Episode 73

You Might Be Overspending on Retail—Here’s How to Cut Costs

Nicola Buffo, co-founder of Pistakio—a viral pistachio butter brand dominating DTC and expanding in indie retail—is on a mission to decode CPG’s “grow slow and steady” mantra. What does smart growth really look like when you’re bootstrapped? Pierre Jamet, Fishwife’s Chief Sales Officer, shares his ingenious tricks for conserving cash, boosting velocities, and navigating retail’s competitive landscape.

Guests

Pierre Jamet

Head of Sales • Fishwife

Pierre Jamet

Head of Sales • Fishwife

There is no bio available for this guest.

Nicola Buffo

Co-founder • Pistakio

Nicola Buffo

Co-founder • Pistakio

There is no bio available for this guest.

Episode Tags

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Note: Transcripts are automatically generated and may contain inaccuracies and spelling errors.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

I am Melissa Travers, Director of Community here at BevNET and NOSH, and I am excited to welcome you to The Nombase Podcast.

Be sure to check out nombase.com, the new platform powered by BevNET, where you'll find a comprehensive partner directory, an AI-powered tool for all your CPG questions, job board and press releases, and of course, this very podcast, which brings us all together today.

You can join the Nombase Slack at slack.bevnet.com to connect with BevNET, Nosh and the rest of our community.

On today's Nombase Podcast, we have Pierre Jamet, head of sales at Fishwife, and Nicola Buffo, co-founder of Pistachio, to break down a common CPG mantra when it comes to retail, growing smart.

You often hear grow smart, but not too fast, or go a mile deep before going wide.

But amid Pistachio's rapid success, Nicola asked a really good question.

What does that even mean?

And how do you put it into practice?

So Nicola, thank you so much for posing such a great question, and we couldn't think of a better person to break it down than Pierre Jamet.

With a track record of scaling retail with Cool House, Petipo, and now Fishwife, his experience will give plenty of insight.

Meanwhile, Pistachio is a fast growing brand with major buzz and a strong focus on retail expansion, making it a perfect time to explore the smartest growth strategy.

So again, Nicola and Pierre, thank you so much for joining us.

I'd like to start with a round of introductions.

Nicola Buffo of Pistachio, you're one of the co-founders of Pistachio.

And every time I turn around, I feel like Pistachio is having another viral moment from the Pistachio Tiramisu purse going through airport security.

I think you guys got 9 million views on TikTok for that.

To landing on the Today Show, it seems like you're always ramping up production to meet demand.

You guys are on fire, right?

Thank you.

Yeah, it's definitely been a wild journey since we started.

So why don't you take us through a little bit of that wild journey?

Please share Pistachio's brand story.

You know, why did you start this and what's been going on in the last year or so?

So Pistachio was born in college.

It was a capstone project.

My partner and I were entering our senior years and we're trying to figure out what to do after college.

So we got this idea of a brand that reimagined Pistachios.

And the reason is because I'm originally from Italy and my partner went to culinary school there.

And when we moved to the US., we realized that even if nuts were having a moment with so many nut milks and nut butters, there was nothing with Pistachios, which are the most versatile nut.

And the only Pistachio products out there were Bright Green, which is a big red flag, and didn't taste like Pistachios, but were very artificial and syrupy.

So we got started to reimagine Pistachios with this brand, went to the farmer's market as part of an assignment, and that day we got over 300 people coming to our little booth and telling us that they love Pistachios, they love their spread, and they were opening their wallets to buy those three little samples that we have made the night before in our dorm.

We're like, we're not selling right now, but at that point the light bulb went off and we really realized that we have something on our hands.

So we moved to Portland right after finishing up college, we enrolled in a Get Your Recipe To Mark class to figure out a way to launch Pistachio.

And after two months, we got the chance to pitch to new season buyers as part of the end of this class.

And they loved the product, they wanted to take us in right away.

That day we also met the Market Choice buyers and they loved the product and they were like, we want you in right away.

So we were very lucky that off the bat, even before lunch, when we were still in pre-lunch, we got the chance to enter the two biggest retailers in Oregon.

