Jul 16, 2020

By: Mark Baum, Senior Vice President, Industry Relations, Chief Collaboration Officer, FMI

In this time of uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, many food brands have seen surges in sales, but emerging brands are having to re-evaluate their businesses, distribution channels, marketing efforts, market strategies and make major unexpected adjustments.

Over the last two years, we created, activated and built the FMI Emerge program designed for “new-to-shelf brands” growing at food retail. The Emerge team focuses on making meaningful connections for CPG founders and their teams to the right industry resources, mentors, investors, brokers and retailers; to provide education, data, trends research and insights to help growing brands increase grocery retail distribution, grow revenue and secure more shelf space.

During this disruptive time, we are very thankful for this community’s nurturing environment to help brands better navigate disrupted supply chains and formulate the appropriate changes to trading partner relationships. The Emerge community has more than 85 mentors who coach across so many aspects of the business, including packaging, branding and marketing, sales management, raising capital, distribution and ecommerce.

Ramping Ecommerce to Sell Direct

During the global pandemic, nimble CPG teams within the Emerge program have taken advantage of ecommerce and retail guidance from the mentor community to address shifting shopping behaviors. While 2020 business opportunities may seem frozen in time and the future unknown, mentors have been able to coach about customer shifts and channel changes and help aggressively ramp-up ecommerce and marketing efforts to allow consumers to buy direct. Some brands have seen the highest ecommerce sales ever, yet it’s uncertain how long these large direct-to-consumer gains will last because of the pandemic. Clearly, some of these shifts will be permanent.

We’ve also seen brands pivot to have the right distribution network in place meet existing and future retail.  Emerge partner Nielsen has identified three distinct time horizons for global market regeneration beyond the COVID-19 global health emergency and attached likely scenarios to each. These insights are extremely valuable for a small brands’ use.

To date, more than 70 companies have benefited from the Emerge program education resources and networking community. Claudia Lucero, CEO of Urban Cheesecraft shared, “The Emerge community came at a perfect time for my growing company. We were launching a brand-new product line focused on the grocery market and were totally lost. The variety of resources available with Emerge are like an on-demand business school complete with a large group of experienced consultants. The webinars, mentor calls and check-in calls have been so helpful. Well worth the subscription fee!”

Transitioning FMI Emerge to Emerge, a community supported by FMI

Earlier this month, we announced the transition of FMI Emerge to Emerge, a community supported by FMI. While that is a subtle change in the name, it is a significant transition for the program. The new ownership is Emerge Network LLC, a woman-owned small business led by former FMI Emerge Director Julie Pryor.

We are excited that Julie will continue to grow the community we started here at FMI nearly two years ago. We celebrate the Emerge community and the mentors, brands, industry leaders and partners who have come together to successfully help emerging brands increase retail distribution, grow ecommerce sales and ultimately scale sustainably.

Emerge, a community supported by FMI, will continue to be found online at moreshelfspace.org.