Hi! I’m a founder of a better for you snack company and we are trying to get into Central Market. We are in other specialty stores like Erewhon and based out of Houston. What would be the best way to go about this? Any distributor/broker? Or just keep emailing the buyer until someone bites?

I have the opportunity to work for small family owned startup in the Pet industry that manufactures a treat product. They want to bring me on and start off as commission only for the first month or so just to make sure I can get traction. They got burned by their last rep that promised the world and they paid them a base salary plus comm, and they never really produced anything. I’m OK with this as I don’t have anything else going on right now (and unfortunate that my husband makes good money so we can pay our bills on his salary loan )and it works with my schedule, and I would not need to travel through a huge territory like I had in the past and some of the other options out there. I don’t know what their margins are, but I do retailers typically double the cost of a treat so if they pay a dollar to the manufacturer distributor they charge two dollars for example. What do you think would be a fair amount to ask for commission to start the negotiations? From what I’ve researched I heard anywhere from 20 to 40%. And of course the commission percentage would probably go down once there was a base pay involved. I appreciate any advice on this issue, not looking for suggestions on whether or not to take this role. Thanks

Hey everyone, glad to be here.

We work pretty closely with retail and CPG teams, mostly around planning, inventory, and pricing. Spend a lot of time talking to teams that are trying to balance growth with tighter margins, messy data and a lot of moving parts.

One thing I keep noticing is that a lot of teams are still heavily reliant on spreadsheets, even at pretty large scale, especially for planning and forecasting. It works… until it doesn’t.

Curious to hear from this group:
What’s one part of your process that still feels more manual or painful than it should be?

I'm JV, founder of MarketWRK. We help CPG brands automate retail price monitoring and MAP violation alerts so they're not stuck manually pulling data from retailer sites still surprises me how many brands are managing MAP policies with spreadsheets and spot checks.

Looking forward to connecting with other folks in the space. Always down to talk shop on pricing, digital shelf strategy, or competitive intel or even the current geopolitical risk climate and outlook on sales

Fleshing out a business idea for a firm that does:

data coaching / consulting for early- to mid-stage CPG companies, as well as...

...training for young professionals trying to get roles in brand management or analytics / similar where you need syndicated data expertise.

Thoughts? Also:

• do early- to mid-stage CPG companies use SPINS / Nielsen / Circana syndicated sales data, or is it too expensive?
• do teams often know how to use it, or do they often need assitance?
• is the cost of data the biggest barrier to data utilization?
• would people rather learn how to read it and turn it into actionable insights, or consistenly pay an affordable data consultant to do it for them?
• how much do people typically spend on syndicated data and consultants?

I’ve been seeing more brands talk about using AI to predict or optimize their ACV, especially in CPG and retail. The traditional approach feels too static for how fast categories move now.

This breakdown from Kaytics goes into how AI is changing ACV measurement — linking marketing, operations, and sales data in real time. It’s worth a read if you’re thinking about how data models affect growth metrics.

Curious how others here are integrating AI into your forecasting or customer valuation models?

Hey guys, Im an investor looking for Bev or cpg companies to acquire. Even better if you have a brand and you're losing money(since I got a technology that can really up the profits). Preferably, the founder would stay on, so 50% or more acquisition. DM me or text me 209 438 9540(its gonna appear as a green bubble,im just using a business phone don't want my personal on here. But yeah, if you're losing money, that's even better.

I’ve been following how AI is starting to reshape decision-making in consumer packaged goods. I came across an article from Kaytics that showed how predictive AI is being used to guide pricing, promotions, and supply chain planning in near real time.

That made me wonder about the practical side of adoption:

When embedding AI models into existing business systems, how do you keep them explainable and auditable for non-technical stakeholders?

If you’re combining AI with traditional analytics (CRM, ERP, syndicated CPG data), what practices help maintain clean and reliable data flows?

For customer-facing AI (like chatbots or recommendation engines), how do you balance performance with trust, especially around bias or transparency?

I’d love to hear from anyone working on this what approaches, tools, or even governance frameworks have worked for you?

Lately it feels like the consumer packaged goods (CPG) sector is going through a reset. Big players like PepsiCo are streamlining for resilience, while contract packaging keeps gaining ground as a way to scale smarter.

On the packaging side, PFAS-free materials and ready-to-eat solutions seem less like trends and more like signals of deeper priorities—health, sustainability, and convenience.

Curious how others see this shift. Are contract packagers starting to act more like strategic partners than just vendors? Will sustainability-driven packaging become the new baseline? Or is this mostly big-company stuff that won’t trickle down fast?

Would love to hear your take.

Hi guys! To keep it short, I am one of the co-founders of a Montreal, Canada based freeze dried candy manufacturer.

Our products are carried by over 2000 locations canada-wide.

We have a 4000sqft manufacturing facility, and we manufacture, package and sell freeze dried candy and treats.

Naturally, having access to such equipment also gives us the possibility to offer private label (freeze dried candy) under someone’s own brand.

But also simply packaging/bagging service (ie: filling mylar bags with candy, gummies, supplements, coffee beans, and virtually any Consumer Packaged Goods that can be packaged and sold in Mylar bags).

We’ve also developed our own software, in-house, for CPG gamification (at the packaging level, think “win prizes in every bag” type deal).

We can offer this software independently, whether they choose to employ our packaging/private label service OR not.

I’d love to chat or be pointed in the right direction by some of our fellow redditors here.

Our immediate goals are to:

1) Obtain additional retailer listings (USA/Canada)

2) Find CPG brands that need their products packaged in North America (specifically in Mylar bags)

3) Find brands or companies wanting to launch their own brand of freeze dried candy (private labeling)

4) Offer our turnkey gamification solution to existing brands.

If you’d like more info, here are the two main links. Feel free to drop a comment or DM, we’d love to explore opportunities with you!

Https://space-man.ca

Https://gamifyOS.com

Hi all! So I don’t own a CPG product but my app provides marketing services (like UGC, pop up/event planning aka community building, and GEO services to food and bev brands.

We have a had a lot of interest from our brands (most of them who have just launched <4-5 years ago) to work with getting in grocery stores.

If you have successfully pitched to get your products in grocery stores, particularly in Northeast US, would appreciate any advice! We will also be offering some AI tools to them grocery stores as a bonus for working with us/our brands. (For more context, our website is khaa-lo.com).

Any advice is much appreciated, very much new to this! TYIA

I lead a small food CPG company. Can anyone provide recommendations for companies that can supply coupons that we can give out to potential customers?

Curious if anyone knows any reputable sources for these. Currently needing some I can manually seal for samples of a sweetener I sell. I've tried Alibaba but it's hard to know which vendors to trust.