But with that came the challenge on how much we need to produce, how does retail look like, what's promotion, how do we make this all work?

And since then, that was about April of last year when we officially launched.

And since then, it's been definitely a wild ride trying to figure out to scale production and growing day by day.

It's amazing that it hasn't even been a year, but I have to say on the one hand, I'm not that surprised because the product is so delicious.

You sent samples here to BevNET and Nosh, and we had it on our little counter next to our espresso machine, and it just disappeared in a matter of days.

It's so, so, so good.

Could you talk a little bit about what the breakdown is between DTC and retail as it stands right now?

Definitely.

So right now we are about 60% DTC, 40% retail.

Retail, we are in Market of Choice and New Seasons, which are the biggest retailers in Oregon, as well as about 250 independent stores across the country.

And are you fully bootstrapped right now?

Have you taken on any investment?

We sort of talked about how we're going to frame the conversation from a cost perspective because that's the number one limiting factor when it comes to retail growth.

How are you funding the business right now?

So we are completely bootstrapped.

We started with $1,000 that we had in savings and have been growing since then.

We had day jobs when we moved to Portland for the first like six months to kind of like pay rent and get us going.

And then after Pistachio kind of took off, we decided to go full time into it and to spend every day of our lives in it.

Amazing.

And do you have specific targets around which retailers you want to get into, how many you'd like to get into?

I know this call is to sort out some of those details, but just so we know what your ideas are before we start chatting, is there anything we should know about how you'd like to see your retail growth roll out?

So our goal for this year is to consolidate a little bit more the Pacific Northwest.

So right now, we have a strong presence in Portland and in Oregon in general.

We would love to expand a little bit more in the Seattle area and in Northern California, where we have a lot of demand and a lot of our orders, DTC are going to, but we don't have a strong retail presence there.

So definitely, this year, we would love to consolidate the Pacific Northwest and then slowly, maybe next year, moving into the West Coast.

So trying to get more of the California, maybe a little bit of Arizona, that area over there.

And then slowly, the next two, three years, we would love to expand a little bit more nationwide and be a nationwide brand.

I can certainly see that happening.

And do you have two skews now?

Is it the smooth and the crunchy?

We do.

Our smooth is the flagship product that we launched with, and we just launched our crunchy, which is the first crunchy pistachio spread in the US.

And we're really excited about it.

Well, I think we have almost all the details we need to know now in order to chart a path forward.

Pierre Jamet, you're the head of sales at Fishwife.

I'm so excited to have you on.

I think all of us are so impressed what you've done with Fishwife.

And as we mentioned before, you've had such great experience in consumer packaged goods up until now.

Can you talk a little bit about some of the key lessons and philosophies that you've picked up along the road as you've been building your career in CPG sales?

Definitely.

I've been in CPG for 10 years now, primarily in sales.

I would say innovation, commercialization, strategy, etc, even ops.

All those are my favorite topics and the finance fundraising side of things.

But my background was actually in engineering, so very, very different.

So I'm bringing a very different approach when it comes to selling, a lot more data driven, a lot of testing and experimenting things, and going really strategic and making sure that we're making every dollar count.

Especially in the early days and my whole life I've worked for emerging brands, startups, small companies, so that's all I know.

And I'm bringing this approach daily at Fishwife now.

My motto is kind of challenging the status quo.

It's not because things have to be a certain way that we should do it.

It's not because this retailer has a certain requirement of slotting that we should offer exactly that amount.

At Fishwife, we're a women-owned, certified women-owned brand, so there's a lot of reduced slotting opportunities that can happen, additional marketing placements and other things that we can take advantage of, also as an emerging brand.

So I'm always negotiating heavily when it comes to retail and making sure that it's a win-win partnership.

And I want to feel a little bit of love from the retailer too, because if they don't believe in me and the brand and the product, it probably won't work that well.

Well, understanding that you have an engineering background certainly explains a lot.

You mentioned that you take a data-driven approach.

With a brand like Pistachio, they've had enormous growth DTC-wise, but probably somewhat limited growth with retail doors.

