The Startup CPG Podcast


In this episode of the Startup CPG Podcast, host Daniel Scharff sits down with Louis D'Angelo, founder of Foundation Foods, a beloved natural products distributor serving Southern California's most quality-focused retailers, to talk about how the company was built, what it takes to get on their shelves, and why strict ingredient standards have always been non-negotiable.


Louis got his start freelancing as a de facto sales rep for small organic brands before ever knowing what a broker was. His path to founding Foundation Foods took a dramatic turn when a rattlesnake bite left him hospitalized for two weeks, during which the distributor he'd been working for stopped paying him and every brand he represented. That crisis - paired with a sudden sense of clarity - led him to take out a $25,000 loan, get his own warehouse in 2018, and build Foundation Foods from the ground up.


Daniel and Louis dig into the strict organic ingredient standards Foundation Foods holds brands to, why they never charge brands beyond their margin, how they've grown from a scrappy one-truck operation into a trusted distributor for retailers like Erewhon, Jimbo's, PCC, and now Whole Foods, and exactly what brands should have ready before their first meeting.


Listen in as they discuss:

  • The rattlesnake bite and near-death experience that led Louis to launch Foundation Foods
  • Why Foundation Foods only takes a margin and never charges brands hidden or additional fees
  • The strict organic ingredient standards that have led them to reject even great products
  • Why USDA certification isn't required, so smaller brands aren't priced out of working with them
  • How Foundation Foods differs from broadliners and other SoCal-focused distributors
  • Why inventory availability is the number one factor in getting - and staying - on the shelf
  • How Foundation Foods helps brands gain organic distribution through buyer relationships and catalog visits
  • Why communicating with your regional distributor before adding a broadliner matters more than brands think
  • Common compliance mistakes that get products pulled from shelves, from pricing to Prop 65 labeling
  • Why patience matters just as much as inventory when working with retailers and distributors


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  • Episode music by Super Fantastics

Creators and Guests

Host
Daniel Scharff
Founder/CEO, Startup CPG

What is The Startup CPG Podcast?

The top CPG podcast in the world, highlighting stories from founders, buyer spotlights, highly practical industry insights - all to give you a better chance at success.

Louis D'Angelo
We really pride ourselves on our communication, our transparency, and our willingness to go the extra mile whenever possible for both our customers and our brands. We don't charge for anything besides our margin, so that's one big differentiator. We only have our margin. We don't charge any other fee of any kind hidden or published. There was nobody speaking up for those brands because the trends are always about. They usually boil down to a diet. Right. It's not really about ingredient sustainability and standards for overall, like community wellness and environmental wellness. There's a way to capture some of that broader environmental impact of what we're eating and be a part of the trends sort of naturally, because it's a clean product.

01:00
Daniel Scharff
Welcome to the podcast, everyone. I'm so excited for today's episode with Louis from Foundation Foods. They are a beloved distributor in SoCal, and you're going to hear why on today's episode. From their reputation and the high ingredient standards that they have, all the way to an incredible founding story involving a rattlesnake bite that inspired Louis to start Foundation Foods. I know you're going to love this one. I know you're going to want to reach out to them to talk about distribution opportunities at the end. So listen to the end of the podcast to find out how you can actually submit for consideration. All right, enjoy. Here we go. All right, Louis, my friend, welcome to the podcast. We have not had a distributor on in a while, so I'm really glad to have you here.

01:46
Daniel Scharff
You're always a crowd favorite when you come to our events. There is a long line of brands who want to talk to you, I think just because of your guys's great reputation and I think the high standards that you have for brands as well. So now that I've hyped you up properly, could you do the intro for us, please, and just give everyone the foundation about Foundation Foods?

02:06
Louis D'Angelo
Sure. And thank you very much for having me. It's exciting to be here. It's been a very long time since I was on a podcast, but little known fact about me, I actually hosted a radio show and podcast in college. So that's where this microphone came from.

02:18
Daniel Scharff
What was it about?

02:19
Louis D'Angelo
It started off as a music show after midnight, as they usually do, and it evolved over time and was a morning show about health and wellness.

