Building bridge between small and big

Small food producers are getting help passing the tough retail doormen and Salling Group are exposed to the hot food products on market in a cooperation between Food & Bio Cluster Denmark and their member Salling Group.

To many innovative food producers, the supermarket buyers are tough doormen, difficult to pass, in getting their products through to the retail shelves.

The road to the gold at the end of the rainbow is possible

Salling Group has opened the door to their buyers in this new cooperation with Food & Bio Cluster Denmark – a meeting spot where food producers can present their products and get qualified face-to-face feedback from the Salling Group chain buyers.

“It needs to be easier coming to us with new products and get help with moving forward on to either the store shelves or the further development of the products,” says Alice Monberg, Head of Marketing in BIlka, to Dansk Handelsblad in an article about the event.

 

And for the small start-up STATE, the event led to shelve space for their products:

“The Bilka Innovation project was an extremely positive experience for STATE. The opportunity to showcase the products and hand out tastings to the relevant key people in the Salling Group is invaluable. At the same time, the direct feedback is very useful for the potential future cooperation. Our products are now on the shelves of Bilka and Føtex, and we are of course extremely happy about that. This may be due to many things, but one has certainly been the Bilka Innovation project,” says Danni Møgelvang Rasmussen, Director Sales & Marketing, STATE Drinks.

Is the market ready for our product?

Food & Bio Cluster Denmark member SuperJam left the event with useful feedback:

“I wanted to get feedback on our product, it is popular in South Chorea and England, and we have experienced interest from Denmark as well – so I wanted to find out whether the Danish market is ready for our product. We got some great feedback on label and look etc., and we also got some good contacts – so all in all a great day where I can take something with me to go home and work on,” says Jeanette Sørensen, Brand Manager, SuperJam.

For CEO, Lone Ryg Olsen, the initiative is an opportunity to remove one of the big hurdles for food innovation.

”For many creative food manufactures, the greatest problem is to get their new product out to the consumers and receive the feedback and cashflow, they need for the development. Many never get that far and we miss out on a lot of new solutions, input and growth in the sector.”