If you're working with an emerging brand, where do you collect that information from?

A couple of things that Nicola said that really are important is, the early days doing the farmer's market and getting that really a lot of interest, and having that connection really with the end user is so important.

And then also what you said about, oh, I'm having a lot of demand DTC in Northern California, and this is where I want to launch kind of next as a territory.

So, I think it's really using all that great data that you have and, you know, those fans that are in DTC that are following you on social and newsletters and really engaging with them.

And it's something we do a lot at Fishwife, and that's helping inform also our retail strategy.

And really for the first two to three years, retail expansion was pretty limited, and it was a lot of the specialty shops, a lot of the shoppy shops.

It was also some of the brand building chains, like Foxtrot, New Seasons was our second chain, Central Market, Good Eggs, et cetera.

They're great for young brands and founders.

They really wanna be the right partner for you, and they give you more time also on shelf to figure it out.

That's where I would focus is really in those partnerships that are no brainers and where you know their shoppers, their guests is looking for new products, is excited and is less price resistant.

Well, I hope later on in the discussion, you'll talk a little bit more about how you work with retail buyers to maybe modify the amount of slotting and free fill that they're asking for.

But Nicola, I am going to hand the reins over to you.

I know you have a list of really great questions as they pertain to Pistachio's business, so please take it away.

Of course.

Thank you.

I feel like since we realized that what we were doing was called CPG, one of the biggest things that people have been telling us was CPG is super expensive.

You need a ton of money.

So I would love to know more about how much money you need, for example, to open your accounts, to support this account, where the hidden fees are, where should we focus on spending more money?

If we have limited resources as we have right now, where should those be put to get the best outcome?

Totally.

It's a great question.

One thing I'll say first is one thing to keep in mind is your production runs.

If it's a co-backer, what's the minimum amount of accounts they really need also to warrant those runs?

Because there's a lot of obviously cash and investment there.

I think with your early distribution, being in the Pacific Northwest, primarily in Oregon, I think Seattle, more stores in Oregon too, but that would be the immediate thing that I would do.

And so now I'm actually just new stores.

It's like, how can I double my velocities in new seasons?

Like, focusing on velocity is the hardest thing.

It's easier to launch a new item.

It's easier to add more stores.

It's great.

It looks great.

You have that initial PO, but usually that initial PO comes at a lot of cost of entry, whether it's slotting or free fill or an initial ad flyer, maybe some costs associated with distribution to the distributor has their setup fees and also additional bandwidth on your team.

So really for me, it's going to have really breakthrough velocities where I'm getting an email from the new season's buyer and they're like, you're crushing it.

We need to triple-face your product.

We need to quadruple-face your product.

Every time you do a demo, we sell out.

We need more product.

Because that story, while it's only 20 stores for new seasons and 12 stores for market of choice, well, that story can translate really well to central market in Texas, for example, or Gristle Farms or Lady Acres or Airwon in SoCal.

But then you're also learning, well, per store, this is the amount of revenue that I can do on a yearly basis.

And then when you're looking at, okay, most stores usually will want a free fill.

What does that cost?

Usually, they'll want some promotions throughout the year.

Typically, they want a promotion every quarter.

So right away, you're looking at slotting and then maybe 16 weeks of promo.

Plus, there might be some flyer advertising, some display advertising, and that's a lump sum fee.

So it's not really a fee per unit moved or per unit ordered.

So I always try to steer away from anything that's a fixed fee first, because it's not associated with additional volume for real.

I think that's where also it can come in where you say, especially when it's local and accessible for you, you can say, well, can I have a free ad or free display if I commit to doing demos?

When you do demos, it doesn't have to be every single location, but it could be the top 25% every week.

But then showing that investment, they really want to partner with the retailer, they're going to partner with you.

And then as soon as they see also, and first off for retailer, there's a huge risk on any new brand.

It would be easier for them to double face the national brand or take their innovation.

But you're building the bias where they're going to love Nicola, they're going to love your team, they're going to love your product and your brand, and they want to be a big supporter of that.

