Nombase Podcast: How to Keep Your Retail Partners Onboard Even When You Change Almost Everything

Melissa Travers [00:05] Hello, and thank you for joining us. I am Melissa Travers, director of community at Bevnet CPG Media, and this is the How do I Build this podcast for CPG Brands, where we talk to the people building the industry to share practical advice for building stronger, more profitable businesses. Visit Nonbase.com, Bevnet's platform for the CPG community, where you'll find this podcast and so much more. Losing distribution with a key retailer is one of the most challenging things that can happen to a growing brand. And getting it back can be really hard to pull off. Today, we are talking about exactly that with Harry Kahn and Stephanie Garcia Turner. Harry Kahn is the president and GM of Vermont Creamery, a 42 year old specialty dairy brand that was acquired by Land O'Lakes in 2017. Vermont Creamery has been through the full cycle of repositioning after an acquisition. Getting onto and dropping off of retailer shelves and winning accounts back. Harrison is here to share how they did it and what he's learned about playing the long game with retailers. Stephanie Garcia Turner is the co-founder and chief commercial officer of Tuyo, a brand that recently completed a merger with Nemi Snacks in Toto Verde and came out on the other side with a new brand identity. New packaging and a product that now lives in a completely different retail category than it did before. She's right in the middle of figuring out how to rebuild retail relationships, decide which doors to prioritize, and make a compelling case to buyers without a ton of new sales data to lean on. So, thank you both so much, Stephanie and Harry, for joining the Non-based podcast. It is so great to have you here.

Speaker 2 [01:50] Likewise, thanks for having us.

Melissa Travers [01:53] All right, Stephanie, um, let's hear from you first. Give us the quick story on Tuyo, the merger with Nemi Snacks and Toto Verde, what the brand looks like now, and some of those retail challenges that you are experiencing right now.

Speaker 2 [02:08] Too, I started the original, like, we call it Tyo 1.0, um, back in 2022 with agua fresca, powdered agua fresca and canisters. As we all know, building a business is very, very hard, especially as a solo entrepreneur. So through the years, I met my now two co-founders, uh, Regina Trio and Jocelyn Ramirez, and just through the industry, I met uh Regina in Chicago at a networking event, and Jocelyn and I were in an accelerator together. And so over the last couple of years, we were kind of having touch bases, seeing each other at trade shows, sharing resources, and um I would say actually one year ago, we had this notion of what if we did this. Together, since our goal is very much aligned, which is elevating Latin culture through clean food and beverage. And fast forward, we completed our merger in May of 2026. So now, we are just Tuyo Foods. We redid our packaging to show a fresh new branding identity. And everything just, you know, bringing it all together in a more cohesive way, um, especially with the potential for the other products coming in. So the first products we launched in May were the powdered agua fresca with electrolytes, and with that whole You know, merger and experience, the retail that we had, we had about 1100 doors combined. We had to pause and really end up losing some of that placement because anything when you have to do repackaging, a new UPC code, you know, all of that stuff just means like that product is going to fall off the shelf. So, you know, now we're in this rebuilding stage, so I'm really excited to hear from Harry like how they navigated having a fallen off a shelf and then having to get back on as we're kind of going through this, um, you know, this journey of trying to rebuild our placement.

Melissa Travers [04:16] Excellent, thank you so much. Harry, Vermont Creamery is an iconic cheese brand. I mean, it's certainly one of the brands that I think about when I think about, you know, brands that have been around for a very long time. Give us the background on Vermont Creamery and how the cha, some of the changes that Vermont Creamery has experienced and how you're positioned today.

