Any food producer that wants to grow and scale their business will normally need distribution.
Due to our location (and lack of density within our population), proper food distribution within the Maritimes has been lacking historically. This has made it difficult for local producers to start, survive and/or grow their business.
It’s also made it difficult/impossible for non local producers to access Maritime consumers. Distribution is a necessary element within a healthy and sustainable food business/brand.
Setting up infrastructure to get their products sold into every individual retail store within their local (or non local) geographic area is not normally possible for producers.
This is especially true within the Maritimes.
Producers/brands are not able to get their products delivered to the many retailers that are scattered throughout the 3 provinces (while also reaching out to each on a weekly basis, taking in their orders, processing their payments, visiting their stores and managing the overall process).
Distribution is appropriate for local food brands that are ready to grow past the “hobby business” stage.
We’re a good fit for brands that have the ambition to grow/scale their business (and may want to grow nationally – and internationally – thereafter) . Local distribution is the first step towards this.
Normally, at this stage, we help our partners optimize their sales locally. Thereafter, if the opportunity is present, we also help our partners secure distribution outside the Maritimes (we partner and work with a number of distributors throughout Canada).
Until now, many producers from outside the Maritime Provinces haven’t been able to access the Maritimes.
We take on and represent select producers that we feel will fit well for our retailer partners. We generally limit this to one or two each month at most. If you’re a non-Maritime producer and are interested in accessing the Maritime provinces, please let us know (we always try to respond quickly and will let you know whether it might be a good fit or not).
We try to understand each partner/brand, and their unique propositions, as deeply as possible. In collaboration with the brand, we’ll then set goals for the next 6-12 months (and revisit them annually thereafter).
At the initial stage (mainly during the “ramp up”), the owner (or representative of the brand) will generally also play a small role in helping with sales (ie. visiting or contacting key accounts, helping to get into stores, speaking with owners/purchasers). After this initial stage, the owner will generally play a lesser role and focus on other aspects of their brand (depending on what their preference is).
If the brand is already within many of our stores, there’s generally a “hand off”. We then take over these responsibilities and continue to grow the store count and develop and maintain relationships.
Distribution is normally appropriate for brands that have the potential to do a minimum of $100,000 in annual revenue within the Maritime Provinces. Most of the local brands that we work with do between $100,000 – $800,000 within our network (most fall somewhere in the middle). We’re almost always able to significantly increase revenue that a brand is doing within our provinces (we won’t take on a partner if we’re not confident that we can do this).
This is good program and opportunity for local brands. Sobeys holds pitches twice a year for local producers. Atlantic Food and Beverage also helps potential applicants with this process (and we’re always happy to help potential applicants and give advice and appropriate introductions).
Once a local brand is accepted, they can start to sell directly into each individual Sobeys store (direct to store). Within the pitch, Sobeys will ask how you plan on distributing to each store. This is where we come in. We allow local brands to immediately access all Sobeys stores (which allows brands to take advantage of this program).