You don't want to give them reasons to stop believing.

If anything, you want to be like, yes, you made the right choice, but you want to hold the part of the bargain on your side and really drive those velocities.

Most retailers, you'll have six months.

I had a buyer in Wegmans in Derry that would tell me, I know if a brand is going to make it after six weeks.

And it is true there because there's no, there's not that lever of promotion or anything.

It's everyday low price, but it's the ultimate test to product market fit in my mind.

So yeah, that's what I would say to start, but feel free to ask more, more clarify.

Going off of what you just said about how to increase those velocities, I feel like I was just at my local new seasons a couple of days ago, and I saw that Fishwife had this beautiful little display by the produce.

And I was wondering like, what are some strategies?

How do you approach the conversation with?

Is it more at the buyer level or at the store level?

Because for example, our product naturally fits with the nut butters, but it's so versatile that people put it in coffee, people love fruit with it, people drizzle on ice cream.

How do you approach this conversation to try to get off-shelf placement or to be in different part of the store to maybe like increase those velocities?

That's a great question.

I think it starts with what you just said.

Education, explaining to the buyer how you can use the product.

And it's not just on the bread, because not a lot of people are eating bread, maybe less than before, but it's with a yogurt bowl, for example.

That's how I use your product.

Delicious.

Throw a few berries, maybe some honey even.

It's just so good.

But I think showing those different use cases and how you can be part of a multiple use case throughout the day.

Breakfast, late night, after lunch, on the go in your car or in the office.

And then translating that into, well, why does it make sense in addition to our everyday placement in nut butter?

Why does it make sense to have it maybe next to a bunker, you know, fridge with yogurts or next to like the berries in produce?

Or sometimes they have those like freezer like shelves, you know, in front of that freezer, for example, in your seasons, could I have it there, you know, in front of a local vanilla ice cream?

But in order to get usually that secondary placement, you still have to prove yourself first in your main set.

So you have to create those velocities.

Where it makes sense for someone to give you even more space.

Because if they give you more space, they want to make sure it sells through.

And that space is a really big premium.

So, you know, if you take the example of, you know, ice cream or berry, well, why would they put your product instead of, you know, a ready whip or, you know, something that maybe will move more units?

Also, when is the right time to do it during the year?

Is there seasonality in the use case or for your brand new product that really makes sense?

But again, before you can do all that, it's how do you drive those velocities initially?

I think one is pretty hard as a brand because you don't have control on that, but it's the shelf placement.

You know, I think not better in new seasons is probably a four foot set or eight foot or 12 foot.

You have one product right now to, you know, in the future, if you only have one facing of each, that's very small.

And if you're not high level or, you know, if it's not well-merchandised or something, you're going to get lost.

So I would focus on that and really talk with the buyer about where do they intend to place this.

And then you can bring also knowledge on that with the buyers and say, usually we do well next to this brand or this type of nut butter next to cashew butter or something because of, I don't know, price point or use case or et cetera.

So first really getting the best shell placement you can.

You may not get multiple facings yet, but if your velocity is really crushed, you will get more facings because then they have to keep up with inventory and restocking.

And that's where the relationship that you can form at the store level can be great.

But then instead of visiting the store and saying hi for five minutes and leaving, can you do that and do a demo?

That way you're doing merchandising, second-hand team, you're understanding what works, what doesn't work, the feedback, talking to the cashiers, introducing yourself.

And you can't do this nationally in 10,000 stores, but at your scale right now, you can totally do it.

And that will allow you to create that perfect go-to-market strategy plan.

That way, when you present to, let's say Berkeley Bull in the Bay Area or Molly Stones, you can be like, in the first three months, this is what I'm going to do.

And if I'm a buyer and I'm seeing a brand, you know, a new brand, a one-year-old brand, like showing that to me, I'm like, wow, you're getting distribution right here.

Before we move on, you just talked about what the difference is between being sort of like a regionally focused brand versus being in thousands of stores.

Nicola, eventually you want Pistachio to be in thousands of stores.

How do you know when it's the right time to stop going deep and then start to widen your footprint a little bit?

