FROM THE PUBLISHER
Buyers Want Makers to Get Smarter About Business
SPECIALTY FOOD
ASSOCIATION MEMBERS:
Discuss this topic in the Solution
Center on specialtyfood.com
S
FA recently commissioned a study of the buying trade to get a better understanding of
the path to making trade purchases, to understand buyer preferences, and to discover
unmet needs.
Chris Crocker
Senior Vice President, Content & Marketing
ccrocker@specialtyfood.com
Among the insights gained was a dominant theme
across every buyer persona and class of trade: While buyers
increasingly want specialty food products, they need mak-
ers to become more knowledgeable about what it takes to
do business with them.
As an organization increasingly invested in both in-
forming and training industry professionals, we're often sur-
prised at the low priority given to learning among makers.
It shouldn't come as a shock that a buyer will choose to do
business with someone who is prepared over someone who
is not, but here are a few quotes to help drive the point home.
"Sometimes people … especially if they haven't been
in this world before, don't necessarily realize there are
a lot of little steps necessary to getting the product to
customers."
– Independent retailer
"A lot of times we'll find a great product—the concept
is great, but people don't know the execution part of it.
Leading someone down the road of how to actually sell
it on a broader scale can be challenging."
– National retail chain buyer
"That's very troublesome for us, when we give ven-
dors commitments for products and they can't meet
our production needs or get them here in time."
– Foodservice distributor
"I would look for [a producer] who understands
the market at a macro and the category at a micro.
I would look for someone who has a solid, realistic
plan—someone who has put the correct type and
amount of thought into what a launch looks like,
and then what sales look like, and has specific goals.
Someone who's done a lot of research."
– Grocery chain buyer
There are ample opportunities for makers to
sharpen their business acumen: live programming at
the Fancy Food Shows (bit.ly/FancyFoodEducation),
downloadable resources (learning.specialtyfood.com),
peer-to-peer exchanges on our Solution Center
(community.specialtyfood.com), and the two-day Spe-
cialty Food Business Summit (sf bs.specialtyfood.com).
If you know someone who would benefit from a little
more knowledge, SFA is here to help.
Some say that buyers need to better understand the
nature of specialty food makers, too. The very things
that make specialty food products attractive also make it
harder for makers to accommodate demands that might
be reasonable for mainstream producers. That's a discus-
sion for another day.
WINTER 2019 5
