VASFA Quarterly Forum: Introduction to Wholesale

Wholesale can open the door to significant growth for a food and beverage business, but getting your product onto more shelves also brings new financial, operational, and logistical challenges.

Join the Virginia Specialty Food Association for a conversation about what producers should understand before pursuing wholesale growth.

This forum will bring together perspectives from across the wholesale relationship, including a rapidly growing Virginia producer, experienced food distributors, and a retail buyer. Together, they'll provide an inside look at what it takes to successfully move products from the producer to the distributor and ultimately onto retail shelves.

This forum's panel features:

• Keya Wingfield, Keya's Snacks

• Roy Welcher, Virginia Heritage Foods

• Brian Rutherford, UNFI

• Dan Lamprecht, Good Foods Grocery

  
  

The conversation will explore the realities that can catch growing businesses by surprise, including wholesale pricing and margins, distributor and retailer expectations, payment terms such as Net 30, 60, and 90, buybacks and other potential costs, along with production capacity, cash flow, and what buyers and distributors need from a brand before they're ready to grow together.

Most importantly, we'll discuss how to determine whether wholesale makes sense for your business, and what you should have in place before taking that next step.

Attendees will have the opportunity to network with fellow producers, retailers, distributors, service providers, and industry partners from across Virginia before and after the discussion.

Food and beverages will be provided by locally owned businesses featuring VASFA member products.