Watch: Walmart Wants Shelves Stocked with Small Brands

 

With 90% of U.S. households having visited at least once in the past year, Walmart is an ideal location for consumers to discover new and innovative food products — and not just ones from established CPG giants.

Despite being one of the world’s largest retail chains, Walmart has made helping emerging brands a key piece of its growth strategy. This includes offering early stage companies the ability to launch in as few as 10 stores, or access to buyers who can guide young brands as they prepare to enter the market.

In this video, recorded during NOSH Live 2019 in New York City in June, Sarah Alderson, divisional merchandise manager of chilled packaged goods at Walmart, and Laura Rush, the retailer’s divisional manager for frozen foods, describe how Walmart supports new brands with guidance, feedback and data — and how it seeks out companies that are “evolutionary, not necessarily revolutionary.”