Speaker 3 [04:39] Yeah, sure, and Melissa, thank you so much, and Stephanie, thank you too. I'm psyched for this conversation. So, Vermontgomery, like you said at the beginning, Melissa is a 42-year-old company. Um, it was started by, uh, two Vermonters, Allison Hooper and Bob Reese, um, in 1984, and they were actually employees of the Vermont Department of Agriculture at the time, and they were tasked with putting on a dinner to honor the restaurateur of the year from Vermont, and this was at at Stow Resort, um. And the chef at the resort wanted to have goat cheese on the menu, but the only problem was in the 80s in Vermont and in the US really, you couldn't find goat cheese right in the grocery store from your specialty, you know, food service distributor or anything like that. But Allison had actually just returned from France where she was interning on dairies, making goat cheese and cultured butter and creme fresh, so she bravely raised her hand and, you know, said, hey, I can I can give this a try on my stovetop at home, and um that's what she did and brought it to the dinner, and during the dinner, it was a hit. The chefs who were in attendance kept coming up to Allison and asking, you know, where can I buy more? And uh it was actually her co-founder Bob's wife Sandy, who looked at them and said, you two should start a business, and they both, you know, put together $1200 and started um Vermont Butter and Cheese Company, that's what it was called. Uh, BBC for, for the folks who've known us for a while. And then with the advent of email, right, the company was founded before email, um, was, was popular in the US, of course, and, uh, they had to shorten their domain names. That's why we became Vermont Creamery from Vermont butter and cheese. So anyway, that's, that's our, you know, our founding story and still very much what the brand means today, you know, um, I love what you said, Stephanie, about, you know, elevating Latin culture, food, food and beverage if I've got that right. Um. As your mission, our, our mission is, is similar in a way in that it's just elevating American food culture. We try to bring, um, you know, ingredients that otherwise wouldn't be available in the, in the US. So that's why we have these largely French inspired ingredients that we make here in, in Vermont, um, all with that mission of you helping home cooks and, and chefs at America's best restaurants to, uh, elevate their game.

Melissa Travers [07:03] Great stuff, and we will get into some of those changes that occurred after the acquisition in 2017. Stephanie, one of the trickiest parts of your situation is that you changed categories, so, as you said, you were in canisters before and now you are in stick packs. Can you explain that category change and, and, and you were also in the Hispanic set, and now You're into a hydration set, I think. Can you explain what that change was like? What happened after that change in terms of your retail relationships and how some of those were disrupted?

Speaker 2 [07:46] So the product being agua fresca was set into the Hispanic or Latin category at major retailers because it was really like one of the first items, right, to exist. So it's not quite a Kool-Aid and it wasn't sitting where those beverages are, um, but it wasn't like super high function, so it was kind of like, let's just go with the Authenticity, you know, Hispanic, uh, appeal of it. And so that's where they placed it. When we added, when we made it into sick packs, we changed the packaging format, we added in the electrolytes. Now the buyers were like, this no longer fits into my set, and totally understandable. Um, one of the things that I will say me and Regina and Jocelyn did was we let all of our retail Retailers know that we were thinking about doing this merger and as we kept getting like more and more sure that this was going to go through, we told them, hey, this is our, um, this is our plan, you know, we're going to merge, it's going to change the other two companies for sure and then it's also going to change the Tuyo company because we're going to transition things from, you know, one packaging format to another and make it a little bit more functional. So I talked to like my buyer at Meyer, um, the buyer at HEB, the buyer at Whole Foods, you know, all of these folks, so that they knew that this was happening and it wasn't going to be a huge surprise. And I will say that was the best move we could have made because right now I'm going to be in the review with these new buyers, and they, you know, they like personally. Connected me with the new category buyer. So it's still, um, I mean, it's still a process like I still have to prove out, you know, that we should get a chance in the new set, but at least it wasn't like hunting down the contacts, you know, from scratch again, so that was really great. I think the other thing too is that the price point is now changed, so We have to be conscious of, you know, where do we sit now compared to the category, you know, where our competitors, everything like that, and make sure that our unit economics makes sense, but also that the product makes sense in the retail category that it's now moving into. So we really had to learn and get a lot of data on a whole new category because of this change as well.

Melissa Travers [10:12] And so in those communications. Did you, did you, did any buyers turn over? Are you, are there some category reviews you're sort of set up for and ready to apply for and then other situations where you're not really sure what the next steps are? How did that all play out?