02:26
Daniel Scharff
Oh, all right. That sounds pretty good. We'll have to dig up some of the old music favorites.

02:31
Louis D'Angelo
Oh, yeah, that'd be fun. Yeah. A little bit about Foundation Foods. I actually got my start in the business running around shortly after the Podcasting days, trying to do sell ins and demos and just get small brands off the ground. I didn't know what a broker was and I kind of found out after the fact that sort of what I was doing somewhere between a sales rep and a broker, but I never really was that. I sort of just was a free spirited freelancer for a few brands where working in the kitchen to get some extra hours, mostly running around and trying to make sales back in the days when Mo was at Mother's and there was only one Air One.

03:07
Louis D'Angelo
And at that time I started working for multiple organic first local small brands and kind of realized there was nobody really servicing them in a way that involved distribution as well. And over time we sort of built a little bit here and there. And in 2018 I got my own warehouse and that was a really pivotal moment because we suddenly had hands on control of the inventory, the payables to the brands which was a huge thing. It was a huge difficulty before that. And speaking directly with being able to sit down with the buyers and then sit down with the brands and have a hands on touch to everything in between was really made things so much easier to deliver on the promises that were attempting to make. And ever since then we've grown every year. It's been really fantastic.

03:55
Louis D'Angelo
As you've mentioned, our reputation is really strong and I'm so grateful for that. That's how we've grown. I've never done any marketing really at all other than running around myself. And it's been fantastic to get such positive feedback. The nuts and bolts are really that we're very strict on what we carry. I think we're not quite as strict as a Jimbos or a pcc, but we're very close. I think we're a little stricter than Erewhon or Whole Foods as far as being organic. There are some ingredients that we must have organic like for example sugar, wheat, soy, dairy. We really need those to be organic on the ingredients label. And that's something we have rejected brands for even when they're fantastic products.

04:34
Louis D'Angelo
We don't need USDA certification though that's kind of something we've seen is a bit of a pay to play and we try to respect smaller brands that are not there yet and maybe they just want to be servicing farmers markets and few local stores and that's the roof that they want to be at and we can be that service for them and also service the bigger brands that don't want to deal with the nationwide distributors.

04:58
Daniel Scharff
I Love it. We already got our first hot take from you. So on usda. I love it. Starting out strong. And that is true about the marketing, because I had to chase you down for about a year to even get you on this podcast. So thank you for finally agreeing. So, Louis, just as an entrepreneur, where do you get the nerve to go out and get a warehouse? Like, that's amazing. Like, just for someone to start the way that you did, just doing it, and then, like, that would make me so stressed out. Like, oh, I'm going to, like, commit to a warehouse now. But obviously you did it and it's gone really well for you. How did you actually figure out, like, get yourself ready to make that leap?

05:35
Louis D'Angelo
Honestly, it's kind of a funny story. Well, funny in hindsight, anyway. I was bit by a rattlesnake. I was bit by a rattlesnake up in the mountains. And. And it was actually very serious. I couldn't walk immediately. And no, like I said, in hindsight, it's a funny story. At the time, it was very scary because were pretty remote and it took about two and a half, three hours to get to the hospital. And I couldn't walk properly for about three months. I was in the hospital for a total of 14 days. It was pretty scary. And that was before I had the warehouse. So at that time, I was contracted with another distributor that's no longer in business. I was sort of their sales and marketing running around, relationship person. And they were supposed to be handling the logistics and the money.

06:19
Louis D'Angelo
And the snake bite experience did a couple things for me. One, it really, like, changed my perspective on life, to be honest. The closest other time that I had that was doing a meditation retreat for 10 days, a silent meditation retreat. And you just feel this, like, calmness and oneness and peace with the world, and you're not stressed about anything. And the snake bite had that effect on me. I was just so happy to be alive. I couldn't believe it that I had been through that. And then the other thing that happened is less fun. While I was away for three months, first in the hospital and then in La Land, I'm happy to be alive. The other distributor I had been working with stopped paying everybody, including me. So they stopped paying me. They stopped paying all the brands were working with.

