Getting started in natural and specialty channels is the important first step for many beverage brands, but it’s rarely the end goal. BevNET has assembled a team of experts for the upcoming BevNET Live event in Santa Monica, Calif. on Dec. 3 and 4 to help provide strategic insights into how emerging beverage companies can recognize the right opportunity to break into mainstream retail channels.
During a panel discussion called “Growing Past Incubation Channels,” the group will share stories and tips on how companies can time their channel strategies, offer compelling evidence to new retailers that their brands are ready for the spotlight, and make the kinds of changes that will appeal to new consumers while also hanging onto the old devotees of their brands. The panelists will also define what it takes to stay afloat in new channels and compete against new competition while helping to define an innovative product to a mainstream consumer.
The panelists in this group are uniquely qualified to discuss these challenges because of their individual experience: Paddy Spence and Bob Burke both have long histories of success in bringing natural-channel focused products like Kashi and Stonyfield Farms into the mainstream and are in the midst of doing so again with Zevia and Orgain; Jeremy Black has helped move Sambazon’s acai into the mainstream and is helping lead the charge to make it part of everyday life; Bill Weiland has taken what were once cutting-edge products like coconut water, organic tea and chia drinks and made a compelling case for all of them – and many more – to receive attention from the buyers of mainstream outlets, while Chandra Holt has helped incubate emerging brands in mass retailer Target.
Taken together, this panel will provide BevNET Live attendees with a way to map out their future beyond the local co-ops and mom-and-pops and into the kind of grocery, drug, club and mass accounts that can make a brand an everyday purchase.
BevNET Live spaces are going fast. Please contact BevNET’s sales staff for attendance information.
About BevNET Live
Tickets are running out fast for BevNET Live. BevNET Live’s Winter 2012 event will be held at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel in California on Dec. 3 and 4. BevNET Live is a two-day forum for beverage entrepreneurs, suppliers, distributors, retailers and investors to gather, speak, exchange ideas through interactive panels and lectures, and enhance their marketing and product development strategies through our Beverage School. Attendees can tap the expertise of investment professionals who can help groom them to attract money, business owners with inspiring success stories, and the BevNET.com community, which has spent a decade dedicating itself to careful reporting on the fast-moving beverage industry.