Speaker 2 [10:32] Yeah, it really varied. I will say, you know, Whole Foods Market has been a really fantastic partner, and again, they actually knew that I wanted to move to stick packs even before the merger. That was part of my like business strategy and plan, so we had already had that conversation going and then with everyone else, it was really about understanding. Because the product is still agua fresca, so it's about understanding, OK, why this shouldn't live in Hispanic, because it has a better opportunity for sales, you know, and uh customer foot traffic moving to the new set. So it was a really great Meeting you know that I had with all of these relevant buyers and them being really supportive of, you know, we like the product, we like the brand, but we do want to see it succeed and we see it succeeding the best in the category that most people would expect to find the product in. I will say that with this transition, it has kind of given us an opportunity for a fresh start and to really look at who are those retail partners that we were in, do we want to carry all of them over or do we want to only focus on the ones that maybe we feel are just going to be the strongest partners for us? So there's a lot of, you know, like really strategic. Um, questions and, and reasoning that myself and my team have to go through. So I'll be really interested to learn from Harry like what their experience has been with that. Um, the other challenge that I have is we now have 3 products in 3 different categories. So while we're really concentrating on the agua fresca, like how, because I know with Vermont Creamery. Like butter, you know, cheese, um, and then creme fresh, like they all are dairy, but they do sit in different places. So I'm really curious to hear how, you know, y'all went about like Proposing these items to to the retail partners.

Melissa Travers [12:37] Harry, I see you shaking your head over there in agreement. I know you have a lot of thoughts on this. Can you walk our audience through the acquisition by Land O'Lakes? I know you said that your sales team sort of started treating it like a mass market brand. Um, there is an issue with selling butter at Walmart at a loss just to move volume. Can you dig into all of that to kind of help set the stage and help our audience understand how you know exactly what Stephanie is going through and some of the questions that she's trying to get answered?

Speaker 3 [13:10] Yeah, I hope I can help, and Stephanie, wow, it's such a rich, you know, situation that you're in, and I'm so excited to talk to you about it, you know, our, our companies are at different stages, but there's so many parallels, right, with a merger and then with uh repositioning in multiple product categories. So, you know, Melissa, to your question about Land O'Lakes, so Alison and Bob built up this business over several generations, right? They Had kids, their kids became grown, their kids went off to college, and then their business graduated when they wanted to retire, and Land O'Lakes as a farmer-owned cooperative looked like a really good fit for them in terms of culture and values, felt very much aligned. Um, Land O'Lakes saw in Vermont Creamery an incredible opportunity to take the Vermont Creamery butter and put that into national distribution. So at the time prior to the acquisition by Land O'Lakes, you know, we were still making goat cheese, we're still making creme fresh, we're still making our cultured butter, but it was really the butter that Land O'Lakes saw. You know, Land O'Lakes knows a thing or two about, you know, butter and the mainstream dairy aisle. And they saw this incredible cultured butter that Vermont Groomer makes that's in 1 pound chef rolls, uh, and wanted to put it into stick format and