I'll take an example to answer your question.

Fishwife, we entered Whole Foods in like two and a half years after the company was started.

But we launched in Whole Foods with one item.

It was our smallest item, the Cantabrian anchovies in one region in Whole Foods Soapback.

And I told Beck, I was like, that's going to be tough.

I'm used to having a full shelf or multiple shelves or something.

You want to find a product that is two inches tall by three inches in a four foot set.

That's going to be a nightmare.

So we really have to bring it in getting our following to go to the stores, getting our friends, our family, but doing a lot of sampling, too.

And then that led to, okay, now this is doing really well.

They're going to add three items six months after.

And then we're going to launch it in Whole Foods Northeast and Southwest.

And then with those velocities with four items, I told Beck, I was like, with also the scaling of the sampling program, with also doing a promo in the first three months for each.

Then I was like, okay, I'm seeing enough in the data.

That we can go national and take that support, scale it in promotion and in sampling to drive those velocities.

But I feel like we can do it nationally now.

Also because whether it's 50 stores or 500, you can't hit all those stores, Nicola, even though you want to.

So at some point, your product has to have that product market fit where, without any help, without any promotions, without any better placements, it will survive and it will do well on its own.

That's where we're really interrogating it at a small scale.

It's not just people telling you, I love this product, I love your brand, I love you.

It's like, how often do you buy it?

Do you eat it daily?

Do you buy it twice a week?

That's the power then.

And then they'll tell their friends, hopefully their family.

So that word of mouth then will work.

Definitely.

And I feel like once we have found this product market fit and we see that, let's say the new seasons and market research model is working, then I feel like at this point we realize that we have a plan and we can replicate that plan to Seattle, to North California.

How do we approach this conversation?

How do we get our hold of the buyers in those areas, in those stores?

And especially like what stores do we target first?

Do we target like another natural retailer?

Do we target maybe like a Whole Foods with the idea of possibly starting in one region and expanding?

And with that also, how do we go about distribution?

I feel like with distribution, like there's definitely the big guys that cover nationwide, but I don't think we'll be a brand that out of the bat is going to go nationwide that way.

I feel like we're going to start region by region and then expanding.

So do we approach a bigger distributor and we ask to only cover one region or do we look at a regional distributor?

What's your take on that?

So distributors are in the business of distributing products.

That's how they make their money.

They're not in the business of really selling new products or new brands.

So your main point person should always be the buyer, should always be the retailer.

And then the retailer with you will tell you this is our primary distributor.

And then we also have secondary options.

So if we take like an example of PCC, for example, in Seattle, they may work with your existing distributor in Oregon, or they'll work with UNFI.

But you can also ask, well, do you have another regional distributor?

I don't know if we're ready for UNFI.

But it's very risky to set up a distributor without what we call anchors, so like a main retailer that's going to drive that volume.

And maybe your distributor will accept for you to deliver that PEO.

Maybe they'll pay you, even if it doesn't sell.

But then at the end of the day, they'll be like, it's been four months, there's not a lot of stores pulling, this doesn't make sense, pick it up.

So you're right about you want to make those connections with buyers early on.

And I always feel like it's better to do it before you actually really, really want to launch.

But keeping them, like hiding those relationships, keeping them posted on performance, before you're like, I'm actively selling, I'm actively trying to get in your stores, and I'm desperate, like I want to get in your stores tomorrow.

I think that's where the Whole Foods Forager is really great.

It's also a small region in the Pacific Northwest, it's about 20-ish stores, but it could lead to expansion than in NorCal and SOPAG, et cetera.

And also it gets you started with, well, how does it look like working with a larger chain, like Whole Foods?

Again, you'll become more familiar with the costs associated with it at the regional level, now national.

So you can project that financially for your production too.

But I think what you said is I want to go to Seattle so that my first thing would be, well, I'm going to reach out to PCC, to town and country, to metropolitan.

So it still stays very much in the natural and specialty channel because it's a lot more forgiving.

It will give you more time.

Those are brand building accounts.