06:58
Louis D'Angelo
And that was really quite bad for my personal finances as well as the brands that were all supposed to be helping. So that was in August and it was in January. I remember feeling this, like, I gotta do something. And my now Wife, my girlfriend at the time, were laying on the couch. I remember feeling like I was just melting into the couch. I guess I can take out a loan. I guess I could try and get a warehouse and a truck. And I had just gotten this letter in the mail that was like, you're Pre approved for $25,000. And that was like, okay, I guess that's my seed money. And I had this one month where I was secretive and it was the hardest month of my life. Cause I'm a very open person.

07:39
Louis D'Angelo
And I went around to all my contacts at the stores and I was like, hey, I'm thinking of breaking up with this distributor. This is kind of the situation. Would you switch to foundation as a distributor? And everyone was like, absolutely, yes. And all of the brands, with the exception of one who had come on board while I was already in this sort of snake bite land, they all said yes. So that was a really positive feeling to get such a positive feedback at the time. And so I took out the loan that came in the mail and I went and got another loan for my first truck, which was also a silly thing. Cause I got a box truck and we definitely did not need a box truck at the time. We were. I very quickly replaced that with a 40 kana line.

08:19
Louis D'Angelo
But that was kind of the genesis of it. It was definitely, this is the time to do it. We didn't have any kids. I had just been through a near death experience. It was just this moment of here we go.

08:29
Daniel Scharff
That's amazing. That's an amazing story. Sometimes I really just luck out with a question that I ask. I get the most amazing response. And this is one of those scenarios. I'm so glad I asked that.

08:40
Louis D'Angelo
Whoa. Yeah, I'm glad you asked too. I mean, I wasn't thinking of talking about that, but that's incredible.

08:46
Daniel Scharff
Oh my gosh.

08:46
Louis D'Angelo
It's been a while since I shared the story, so like, might as well get out there.

08:50
Daniel Scharff
Oh, I'm so glad you did. And I think you are now at like maximum a hundred respect level from me and anyone listening to this right now. So get your LinkedIn inbox ready because it's gonna, I think, get a barrage of outreach from that.

09:04
Louis D'Angelo
Well, next time I see you'll have to remind me to show you some pictures of me in the snake bite, because then you'll have a whole new perspective on what a leg can. Whoa.

09:12
Daniel Scharff
You should just put that on the side of the Akana line van. Just a picture of that.

09:16
Louis D'Angelo
I don't think you'd want me at your store?

09:18
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, like retailers. You think I'll work hard for you? Well, look what I've already overcome, so. Yeah. And that thing about, like, near death experiences, I've never had one of those, but I have heard that from a lot of entrepreneurs in the space is just really some of the most fervent entrepreneurs have had that in common or they've all had something like that. And I think it gives you just a kind of like, let's go for it mentality. Like there are way worse things that can happen than me failing on this. And let's make the most of this time that we have here. So good for you, Louis. Wow, I'm so glad to hear that. Okay, so it's an incredible start to Foundation Foods. Can you tell me a little bit more about where you guys are at now?

10:00
Daniel Scharff
So what are the retailers that you serve, the locations, all the stuff that a brand would want to know.

10:05
Louis D'Angelo
Yeah, retailers wise, locations wise. I think it sums up to be the high quality, focused retailers. And Southern California is really our bread and butter. So people like Erewhon, Lazy Acres, Jimbos, those are kind of our main customer base. But I would also add that to that list. A lot of the indies that maybe aren't on everyone's hit list, like a little organic juice bar that we might supply more than 60% of their stuff on their little retail section. There's a handful of places like that. Or Farm Shop in Brentwood is one that some people may have heard of. It's a small little space. It's mostly people serving lunch, but they have a beautiful retail set and they get a lot of stuff from us. We also work with Whole Foods.

10:47
Louis D'Angelo
It's a new for us in the past year that we've started working with them, but it's exciting for us because that was a longtime goal of mine to do that. And we do work with some retailers outside of Southern California, notably Northern California we've been growing into. It is my intention to open a warehouse there so that we can have a delivery route in that area fully transparently. I have two young kids right now, neither of which are in school yet, and I don't really want to be traveling personally up to the Bay Area all the time until they're in school. That's part of my hesitancy. The other side of it is the dollars and cents. We do have accounts up there, and they're lovely accounts. We're not quite at the point where we're selling enough up there to cover the costs.

