Hey everyone, my partner and I have opened a new beverage supply company based out of Toronto and we are working on releasing a new product in the near future (not an energy drink nor water!).

I have a newbie question but it is confusing me because from the research I have done, I am getting different answers.

We have exclusive importing rights to this product we are working on for Canada and the USA. We obviously want to distribute this product to gas stations, c-stores, etc, and market it ourselves. But we are not sure how the process works exactly. Do we contact/approach distributors first or do we have to get retailers signed on first?

Thanks for any info.

DSD first usually.
Are you interested in distributing a coconut water?

Sorry if it's not clear but we are a Beverage Supply company, so we manufacture/import products and would like to get distributed. But we are not sure if we are supposed to approach retailers first or distributors (I have read that some distributors present the product to retailers?)