If you go all the way to conventional, to a Safeway or Kroger, it's going to be a big leap.

I'm afraid you're going to get lost, so you haven't figured out enough to really make sure it's going to work.

It looks great in terms of store accounts, but the reality financially will be really difficult.

On your question about how do I get a hold of the buyer, one other thing I would invite you is visit the stores.

Look at the set, take pictures.

People love to meet the founders, especially with small business.

You can even talk to some of their shoppers and ask them, hey, would you buy this?

You can take all that data ultimately when you talk to the buyer.

You can ask the grocery team leader, well, how is buying done?

Is it a corporate buyer, which is the case for PCC and most of them?

But that also will help you envision if that makes sense, if your product makes sense there.

And if you don't have the gut feel of like, I just don't think it's going to work.

I talked to their guests and they're just not really getting it.

You know, it's going to be a lot of work to get those losses going.

In the opposite, if they're like, oh my God, I would love to buy this.

When are you launching?

When can I buy this?

Or you can put it on shelf or you can take a video asking authorization, but a video of someone picking it up.

And you're like, well, I guess there's some demand, you know?

So that's one way of doing it.

But that way, I think, will give you a lot of great data.

And you can take the flyer, you can see how many discounts are on shelf and how deep, and you know, what's the competition and all those things.

The other way is really referrals.

So it's, you know, talking to a brand friend.

It doesn't have to be in this, you know, set.

It can be a center store, can be Fishwife, can be someone else.

And being like, do you know the PCC buyer?

Would you be okay making an introduction?

And usually what I'll do is I'll ask the buyer if they're okay with me making an introduction.

But I know buyers are overwhelmed, you know.

So in a way, someone vetting it by making an introduction, someone they know, someone they have a good track record with, like speaks a lot of volume.

And in that way, you bypass, you know, phone calling, call de-mailing, trying to get through.

And now you have like someone endorsing basically your brand.

And then I think it's been really strategic about what you're going to say in that e-mail.

You don't want to send a novel.

You don't want to send a deck.

You want to keep it nice and short, maybe two paragraphs, what you are, what's the product and why they should carry it.

Wait, you don't want to send a deck that goes against everything I know and I've heard.

I think it's kind of like dating.

It's kind of like a text thread.

You want to be more thinking, I'm sending them a text and if you have to scroll on that text, on that e-mail, not good, too long.

You can use URLs.

I think Melissa talked about the virality of your brand.

That's sort of fun also associated with it.

Use it.

Make your e-mail stand out.

Use some of those links to the website, your TikTok account.

All those things are things that buyers are a lot more receptive to than they were before when I started in CPG.

When I started, they were like, what is Instagram?

Very different.

Now, they want you to post.

It's different.

They're like, you're going to post, right?

So I think, yeah, short and sweet, where you are, why should they care?

Why is it going to generate sales for them?

Those case study, where we talked about new seasons, market of choice, can't keep it in stock, my velocities are insane, we're getting displays here and there because they just can't keep up.

We're doing demos, like all this is going to be great case study is that ultimately you can share during a meeting.

But the goal of the email is not to get the sale.

The goal of the email is to create a little bit of FOMO that then leads to a meeting.

That's when you actually share the samples or send the samples.

You don't volunteer just samples right away.

And then they're like, yeah, I'll take the samples, I'll get back to you.

No, no, no.

I need a meeting.

I'll send you the samples.

And then, what's that?

I'll give you the, I'll share the deck.

I'll present the deck.

Well, at least we send it at some point.

Yeah.

And nothing too long.

If it's a conversation and the buyer doesn't care about your deck, that's great.

Yeah.

That's perfect.

And what if they don't reply to the first email, for example, like how, what we've been doing right now, it's trying to follow up.

We've been told to like try to add value every email.

And like, for example, like we just follow up and like, we went viral here or we follow up again, we launch a new product.

Yeah.

Is there a time when you kind of like give up or you realize that maybe it's not the right timing or do you just keep going, hoping that you get a response?

So typically every category is on the review schedule.

And also, even if this buyer is like, oh yeah, definitely want to launch a product, but I just can't until like in six months.