11:28
Louis D'Angelo
Of having a warehouse and a driver and a manager and all that stuff. And it's not like the olden days where I could kind of bootstrap it with a $25,000 loan and kind of fly under the radar of all the regulatory agencies for the first couple of years. We're a little bigger now. We kind of have to play by the rules a little more, which is great. I love that. We also work with PCC in Seattle. Steven is a fantastic human and he's been so supportive of us. I think. I just want to mention his name personally because he's really given us a lot of confidence with his feedback and his referrals. We also work with Central Market in Texas. Both of those accounts are more on our body care and wellness and supplement side.

12:10
Louis D'Angelo
So I kind of a little bit of a different side of us. We actually are probably 40% of our business is wellness, body care and supplements and the other 60% is grocery. And those further flowing accounts, especially the chains, are much more likely to order wellness from us than they are grocery just because of the logistics of shipping grocery.

12:31
Daniel Scharff
With those ones that are not in SoCal, how do you service them?

12:35
Louis D'Angelo
Mostly FedEx and we cover all the freight costs. And then we do have some that order by the pallet. Some examples would be happier Grocery in New York, Nude Miami just recently opened and Leavers Locavore in Denver. Those guys order pallets from us weekly or monthly, kind of depending. And that way they can access our whole catalog. Otherwise we have to kind of restrict. Like water, for example. We can't really ship that FedEx. It doesn't work.

13:01
Daniel Scharff
Amazing. What a lovely set of clientele that you've got there. So can you tell me a little bit more about how should people think about you differently from the other distributors that are out there? Let's say verse broadliners that brands could work with and then maybe verse some of the SoCal focused distributors as well.

13:21
Louis D'Angelo
Yeah, it's a great question and I think the best answer is to go and ask some other people that work with us and ask them what it's like to work with us. Because I hate to speak for that necessarily. I don't want toot my own horn. It's never been something I like to do. But since we're on a podcast and I have no other choice, I kind of have toot away. Toot away a little bit. We really pride ourselves on our communication, our transparency, and our willingness to go the extra mile whenever possible for both our customers and Our brands. And that was something that always came naturally to me back from when I was running around doing sales reps. And I had been a waiter before that. So you know, to earn tips you kind of have to do that kind of thing.

14:04
Louis D'Angelo
And we've done that for our brands from the beginning. And it took me about four years of being a distributor to realize that no other distributors really do that. And a lot of them say they do on their website and they actually don't, or they don't even say they do and they just charge you for it. So that's kind of the nuts and bolts of it. We don't charge for anything besides our margin. So that's one big differentiator is we only have our margin, we don't charge any other fee of any kind hidden or published. And then the other side of it is that we do provide a pretty good amount of support. And I actually have a whole letter I wrote for onboarding vendors that I won't get into right now.

14:42
Louis D'Angelo
But it's a fine line between we're not a broker and we don't claim to be and we're not a sales team. We don't claim to be. However sales happen or relations happen, because that's kind of what we do on a day to day basis. We work on building relationships with our stores. We have meetings with our buyers as often as they'll see us quarterly or so. We'll show them new products we're excited about. We'll give out customer contact lists to brands that are interested. We'll be copied on emails and kind of introduce people. So there's a level of networking and selling that happens without being like an official sales team that's getting extra sales commission or charging your retainer. And it's a gray area. And I recognize that.

15:24
Louis D'Angelo
And I've kind of always told brands, if you're in a hyper competitive space, like say you're in beverages or chocolate, you probably need additional support beyond us. If you're in a relatively unique category, you're in a kind of a niche and you might not need support. If you have a really involved team that's doing some of those things, you might not need additional support. You might be able to just get away with using us. It kind of depends on the brand.

