Beverage School attendees will get an inside look at what it means to try to break through in the Bay Area during an exclusive interview with Mateo Sluder, the Northern California “Cebador” for the vitally innovative yerba mate beverage company Guayaki.
The key sales and marketing representative for Guayaki in one of its most important markets, Mr. Sluder can offer terrific insights into all classes of trade in the Bay Area as well as the key retailers and consumer insights that are important to the development of any new brand in the region. Mr. Sluder’s experience in the Bay Area has come with the growth of Guayaki from a bottled tea line available largely through natural accounts and brokers into a highly visible series of products available in mainstream DSD retailers including supermarkets, foodservice, convenience and drug accounts. Such a diversification of channels and SKUs requires sales strategy, determination, and knowledge of the area and account types.
The one-on-one discussion of Mr. Sluder’s work in developing a variety of classes of trade in the region on behalf of a brand that has maintained a largely insurgent posture is one that will allow the Beverage School audience a unique look at the rules of the Bay Area and the kinds of work and strategies that come with introducing and supporting a new brand and new product lines in a key region. His perspective, as someone who works at the store level, hand-in-hand with the many retailers and distributors who carry the product, will allow attendees a glimpse of the hard work that goes on in growing a market. That the market comprises San Francisco, Oakland, and the cities and towns north of that key region will lend extra weight due to the high exposure, high-pressure environment that area presents for new products, as well as an understanding of what it takes to break in and maintain a product in that region.
Beverage School takes place at 10 a.m. on Sept. 12 in San Francisco at the Fort Mason Conference Center. Few seats remain for this all-day event.
Registration and Pricing Information for Beverage School San Francisco >>
About Mateo Sluder – Guayaki – NorCal Cebador
For nearly 6 years Mateo has been a ‘Cebador’ for Guayaki in Northern California — responsible for all aspects of ‘cebadoring’, or ‘the sharing, sales and service of yerba mate’, in the region. This has involved everything from events and demos, managing DSD & natural brokers, working with natural distributor reps, speaking to groups about Guayaki’s reforestation mission, and much more. From his humble beginnings in the Bay Area, Mateo has evolved his cebadoring skills to include a wide range of responsibilities for Guayaki.
Mateo came to work with Guayaki because it unites his many passions while providing right livelihood. Mateo’s central passion in life is sharing the empowerment of whole food nutrition and herbs with others to help them have energy and positivity to enjoy life to its fullest. Yerba mate’s wide spectrum of nutrients and beneficial plant compounds, as well as its powerful mood lifting effects, make it a poster child for the power of nutrition and herbs. Before coming to Guayaki, Mateo worked for 8 years as a grassroots activist in the areas of social, environmental, and indigenous justice. During this time he earned his bachelor’s degree in American Indian Studies, with a law focus. Guayaki’s activist mission of using the market for premium yerba mate to drive restoration of South Atlantic rainforest and indigenous cultures allows Mateo to build upon his previous work, empowering people and planet. Mateo’s favorite Guayaki product is Citrus Tereré Bottles.
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