Bennett: Tell us a little bit about your journey at Walmart, and your role as the SVP of Supplier Development and how it fits within the Walmart ecosystem.

Fremstad: I started my retail career at Walmart, Inc. My first role in 2006 was a buyer’s assistant at Sam’s Club, a role that doesn’t even exist anymore. But it was an amazing role to have because you had the ability to work directly with merchants, and …

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Winning Pitches: 2 Ways RangeMe is Bringing Brands and Buyers Together In-Person

Most of you are familiar with RangeMe as an online product discovery platform that helps emerging brands boost their exposure with retail and foodservice buyers. But what you may not know is that RangeMe also gives brands the opportunity to pitch their products in-person directly to buyers.

That’s right – RangeMe subscribers can get private, pre-scheduled and distraction-free meetings as part of two unique initiatives: RangeMe Live and RangeMe Discovery Hub, both of which are held at parent company ECRM’s category-specific Sessions. 

RangeMe Live is for Pro subscribers, and offers three free 20-minute face-to-face meetings annually as part of the subscription benefits. RangeMe Discovery Hub is available to RangeMe subscribers of all subscription tiers, and delivers the complete ECRM Session experience with a full schedule of private buyer meetings at special pricing for first-time RangeMe brands. 

Together, these offerings enable RangeMe subscribers to bridge the divide between digital and in-person buyer engagement, and provide a natural progression for brands as they grow their reach from local distribution to regional, national – and eventually – global distribution. 

realsy

“To get in front of buyers at retailers this big is huge, and you literally have a room with them face to face,” …

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