15:47
Daniel Scharff
That makes a lot of sense. And that is exactly what I was going to ask you about as well. Because I think when brands are looking at distributor, I mean their hope is always like, are you just going to service the distribution that I have or I have to go out and get it all or are you actually able to help me get some distribution? Because that would be pretty awesome too. So it sounds like you're probably not going to promise that to anyone, but your goal is their goal, which is to deliver more cases of product that is high quality product to your customers, to service them well. And so you will be showing them your catalog and you will be showing them products that you're excited about that you think could be a fit for their stores.

16:22
Daniel Scharff
So brands, it sounds like, could actually gain additional distribution that way in a way that you probably don't get stuff like that from some distributors out there who are really just more like conduits. Especially SoCal is such a hot area for brands. It's very competitive. There is a lot of pay to play that happens there. There are a lot of these quote unquote incubator programs out there that charge brands an enormous amount of money for seeding product in a certain amount of locations that some brands are extremely happy to pay because it will force them into a couple hundred tastemaker kind of slots there. But it's a really expensive way to grow your business. Yes.

17:04
Daniel Scharff
So honestly, the way you're talking about it, like I would have dreamed to have been working with someone like you where you can get some of that distribution, especially some of those really cool off the beaten path type places like Farm Shop, like that is the dream obviously. So that sounds really cool. As a brand, I probably would have tried to work with you and then pair that up with a salesperson who can hit some, like kind of follow along and hit some of the places that you're distributing to see if we could get in, open up some more of those doors. But that sounds really amazing. So let me ask the obvious question then, which is based off what you're saying, everyone wants to work with you. I know it.

17:40
Daniel Scharff
And how are you going to decide which of all the brands that are going to reach out to you after this, if they fit your criteria, could be a good fit for you?

17:49
Louis D'Angelo
It's challenging to keep up with. And yeah, I think one of the reasons I kicked you down the road at the beginning is we needed more warehouse space. And we always need more warehouse space, but that's part of it. We definitely are strict on the ingredients and you'd be surprised how many brands don't meet the ingredient standards. Non organic sugar is so everywhere, it's disappointing to me. You can go to Costco and buy that stuff by the bag. It's available People, switch your sweeteners to organic, please. They need a key account. We do need somebody ordering consistently. I'd love to have every possible brand in there, but if we can't reliably sell what we have as our minimum order quantity in about a month, it's not going to be good for the brand, it's not going to be good for us.

18:31
Louis D'Angelo
The retailers aren't going to get fresh products. That's important. So right there, a lot of brands do get filtered out by that, you know. From there we try to say yes as often as possible. There are certain categories like beverages or maybe bulky things like chips and popcorn that are harder to squeeze into the warehouse. And we have to be really careful. This one, we might hit the boxes, but it just doesn't feel like a fit. It feels like maybe they're venture backed and they're just going to leave us for unifi the first moment they can. Or maybe it's just five years ahead of its time and it's a fantastic product, but is it really going to sell? That's a judgment call that I don't want to be the one to make.

19:09
Louis D'Angelo
I think that should be on the retailer and the consumer to make that judgment call. And as often as possible we try to do that. And what that would look like is like, hey, you have this amazing beverage. We need a really low moq because we're not sure about it and we will carry it for you, but we cannot bring in a full palette because we just don't see the movement happening. And if the brand can make it work, then great. But if we can't make it work on those details, we have to pass sometimes and it's heartbreaking. I hate to say no to brands, but it does have to happen.

19:37
Daniel Scharff
So, Louis, I could imagine that it's more likely that a brand would come and start working with you first and then maybe they would add on like a broad liner or something after that versus the other way around because like, if they're already with broadliners, they may have a little bit more coverage to start. But if they come and start working with you and based off of everything that I've heard about you guys, they're probably not going to want to leave, I'm guessing. Also, I'm looking through your website. I'm just seeing so many great brands from our community that you guys work with like Joey Nordic Seed Crisps and Imlakesh Organics. Ola Mija Just Gato Dates, like so many great brands on your website from our community. So I guess just thinking a little bit about what their journey with you probably looks like.