get national distribution and put it alongside the Land O'Lakes butter to be their premium offering to go after some of the other premium offerings that were becoming larger in the US at the time, Kerrygold, namely, and um. Uh, you know, there's nothing necessarily wrong with that business case. It's just so different from wherever Montgomery had been previously as a, a brand that really thrived in the specialty cheese section of the store. We had never been in the dairy aisle, which is a very different arena. You know, cultured butter is so different from sweet cream butter that, you know, sweet cream butter is what Land O'Lakes makes. Cultured butter is, you know, the cream is fermented overnight. It's much more premium, it's much more costly. We're buying local cream from, from Vermont. There's so many reasons why it needs to be treated differently because it's such a premium product, um, but this was, you know, Linda Lakes' experiment to see if Vermont creamer butter could survive in the dairy aisle and stick format. And overnight, yeah, after the acquisition, we were in national distribution, which It was really exciting for the Vermont Creamery team, right? Uh, you imagine, you know, everyone's, you're getting phone calls from their aunts and uncles around the country saying, oh my gosh, I just saw Vermont Creamery butter in my local store, which is great, um, but ultimately it didn't last. Um, the investment that's required to be successful in the dairy aisle in awareness and in trial and, and frankly in time to really earn your place in the dairy aisle never occurred. You know, Cari Bold grew up in specialty cheese, and you know, I think of it as a 20 plus year overnight success. Prior to 2017, Vermont Creamery had never been in the dairy aisle, and I think what we learned is that shoppers have already more or less made up their mind when they walk down the dairy aisle. They might be pulled into a different brand based on a promotion that's going on, but they're not exploring. Like they are in the cheese bunker, you know, in the specialty section of the store, so it's a very different shopping experience. You know, ultimately, you know, Vermont Creamery, um, had slow velocity in most of its retail in its grocery locations after the acquisition and stick butter format and the band-aid that the Land O'Lak sales team used to retain that distribution distribution list price, right, uh, more and more frequent, more and more deep trade promotions and reducing the, um, the list price as well when needed. Um, so when I joined Vermont Creamery, I'm only 3.5 years into my journey here, but when I joined in 2023, you know what I saw was a, uh, a brand that was losing money at Walmart on every stick of butter that we were selling because of all of that history. Um, so, you know, in the first summer, um, working with the team here, we decided to increase our price to match the cost of our Product to compensate for the additional time and effort, equipment and a local sourcing of high quality cream, all of those things, and we didn't necessarily expect that Walmart was going to come along for that ride, um, so essentially we pruned an unprofitable customer and didn't look back, um. And yet we're now having some really upsetting conversations with Walmart, where after going through a lot of work to reposition our butter brand, to change the packaging, to increase the price, as you know, um, to update our marketing campaign, um, we've gone back to Walmart, a different buyer now, um, with a new plan, and they've just accepted us into more than 400 stores. Um, so that's super exciting that we're going to be back at Walmart. In a way that feels a lot more like Vermont Creamery than the way that we showed up in year 20 after the acquisition in 2017.

