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Emerging CPG Brands Can Level the Playing Field and Scale Up With A.I. Tools: Here’s How

For years, emerging founder-led brands have struggled to compete against multi-billion-dollar CPG giants that are equipped with massive teams dedicated to human resources, accounting, sales and marketing. Today, however, that dynamic is changing rapidly, thanks to artificial intelligence.

Indeed, at recent ECRM Food & Beverage Sessions in Dallas, several brands I spoke with were already leveraging a variety of AI tools for everything from marketing copy and packaging design, creating mockups of their products on store shelves and even for help in applying for RangeMe Immediate Opportunities. 

One brand, Mija Tortilla Factory, even went so far as to develop its own AI platform, tracecorefood, which uses AI agents to provide operational traceability for food manufacturers. (Watch my video interview with Mija Tortilla Factory’s Enzo Lihard). 

Also at the Dallas Sessions, Wildflower Insight’s Tia Ellis gave a presentation about how emerging CPG brands can leverage AI tools to level the playing field against the national CPG brands. Ellis has extensive experience as a retail broker and formerly served as the president of US sales for a global CPG brand, and during her talk shared how founders can – by integrating artificial intelligence seamlessly into their workflows – bridge the labor gap, …

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How Storage Theory Landed Its Hy-Vee Deal in Just Three Months

It’s rare for a brand to be picked up by a retailer just three months after the retailer’s buyers first laid eyes on its products. But that’s just what happened for Storage Theory, a Monticello, Iowa-based manufacturer of innovative home organization products run by CEO & Owner Liz Garcia, when it landed a deal with Midwest grocery chain Hy-Vee last month.

After her RangeMe Immediate Opportunity submission for Hy-Vee’s Opportunity Summit in June (one of more than 1,200 submissions), Garcia’s brand was approved for an initial virtual meeting with Hy-Vee buyers, which resulted in an invite to the Summit, where she pitched Hy-Vee buyers and execs in-person and landed a spot in the retailer’s warehouse. Storage Theory was the only general merchandise brand to earn the coveted Hy-Vee Smile.

I had the chance to chat with Garcia – who is an engaging bundle of energy, by the way! – and learn the story behind Storage Theory as well as her recent RangeMe Immediate Opportunity experiences, both with the Hy-Vee Opportunity Summit as well as her recent meeting with buyers from Lowe’s at ECRM’s General Merchandise Sessions. You can watch our full video interview below!

Garcia’s Path to Entrepreneurship: Turning ‘One

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Which Parent-Approved Certifications Actually Increase Retail Credibility? A 2026 Guide for Baby and Household Brands

If you sell into the baby or household category, you have probably been pitched at least four different product award seals this year. Some cost a few hundred dollars. Some cost several thousand. A few send you a logo within two weeks of paying. And you have almost certainly asked the question every marketer in this category eventually asks: does any of this actually move product, or is it just a sticker?

Here is the short answer, and then we will unpack all of it.

Safety certifications and product award seals are not the same thing

Safety certifications prove your product will not hurt anyone. Award seals prove somebody chose it over the alternatives. Retail buyers, registry editors and parents are looking for both, and they read them very differently. The credibility problem most brands have is not that they are missing a seal. It is that they have the compliance side covered and nothing on the preference side.

One disclosure before we go further: Parent Tested Parent Approved is one of the programs in this landscape. We have been certifying products through in-home parent testing since 2007. We have tried to describe the other programs fairly and accurately, because …

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Landing meaningful retail distribution is one of the biggest milestones for an emerging consumer brand. Perhaps you made it on the shelves at 150 Sprouts Farmers Markets locations. A few Whole Foods regions. A new Target test. Several hundred Walmart locations. Or an expansion into a retailer where the brand has been working for years to earn shelf space.

It deserves to be celebrated.

But once the product arrives on shelf, a different question becomes increasingly important: How are enough consumers going to know it is there, and why should they buy it?

That question is not limited to newly distributed brands. Established companies face it when introducing new SKUs, expanding into additional retailers, supporting key promotional periods, addressing underperforming stores or defending shelf space in increasingly competitive categories.

Retail distribution creates opportunity. Sustained consumer demand is what turns that opportunity into growth.

Great Challenger Brands Do More Than Win Distribution

I was recently reviewing Seurat Group’s Challenger Brand Study 2026, which looks at brands ranging from emerging challengers to more established category modernizers.

One point particularly stood out to me: many successful challenger brands are not inventing entirely new categories. They are finding ways to make familiar categories more …

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Pricing power is not a function of scale. It is a function of perception. Brands maintain pricing power when customers understand their value, when retailers respect their positioning, and when distribution reinforces consistency. Brand integrity follows the same principle. It survives when messaging, merchandising, and experience align across every touchpoint.

Independent retail distribution protects both.

National retail systems prioritize uniformity. Assortments are standardized. Promotions are scheduled. Pricing strategies are centralized. Products are slotted into categories based on margin targets rather than narrative alignment. Over time, brands become commodities within these environments. Price becomes the primary lever. Integrity becomes collateral.

Independent retailers operate differently. They curate. They contextualize. They explain. Their shelves reflect identity rather than algorithms. This approach allows brands to be presented with intention. Products are placed where they belong. Their story is told. Their function is understood.

This presentation sustains value perception.

Retain stronger pricing power

At Mr. Checkout, long-standing distribution work across independent retail channels has consistently shown that brands positioned through curated retail environments retain stronger pricing power than those introduced primarily through mass placement.

Pricing power is also protected through relational accountability. Independent retailers interact directly with customers. They hear price objections. They address them. …

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When you are a brand owner, sometimes things just go wrong. It could be an ingredient shortage, a miscalculation on your part, a production error, or a simple act of God. These are the times that test the resiliency and ingenuity of an entrepreneur, and offer valuable lessons moving forward. 

Molly Blakeley, Founder of Molly Bz Cookies, is no stranger to shit hitting the fan. In fact, her entire life story before launching her brand was a series of overcoming one challenge after another. She even documented it in her book which will be published October 27, Bake it Till You Make It: The Story of a Risk-Taking Cookie Queen. 

Fortunately, most of the risks she has taken with Molly Bz have paid off, and via RangeMe Immediate Opportunities & ECRM Food & Beverage Sessions, she has landed deals with Walmart, Target, Kroger, 7-Eleven, and most recently, Desert Diamond Casinos (see story here). But in one particular instance, a new product she was developing, the Straight Fire cookie, ran into so many roadbumps it almost never made it our of production. 

Fortunately, some quick pivoting and scrappy problem-solving on the part of Blakeley turned what couple have been a potential …

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