I think you want to open that question.

You want to offer them a way to say, I want to do this.

I want to have a meeting with you, but let's, you know, have a meeting in six months.

So you want to ask them, do you follow, you know, carry review schedule or is it kind of open review?

That could be part of one of the follow-ups.

I think what a buyer loves is to have you be familiar with their stores, with their set.

That speaks volume.

Because you've been there, you understand.

So maybe it's a picture of you in front of that set, in front of that store, you know.

If it's not something that you've been able to do, you can ask a friend, someone on social, you know, hey, can someone go to like Berkeley Bowl and take a picture of the set, or if you'd be using your DTC data and saying, hey, we have a lot of demand in NorCal in those zip codes.

Here's the, you know, buy rate of the average NorCal customer.

They're buying, I don't know, 20 jars a month or something.

Or we surveyed them and they said, we want your product to be carried at Berkeley Bowl.

You know, it was like number one.

So I think showing that you have that connection and you're already thinking about marketing the product and getting the product to move even before you hit shelves.

And that's where I believe in like the case studies too, because if you look at the West Coast, New Seasons is owned by Good Food Holdings.

They also own Metropolitan, they own New Leaf, they own Lazy Acres and they own Bristol Farms.

So there's a lot of connection, you know, there.

So if you're telling Bristol Farms about New Seasons and how in a matter of six months, whatever, you've been able to be successful, that speaks value to them, because they understand it's a similar, you know, store, shopper, et cetera.

Makes sense.

Yeah, I love the idea of showing a model that works to a store, and I feel like it's definitely something that we will want to start doing more, especially because we are hitting good velocities in New Seasons, so I've never thought of it in a way of showing other buyers what we're doing in these stores, and I feel like it's definitely something that we should start doing to show them this demand.

Yeah, and it's defining good, too.

So good means good for you, good for the buyer.

Is it top, like first half of the category in velocity?

Is it in dollars?

Is it in units?

Is it promoted?

Is it non promoted?

So I think really defining, you know, this is really, really important.

And then ultimately, based on your experience with those buyers, understanding, well, how do you get the space?

Who's coming out of the shelf?

You know, whose space are you taking?

Is it peanut butter?

Is it like, you know, like cashew butter?

Is it another Pistachio butter?

If any exists, you know?

So I think it's that piece too.

So that it gives them a little nudge to be like, well, let me look at my data.

Maybe, maybe there's some, you know, there's some items that I can remove.

Nicola, I know you mentioned that you are completely bootstrapped, and I know this was a question that you wanted to make sure that we addressed on the show.

And that was around fundraising strategy and how to secure capital to support retail growth, understanding that you don't always know which accounts you're going to land and when you're going to land them, and fundraising takes some time.

Nicola, is there, is there any other part of that question that you'd like to ask Pierre?

Yeah, I feel like that was definitely like a big question that we had, and it's more about, it was kind of tying to how much money we need to raise to support these accounts.

And do you go to investors after you receive these POs and tell them like, we got this PO, now we need the money, or do you start the conversation earlier and try to show investors what you want to achieve in the next year or two, and from there you start the conversation?

Yeah, I mean, at your scale, it's really gonna be about like, do investors like believe in you as the founder and CEO in the product and the brand and the positioning?

They're not expecting you to have like insane, you know, like proof of concept, you know, et cetera.

I don't think you want to wait.

You definitely want to start now and have those relationship and keep them updated, you know, as you go.

It may not be interesting for some of them now, but if you have like a commitment from Whole Foods, not a PO, a commitment in writing, you don't want to BS, you know, them.

You don't want to be like, oh yeah, Whole Foods wants to launch us nationwide.

And then they give you the investment and then three months after they're like, what's happening?

You're like, oh, actually just, you know, it's delayed.

That's just not a good, a good thing.

But the PO would be too late, because what if you need that investment to run production, which probably is the case.

Again, that's why you want to now just focus on regional one-off stores, but think of like the next two years and build those relationships now, and then model it, you know, accordingly.