Melissa Travers [18:30] What a great story, and it's certainly no small feat to go through the evolution you just described. Stephanie, I'm wondering too if the hydration set is more expensive than the set that you were in before. What are some of those challenges that you're trying to work through now and, you know, maybe Harry has some ideas.

Speaker 2 [18:52] I guess my biggest question is really like when you went back to Walmart after having lost that shelf space, what was that really like the convincing point that you submitted to them and discussed with them that made them say, OK, yeah, like it sounds like this is a new plan, this is a new start. Like, let's give you guys a try because one thing that I've heard, you know, very much in the industry is that once you lose shelf space, like it's so, so hard to convince a retailer to take you back on. So I would love to hear kind of like how you navigated that persuasion, um, with, with the retailer.

Speaker 3 [19:36] Well, first of all, I'll walk them through just what I walked you through, you know, the, the background, so that they understood where we were coming from. And got them on the same page as us, and we had to acknowledge that our past strategy didn't work first and foremost, so that we were on the same page, and then we started walking them through our logic about why it would work this time around. So although we didn't have great historical velocity trends to show them on a national level, there were many stores within the Walmart network where we have been quite successful, and I wanted to show them that. So we went back to them with a plan to have a more geographically targeted relaunch at Walmart, and that's ultimately what they, they accepted. I also worked with a team where we, we showed them, um, the repositioning, the why behind the new design of the packaging, which was an embrace of borrow reeds. Vermontgomery's butter has always stood for the best tasting butter. That's when people, people who know Vermont Creamery butter, that's what they, the first thing that they always say, oh, this is, I love that butter, and sometimes it's hard to find, but when I find it, I always buy it, right? We're You know, uh, Martha has, has, has said, you know, that, that Montgomery's her favorite butter and we've got some great testimonials from some of the best, you know, chefs around, um, so that's what we're known for, and that's also the number one reason why consumers purchase butter. So we went back to the buyer and showed them that data and showed them all those great testimonials. We also showed them a bunch of complaints from our fans, you know, I've got, you know, some of the quotes in front of me. I'm looking at the slide that we showed the buyer right now, actually, you know, one of them says, you know, I just went to 5 Walmarts and I couldn't find the Vermont Creamery butter. What's going on. Another was, um, I'm trying to figure out why Walmart made such a bad decision. Um, another one was, you know, this is the only butter I use, I need it. And then another one was just simply, please help. I can't find the Vermont curry butter, and we showed them all of that. Uh, we tasted the product, um, against, you know, our, our competitive set, you know, tasting is believing. And you know, we also laid out sort of our business case for, for butter, which is, you know, this is a large category, it's got tremendous household penetration, um. And most of the products are pretty similar on the shelf, but because Vermontgomery makes a cultured butter. It's quite differentiated and it goes after that number one reason why people are shopping, you know, for their butter brands for great taste. So we, we laid all of that out for them, um, you know, the, the new positioning, the new price point, the stores, the business, you know, the, the testimonials, the complaints, all of that, and, um, and ask them to, to give us another try. I think that the lessons are, you know, acknowledging where you're coming from, you know, that. You've learned a lot even from that experience. And then walking them through your logic and trying to get the buyer's head nodding, you know, of course understanding what's most important to them. And making sure that your relaunch fits their strategy. Uh, it's really important, right? Walmart wanted, uh, a valuable, um, consumer, and we showed them who the Vermont Cromery consumer was. They wanted to premiumize their butter set, and we showed them how we could help them with that. So I, I would start with, you know, with, with, you know, those, you know, pieces of advice and, you know, maybe one question for you, Stephanie, is just to understand better what you believe is the um. Is that the true differentiator of TEO and, and what you think the, you know, the reason why people are reaching for your product is, um, to you get that really crystal clear so that you can present that to the buyer as well.

Speaker 2 [23:21] That's amazing. I love that you brought in the fact of, you know, Walmart is looking to bring in this other customer, which is the Vermont Creamery customer. I think that's a really great data point, and I kind of jotted that down. Um, you know, with the agua fresca. One of our biggest differentiators is that it is like traditional agua fresca flavors. So our top two sellers are our hibiscus, the jamaica, and the horchata, and the, and the sweetener that we use is organic agave. So I like just did some demos last week and the customers were asking, a lot of them asked like what is the sweetener, and that definitely is, um, you know, a Point of differentiation for the brand. And the reason I say that is because a few of them said that they got, you know, a value bag of a ton of electrolyte drink mixes from, you know, a retailer and that their kids hated them or like they gave them a stomachache and they just aren't sure like what is happening and they're pretty sure it's because of sweeteners that are being used in those and they're having sensitivity to them. And so that I think has been kind of like, this is a data point that maybe we need to mine a little bit more. Um. And see really, you know, if is this the differentiator, and right now at first glance, it really is. I don't believe any other electrolyte brand in the set is using organic agave that we do also source from sustainable farms in Mexico, and there's no, there's really no like hibiscus horchata flavor and the Potential for like other more agua fresca centric flavors is there for us. So flavor profile, like standing out really against the competition, I think will be really key. And then another thing that you said is the comparison to your competitive set. So we're going to do like a blind study in January. Um, in the University of Colorado, and so they're going to do like us versus a couple of competitors that we're going to give to them so that we can get that actual verbatim feedback because I do think you're right, like putting that in front of the retailer saying like you carry this brand, here's what customers are saying about You know, both brands or, or whatever it might be, like, here's why we're different from the competitive set, um, sounds like a really great way to, to put that argument forward, to be able to like get back on that shelf. Um, I do wanna like ask you, did you ever think about not going back into Walmart? Like, did it ever not fit your, you know, your premium, like strategy of really like, you know, this is one of the best dairy products out there, you know, what were your thoughts on that?