20:21
Daniel Scharff
It's probably because they really are trying to go pretty deep in the SoCal region. So they come and approach you guys, hopefully get in some doors and then they're pounding pavement, getting into a bunch of those tastemaker SoCal doors that they're looking to get into. If they eventually add on maybe a broad line or something like that, probably in prior days it might have been because you weren't servicing all of those accounts like when you didn't used to hit Whole Foods. But yeah, I mean, I imagine. Does that sound about right?

20:51
Louis D'Angelo
It does. And I think it's very rare that we have a brand ask to leave. In fact, I can't even think of one that called up and said, we're not happy. It's much more common that there wasn't communication around it. And that's kind of something we've learned over the years. It's really important to communicate with your distributors when you're adding more distributors in that same region. And this doesn't just go for us. I would say this should apply to all brands across the country and beyond. Communicate with your regionals because they are going to own that niche really well for you. But the Broadliners can undercut us on price and they can charge the brands in other ways. So they'll make the same amount of money off the brand, but they'll advertise us a lower margin than they'll charge the brand in other ways.

21:34
Louis D'Angelo
So what that looks like as far as communication is typically we'll ask the brand like, hey, give us a little bit of sales commission type of arrangement. And really it works out to just being like a slightly different margin arrangement for us or a different fob price so that the broad liners are getting charged a little bit more. And then the brand can absorb the cost of those build backs from the Broadliners and then we can compete on price. So then when Air1 comes to us and says, hey, this product is now available in fi, why should we stay with you? And I can say, well, I can price match or no problem. We'll just adjust our pricing a little bit. And then the stores love working with us, so they're happy to do that.

22:14
Louis D'Angelo
And when were smaller, we couldn't maybe afford to do that or I didn't know to do that. That's sort of some of the industry savvy that comes along with some of the experience over the years. But nowadays in our Contract we ask, we put there like brands that must communicate with us when they sign up with our distributors. And that catches brands off guard sometimes. And I have to clarify, like this is the reason you guys want to use us for these regional chains and stores. But if we lose all of our chains to unify, then we can't keep carrying the brand little Indies because the volume might not be there anymore.

22:49
Daniel Scharff
Right.

22:49
Louis D'Angelo
So it really comes down to like that whole transparency, the communication and the clarity around it that we try to maintain.

22:57
Daniel Scharff
So there's one thing I wanted to ask you before is the standards that you have on ingredients. Where does that come from for you? Because obviously you're pretty passionate about that. Like when did that become part of your values and like you just decided this is what our standards are going to be.

23:13
Louis D'Angelo
I would say at the very beginning actually that radio show I mentioned, I hosted that with Scott, the owner of Sun Potion, which is an herb company that was around many years ago. And their whole thing was we're going to sell a single ingredient, it's going to be just chlorella, it's going to be no capsule, no filler. And at the time that was kind of revolutionary. Now there's a lot of brands doing that. But back then there was almost no other ashwagandha on the shelf that didn't have some additive or capsule or heat applied or whatever. So that was kind of the initiation of that thought of food can be really simple. And we kind of noticed that these brands that were just trying to make a buck on the trend, they would not be clean.

23:55
Louis D'Angelo
But there were smaller farmers market brands or passion driven brands that would. Maybe it wasn't the perfect keto branding that was really big for a few years, but it was a keto product and it was also paleo and it was also organic and it was also super clean and they didn't have any fillers. And I kind of realized like there was nobody speaking up for those brands because on the trends are always about, they usually boil down to a diet, right. It's not really about ingredient sustainability and standards for overall like community wellness and environmental wellness. I think that was a big part of it is like there's a way to capture some of that broader environmental impact of what we're eating and be a part of the trends sort of naturally because it's a clean product.

24:41
Louis D'Angelo
And it was a bit of that, it was a bit of like personal that we're very clean at home as far as what we eat. And I will admit that There are some things in our cabinet that aren't labeled organic, but they are small batch and definitely clean sourced. I will promise you that.

24:56
Daniel Scharff
I just want a photo of your pantry now. I want to just see what the worst thing in there is. I know there's a huge bag of ruffles or something in there hiding somewhere.

25:05
Louis D'Angelo
My wife will always buy kettle chips when we have a party and then we end up eating them. So there's like four or five in there that are unopened.