Because if you're launching Whole Foods Nationwide, you'll probably set up for the most part UNFI, this cost associated with that.

There's free fills, you know, in Whole Foods.

So being able to calculate that, there's expectation about promotions, you know, again, probably four times, five times a year.

Looking at all those costs, you know, really add up and your trade spend is probably going to be anywhere between 15, 20, 25% excluding of slotting.

So being able to model all those costs and making sure that the financials you're providing, you know, investors make sense with that.

And you don't want to discount how expensive, you know, it's going to be, because you want investors that will really understand that and partner with you.

You don't want to over promise, you know, and then they're like, well, what is tradespan?

You never told us that we needed to do any promotions.

I don't understand this piano.

That makes sense, definitely.

And about the about the investors, when you ask for an investment, do you show them like projection for like two years, three years, you try to show them like the longer picture, or is it more about an immediate one to two years need?

I think it's, you know, what's the size of the price, you know, total opportunity in general.

So like the category, what is really the addressable market, you know, that you have there.

So that's way farther down the line.

You don't need to model it financially.

Yes, like a three year, four year plan, trajectory of top line profitability, gross margin, any improvement also on gross margin.

That's something they're going to want to take a look at.

Is your gross margin 40%?

Is it 60% as of now?

And then what are the improvements?

It's not just like, oh, with more volume, my margin will get better.

Doesn't that work like that?

But is it, oh, we're going to set up a go back or we'll save on freight, or we're launching a third item that's going to help us with tolling or whatever.

And I think it's been really clear about that next 12 months, because at your rate, you'll probably wouldn't need to raise again.

But within the next 12 months, after close of investment, what am I going to achieve in distribution, velocity, etc.?

What is that proof of concept that will be created with it?

And then what's that revenue, gross margin, EBITDA looking like at that time?

And then what's after that?

You know, what's the next stage?

Is it Costco?

Is it, you know, Kroger, Target, more Whole Foods, you know, more items on shelf?

Pierre, you referenced a little bit earlier that there might be some ways to get around or minimize the trade spend, the free fill and the slotting that retailers ask when you launch.

So I heard you say, you know, Fishwife is a woman owned business.

Sometimes that there are benefits that come with that.

Offering demos.

Are there any other tricks that you have that help avoid some of those costs?

You know, a big part of like retail right now is like customers picking up from the store, getting it delivered.

So I think showing investments on Instacart or if the retailer like Target has their own, you know, system, RMS, it's showing that investment.

And then taking that money, you know, saying the slotting equivalent would be $10,000.

Here's how I'm going to spend the $10,000 in the first three months.

But then here's how many more units.

And dollars, I'm going to be able to generate for you.

So it could be that those sponsor ads, it could be, you know, influencer partnerships, it could be demos, that's my favorite.

Could be displays or advertisement, you know, in store, some of their vehicles.

Yeah, there's just a lot of like different options.

But don't hesitate to negotiate, you know.

There's always like, there's always a possibility, you know, there.

And if you don't feel like that's the right partnership, the right, you know, they're not budgeting, you're worried about it's not going to make sense financially, don't do it.

I think timing is everything.

And sometimes the best thing a buyer can tell you is no.

That's advice that everyone can take to the bank.

Nicola, any final questions before we close?

I feel like we answered plenty of them.

So thank you so much, Pierre.

You make a beautiful and really tasty product.

And I'm very biased with Pistachio.

I love Pistachio.

And Srirachital is probably my second favorite flavor of ice cream.

So I think there's a lot of things that you can do on the Pistachio platform.

And I think what you're doing and leaning in with brand, with packaging, with fun, and virality will help you a lot with retail.

And then you may get a lot of retail buyers inbounding, instead of you trying to reach out to them.

The most important advice that we have to the audience is if you haven't tried Pistachio yet, run and order some because it is so, so delicious.

I have to thank you both so much again, Pierre and Nicola.

It was such a pleasure to chat with you on the Nombase Podcast.

Thank you so much for joining us.

And for everybody else, we'll see you next time.

That concludes another episode of the Nombase Podcast.

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