Speaker 3 [26:23] Yeah, it's a, it's a great question. It's controversial. I, I would say. I've gotten that question from a bunch of folks, folks that I really trust, and I, but I try to Focus on in my response is that um is either the Vermont Creamery mission. is to elevate American food culture. And, you know, we could. Act like we're too good for mainstream grocery, but then would we achieve our mission, right? Again, in order to elevate American food culture, we need to be in Walmart. And that's not to say that all of our products will be at Walmart, and we don't sell from freshly or we don't sell our, our really precious, you know, 2 ounce medallions of geotricum candidum, soft ripened, you know, goat cheeses like those, those are for the, you know, the, you know, specialty retail and for, you know, the, the Murray's and the Whole Foods cheese counters and, and. Um, and because that's where they'll be successful, but we We want to bring cultured butter to the United States and in order to do that, we believe it's important to be at at Walmart. So that, that's why, you know, we're we're sticking to our guns and want to partner with them for, you know, both our and Walmart's mutual success.

Speaker 2 [27:37] So you see that Walmart fits into your sales strategy, but with differentiated products, if, if I'm kind of gathering that, cause that is something that we're thinking of as well, is just making sure that we're fitting each retailer in the most appropriate way as we're thinking of like future product lines or future flavors. Um, so it sounds like that is kind of on par with what y'all are thinking.

Speaker 3 [28:03] Yeah, we're, we're lucky because we've been at it for longer, you know, we're not, we're certainly not the biggest food company. We don't have a ton of skews, but we have multiple butters, right? We have a and 86% Um, butterfat, cultured butter that really is only used for table service, uh, in fine dining. And then we've got uh 86% and 82% butterfat, unsalted butter, which is used for um viennoisie and and and pastry chefs, um. The 82% Sea salt butter that's in stick format is what we put at Walmart, so you can sort of just see how we've we've laid out our product portfolio and given each product a channel focus. And that's the same for goat cheese and same for other products as well. Not all of them can and should be everywhere, but specific SKUs are designed for specific channels. So that's how we, how we think about it. It certainly adds operational complexity, and we were not able to do that in our, in the first chapter of Vermontgomery's life. We really had to focus. In the channel where we wanted the brand to grow up and where we wanted it to be defined in the in the specialty um deli portion of the of the store in in fine dining in New York and Chicago and California and that that's what that's what we did then but now that we've evolved past that and the team has grown, the business has grown, and we're, you know, slowly going after that mission to reach more households with our, with our products, um. We've, we've diversified the portfolio so that Walmart and, and other more mainstream retailers make sense, you know, at your company's stage, I might suggest a different strategy where maybe, maybe it isn't all of the channels, you know, that Vermont Kermer plays in today, but it's a more specified group where you know you can really be successful.

Melissa Travers [30:09] I have a question about getting back onto the Walmart shelves. Are you planning on a marketing campaign to help the customers who used to go there looking for it, uh, to, to help them understand that it's back, and then with the price increase, is there anything that you're doing to mitigate any disappointment? That the from customers that the price has increased. I also know it's an inflationary environment and I feel like every time you go to the grocery store, you're sort of expecting everything to be more expensive, so I don't know if any of the changes you've implemented can sort of be absorbed into that current state of affairs, but how are you planning on supporting that relaunch?