25:11
Daniel Scharff
That's not so bad. All right, so tell me about, like, there must be some brand you can think of recently that has just crushed it with you guys. You brought them on, they supported you and their business in all the right ways and managed to grow in a really nice way, performing well with the retail partners, where you would just look at them and be like, yeah, they did everything right. They were a great partner to us, a great partner to the retailers, and just were doing really well. Can you think of any brands like that in recent memory? Or just some of the things specifically that they did that you would just love to see from more brands to be a great partner?

25:46
Louis D'Angelo
Honestly, we have so many great brands. I hesitate to call anyone out at the detriment to any that I don't mention. But some things come to mind, like, and to call out one Mojave Mellows. I love working with them. They're amazing communicators. I think it's worth noting that they didn't hop on right away. They waited until they had inventory availability to get into foundation and get into Air1 and get into mothers and all these places. And they were around for a couple of years and we had met and I was like, this is amazing product. It would do so well. And they were like, we know, but we're not ready. And that was just so mature of them and the right decision. Because the number one problem that we have with brands is inventory.

26:28
Louis D'Angelo
And I swear to you, I get on calls all the time. And Josie, I'm sure many of you have talked to Josie. She's amazing. She does a lot of our vendor calls as well. And it's always, how can I get my sales up? And the answer is always, can you get us more inventory, please? Can we not be out of stock? Because the number one problem is out of stock, and if we don't have it, we can't sell it. And if we lose the spot on the shelf, it's really hard to get it back. So that is the number one thing. And I Can list many brands that have fantastic products that we brought on recently that have inventory and that is the key.

27:03
Louis D'Angelo
And because we have really high quality products, promotions are important and especially in those hyper competitive categories like beverages and chocolates and bars. But having stock and having a really good product is the most important thing.

27:16
Daniel Scharff
That's good info. So Louis, I imagine because brands want to work with you so badly that they will be a little nervous when they actually get to talk to you for the first time, even though you're a very nice guy. And it seems like the stuff that you ask for is kind of table stakes stuff. But is there anything that you would recommend that brands who do get that first meeting with you have ready to show you aside from inventory confidence?

27:38
Louis D'Angelo
Well, it's a good question. I think the obvious stuff is inventory is pricing structure, that is understanding of retailer margins as well as distributor margins. Distributors can be a little more flexible. At least we try to be flexible with our margins. We recognize some brands have low margin products, some have high and it's a blend. Retailers typically aren't so forgiving and we try to emphasize that with brands they're going to put a 40% margin or 45% margin. It's going to happen. So if you want it being sold at 9.99, you need to price it accordingly. Otherwise doesn't matter. Everything else doesn't matter. It's going to be sold for 10.99. So we find ourselves sticking on that. A lot with brands is please make sure you have the pricing set up for the retailers correctly. Make sure your packaging is compliant.

28:27
Louis D'Angelo
It's always heartbreaking when product gets thrown away on the shelf because it was missing the net weight or it had organic on the front, which it is not supposed to have organic on the front unless it's certified organic or the horrible everybody's favorite Prop 65. If you're not a California brand and you want to be in California, you definitely have to be aware of Prop 65 labeling. I am not a lawyer and I'm not going to get into the weeds on that, but definitely check that out and make sure you're compliant on that. Those are the kinds of things that can be a bummer. The other thing, Daniel, that's really important is patience.

29:01
Louis D'Angelo
And I think we get a lot of brands and sometimes they're the ones with a bunch of money behind them and people pushing and other times they're the ones that are super small and green and never been in this industry before and really excited. But these things Take time. And retailers can take months from the yes to the actual order. Sometimes more than six months is totally normal. And it doesn't mean that they have a bad product. It doesn't mean that they should follow up three times a week on email and phone. That badgering can easily take a yes and turned into a no. Thank you. So we ask brands to take it easy on that kind of thing and be patient.

29:40
Daniel Scharff
You know, I feel that I still got you on the podcast, though.

29:42
Louis D'Angelo
I mean, and you know what?

29:44
Daniel Scharff
You were patient, pleasant. Persistence is what I aim for.

