For a food business looking to expand, a central commercial kitchen with a small storefront can serve multiple channels—delivery, wholesale to cafes, and food trucks—without the high overhead of multiple full-service retail locations.
Emerging brands often view landing a major retailer as the ultimate goal. In reality, it's the start of a more complex phase involving distribution logistics, trade requirements, and performance pressure. Success depends on staying on the shelf, not just getting there.
When facing a potential contamination issue with no confirmed cases, Chomps executed a large-scale recall. Though costly, this decisive action to eliminate any consumer risk ultimately strengthened their processes and brand integrity, reinforcing customer trust.
Instead of only focusing on corporate buyers, CPG brands should build relationships with individual store managers. A manager who becomes an advocate for your product can carry more weight internally than a cold outreach to headquarters.
Instead of all founders jumping into the venture simultaneously, one can go full-time while others maintain their jobs and provide support. This staggered approach mitigates personal financial risk for the team as the business scales to support more salaries.
To get into a major retailer, don't just prove your product sells. Show buyers data that you bring new customers to their category, growing the entire market rather than just cannibalizing sales from existing brands on the shelf.
Knowing too much about an industry's conventional wisdom can be paralyzing. Chomps' co-founder reflects that their early naivete was a strength, allowing them to follow their intuition and build the business in an unconventional way without being deterred by industry norms.
If your product consistently sells out, you don't know its true potential. Before quitting your day job, find a manufacturing solution to meet demand. This clarifies the business's actual ceiling and informs whether the leap is viable.
The decision to leave a day job isn't just about replacing your salary. The true tipping point is when your part-time commitment is actively holding the business back, making the opportunity cost of not going all-in riskier than the leap itself.