Speaker 3 [30:53] I'll hit the price question first. We believe our butter is, it's, it's not overpriced, you know, we're, we're getting just enough. Our farmers are getting just enough, um, to be able to support, uh, uh, you know, the type of butter that we make, right, with, with the type of cream that we source in, in our area. Um, so we've priced it at a, at a A level that we're just like barely comfortable at, right? It's, it's, it's a sharp, sharp enough price point that it can play in the dairy aisle, you know, next to, you know, Kerry Gold and some of the other super premium butters on the shelf, but it's not so high that we've priced out the everyday shopper. So typically people who are looking for um a a really great tasting butter for their everyday butter while we see, and then there are some. Shoppers who they shop two butters, they might have their what they call like their utility butter, which might be the private label brand or another one, and then they've got the good stuff, you know, that they don't let the kids eat. That's the Vermont creamery butter, right? So that like this is even for different households it might play a different role. And then in terms of the marketing campaign, yes, we are, we, we have to, um, invest to raise brand awareness and most importantly try, you know, like I said before, tasting is believing, especially with the category that so many people are used to shopping from and frankly are bored with, you know, because so many of the products are, are similar, um, and a lot of the, you know, brands are bending over backwards to explain why they're different, but the reality is that it's all pretty similar. You know, butter has to be 80% butterfat, um, you know, churned cream, right? And, uh, some have salt, some doesn't have salt, right? It's not a whole lot of variation. And then you layer in, you know, Vermont Creamery culture butter into the category, and it's, you know, the cream is fermented like a fine wine, and it tastes like the butter that you've had if you've had butter in a place like France, right? And so, so it just, it's this. Um, very different experience, rich, you know, creamy, almost a decadent experience, and, and we want people to taste that in the aisle. So investing in demos, investing in events, and then we are, um, doing some paid media, um, not a ton, you know, we're at the end of the day we're still, um, you know, a dairy company. We don't have a big, you know, marketing budget, but we do work with influencers and we do pay for ads on, um, on social media and in other media. Uh, and then we, we do some PR as well. Um, we are, we call our fans butterheads. These are the people who know butter and know like good butter. They're like, you know, they're sneakerheads and they're deadheads, and, uh, they're also putterheads, right? And those are the folks that we're, we're looking to find and, and they're shopping at Walmart too, right? And, and they're also shopping at, at Wegman's and they're shopping at Whole Foods. They're everywhere. Um, so those are the folks that we're looking for and we're, we're just doing our best to communicate to them how this product is made differently. And um why it all changed their lives.

Melissa Travers [34:02] Stephanie, with the, with the change in packaging format, I'm sure that that's a challenge in addition to the fact that you'll be in a different set. I know that um Tuyo hasn't been around for, you know, 40+ years, but certainly you have a dedicated consumer base who really love the product. How are you planning on communicating to your core customers? that the product that they've always loved has changed a little bit, but it's still that beverage option that they know and love.

Speaker 2 [34:37] Well, first of all, I will say I feel like I'm a butterhead and that my stepdaughter is for sure a butterhead. She actually like froze butter from France and like brought it back to the US, so lots of

Speaker 3 [34:51] butterheads. Yes,

Speaker 2 [34:54] lots of butterheads in this family. I hide

Melissa Travers [34:56] butter from my kids, so.

Speaker 2 [34:58] Oh wow, I love that. It, it totally resonates with me and the re-education that's needed for not just like the products, but like the refreshed branding and getting people to know like we're still here. Um, I think The biggest thing that we've been doing is relying on social because we have a lot of social media followers, you know, um, Jocelyn and Regina and I have built out our communities through the years, so that's been a really great advantage for us, but aside from that, you know, because the products are, you can order them online, but because they are just only in a couple of regions. We're really needing to like go out to these places like ourselves and meet the buyers, meet the team, do the demos with the, you know, a limited budget, that's kind of what we have thought has been the best use of funds is just being there in person and really getting that message out there. We do have plans, you know, marketing plans for broader education. But right now, it's like, we don't want to spend money on ads that, you know, they're irrelevant to New York or to Seattle when we're only in certain places. So, Knowing that side of it, like, Harry, what is the one driver that you guys think really moves the needle, whether it's for a business my size or whether it's just advice as we grow, where you think we should put some of our energy and resources towards.

Speaker 3 [36:38] Yeah, it's, it's a great question. I think it really depends on your point of view for how to, how you want to achieve your mission, and if that mission includes growing your brand and growing the category, um, you know, how, how do you believe that that will happen and putting forward those products and those channels, right? I, I, you know, I, I think that the, the key here is to like not despair, learn what you've learned. You've got this packaging format change and it's a significant change that's happened to your business, which gives you kind of a liberation from your past, right, from the, you know, the, the period of time when you were on the shelf, and now you get to come back renewed, um, and how can you do that stronger, um, and then when you're ready, you know, how do you tell the most compelling story to the buyer, and I'd recommend that that story include, you know, what your mission is, what your point of view is for how to achieve that mission, and, and then very importantly, How does that fit into the buyer's strategy, you know, what's, what's in it for them? And I think that you'll be successful in gaining and regaining distribution if you go through those steps.