29:47
Louis D'Angelo
Yes.

29:49
Daniel Scharff
I love it. As we're wrapping up here, I just was going to guide people to your new vendor form on your website. But one thing I really like about your website, so this new vendor submission form, the page here, like, the information is exactly what you just said. It's really. It's really interesting and has a really nice overview of what you guys do, your fees and the inventory that you like to have on hand from a brand. And then it has your standards. That talks about, are these ingredients of the highest quality? Are these ones organic? Exactly what you just mentioned. What's driving the people behind the company? Are you driven by a passion to create amazing products and make the world a cleaner and better place? Is the packaging thoughtful and beautiful? Does it evoke a good feeling?

30:32
Daniel Scharff
By supporting this product, are we raising the bar for the entire category? I love this. It's really intentional and I think conveys everything about the kind of products and founders you want to work with and the kind of impact you're trying to have out there. So I'm very impressed, Louis. I have a great feeling. It evokes a good feeling for me just about foundation foods in general. So I'm really glad that we got the chance to learn more about you guys today.

30:59
Louis D'Angelo
Thank you.

30:59
Daniel Scharff
And is that typically the best place for brands to signal their interest in working with you just through the new vendor form on your website or any other ways that are good for them to reach out?

31:09
Louis D'Angelo
Yes. Now, the vendor form is great. We actually direct anybody that calls or emails to just go to that. We have a whole process that we have to go through, including getting physical samples, reviewing them as a team. We try everything before we say yes to it, and it does take time. And when we have a small team, I think it should be clear that because we don't charge any other fees, we have a small team and we are all doing multiple things. And our lovely team that handles onboarding of new brands takes her a few weeks sometimes to go from that email submission to actually reviewing it, which I still think is pretty fast relative to some others in the industry. And I'm not here to compare, but we need brands to be a little patient with us when we do review it.

31:55
Louis D'Angelo
We appreciate that and definitely submit on our website. And we also are happy to take retailer submissions from any retailer across the country that's interested in working with our catalog. You know, I think one thing brands like about us and retailers like about us is the standards. You touched on a lot of our customers, the smaller ones that might have a owner operator that is ordering or they have someone that's logging onto our website and placing orders for the store isn't necessarily a small store. It can be stores that order thousands of dollars a week from us and they typically order anything we bring in because they know that it's already been vetted for quality and it's already been proven as far as like meets the ingredients, it meets the aesthetics, the inventory, all that stuff. Right.

32:43
Louis D'Angelo
So it's a great way for the brands to grow and get exposed to stores. And it's also a really great way for stores to expand their catalog. And the invitation is there for any store in the country to sign up. And we're happy to ship you just about anything. Water, coconut water. We cannot ship those without pallet minimum. But just about everything else we can. Thank you.

33:06
Daniel Scharff
All right. I love it. Well, Louis, thank you so much for coming on today and also for participating in a lot of our in person events. I know that brands are always so psyched to see you and your team. I know recently at our Mother's Market grocery run and our SoCal grocery run and you were around for the NorCal one. So thank you for doing that and all the meetings that you take at our booth at some of the trade shows.

33:27
Louis D'Angelo
Of course. We'll see you in Denver.

33:28
Daniel Scharff
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. See you soon. Newtopia now it's almost upon us. So thank you again and I just am really excited that everybody will get to hear this story because it's an amazing one and it sounds like you guys are just doing such a great job.

33:42
Louis D'Angelo
Thank you for the opportunity. Grateful to be part of it.

33:44
Daniel Scharff
All right, thank you. Bye, everyone.

33:46
Louis D'Angelo
Bye. Bye.

33:49
Daniel Scharff
Well, my friends, we've now arrived together at the end of another episode of the Startup CPG podcast, the top globally ranked podcast in cpg. As you may know, we're not just a podcast. We're a community of brands and experts. And you should join. You can sign up @startupcpg.com you'll then get an invite to our online Slack community. You're going to hear about amazing events near you, all of our special opportunities to get you in front of buyers, investors, brands and more. It's a free community. So what are you waiting for? I will see you there or on our next episode. Bye bye.