Sourcing to Support Global Expansion

Context

Our client was a growing CPG company specialized in developing bone broths to be sold frozen in grocery stores.

They conducted an extensive market assessment, and found that the US was a growing market for more ethnic and international flavors fueled by growing income of young millennials, immigrant professionals searching for familiar flavors and cultural influence via social media.

The target was to set up a US based co-manufacturer and distribution network in the West Coast to target large international grocery chains.

Challenges

During their RFI (Request for Information) phase, the majority of co-manufacturers were unable to fulfill all of the client's specific requirements.

Requirements:

• CERTIFICATION: USDA/FDA

• INGREDIENTS: No preservatives or artificial flavorings

• PACKAGING & PRODUCTION: Stand-up pouch retort & freezing capability

• R&D: In-house

Additionally, capacity constraints due to increased activity post-COVID made it difficult to find a suitable co-manufacturer. Most suppliers were already facing increasing demands from their established partners making it difficult for suppliers to accept and engage with our client.

Solution

We filled the gap in the potential supplier pool by expanding the list to not only include suppliers currently in the industry but we identified manufacturers from complementary industries who have similar capabilities to our requirements.

This allowed us to find a suitable co-manufacturer specialized in bone broth manufacturing that was capable of meeting all the client's requirements.

Once we identified a suitable prospect, we utilized our strong relationships and industry knowledge to negotiate with the co-manufacturer and convince them to take on the project.

Our client successfully launched their bone broth product in across the US. The increased exposure and availability of the product led to a surge in demand, and the client achieved remarkable growth in a short amount of time. They are now on track for 14.5k US gallons of volume growth in 2023.

In conclusion, our innovative approach to the sourcing process enabled the client to find a suitable co-manufacturer, negotiate with suppliers, and successfully break into the US market.

Result