Speaker 2 [37:47] One of my other questions I have for you, Harry, is, was there a time or has there been a time um where you guys were at risk of falling off shelf at a retailer, and what did you do to get that to not happen and to convince them to wait, don't, don't discontinue us, we can do this. Um, and like, has that ever happened to you?

Speaker 3 [38:13] Absolutely, it does happen and um you know, luckily we have, we don't have a ton of experience with this, but when it, when you start to see your velocity creep down in the ranking of other brands in your set, that's when we start to wonder, OK, what can we learn here? How can we better support our products? So typically what we do is we invest what we can in things like demos and shopper marketing, maybe in some media, um, we, um, Look at the rest of the shelf set and try to understand what we can, what from what data we can glean, why shoppers might be um slowing down their purchases and try to learn as much as we possibly can and then prepare for our next, you know, meeting with the buyer. We might get ahead of the conversation by saying, hey, we're noticing that velocity is, is slipping here and here's what we've already started doing about it. That's, I think you're taking a proactive approach and showing the buyer that you can be their partner and making sure that the set will stay vital with your assistance is key. But it's, it's a really good question. I think you're really smart for looking at it and, and getting ahead of it. You know, one of the, one of the hardest parts is for a brand at your brand stage. I wonder if you have the data to see whether or not your velocity ranking is coming down. And if you don't, then I think it's, it's even harder. So I give you a lot of respect, and I think it, you know, for, for, for just trying to keep your finger on the pulse of how the brand is performing at, at a retail, um, it can be very, very difficult.

Speaker 2 [39:56] very expensive data to buy, so it's really us keeping an eye on um distributor volume movement, you know, case movement, so thankfully, we're getting some of that outgoing data and then just kind of Coming up with, you know, is that trending up? Is it trending down? Um, cause for the agua fresca, it is seasonal, so we do expect there being a huge push spring and summer, and it'll start to taper off. And then January, February into March are just very, you know, very slow. Um, So we, we have some baseline to go off of, but I think your advice on getting ahead of it with the buyer definitely makes sense.

Speaker 3 [40:44] We have Lost distribution on a variety of products over the years. So you're some things that we've made have stuck and some things just have not, right? So some of the, from the earliest days we were making creme br and goat cheese and um and butter, but There are things that we have launched since our early days that just have, you know, not worked, right? At one point we had a salmon torta that we were making inside the creamery. We also had a chocolate and cherry goat cheese. There's been a variety of things that just haven't worked, so we've had to reinvent the product portfolio over time. And then of course there are some things that have worked, right? Like we've we've added mascarf, we've added. The soft rabin cheeses and a variety of other things that have stuff. So I think another lesson here, Stephanie, for, for us, for the whole, you know, industry is that you know not everything is going to work too, so you got to keep trying and if, if you discover that one of your products is more of a seasonal product, you know, maybe there's another capability that you have to make a different product that might be year-round or be countercyclical, and counter-seasonal to the, to the products that you're making today. So I just encourage you to keep experimenting too. And bringing innovation um as rapidly as you can to the buyer relevant innovation. Uh, to find something that really delivers for, you know, for both you and for the market.

Melissa Travers [42:09] Well, Stephanie, I would love to second Harry's respect for you and the Tio brand that you are building, um, relentlessly. So I just want to thank you both so much for joining the Non-base podcast today and sharing so much great information with our audience here. Harry Kahn, president and GM of Vermont Creamery, and Stephanie Garcia Turner, co-founder and chief commercial Officer of TO, thank you so much for joining the Non-Base podcast and sharing such great information. And for everybody out there in the audience, thank you for tuning in, and we will see you next time.