How to get your product into supermarkets, starting with independents

Why supermarkets come last

A supermarket buyer, usually called a category manager, looks after a whole aisle. Every product they add pushes another one off the shelf, so they need a good reason to take a risk on yours. A great product is not that reason. Sales are.

That is why the brands that get listed tend to follow the same order: independents, then regional or owner-operated stores, then the chain. It is the method behind our wider guide to getting your product into stores, and it holds in New Zealand, Australia, the UK and the US alike.

What a category manager wants to see

Before a category manager takes a meeting, they want answers to a short list of questions.

• Does it sell? How many stores stock it, how many units a week each store sells, and whether they reorder.
• Can you supply it? Production capacity, lead times and a plan if demand doubles.
• Will you support it? Promotions, tastings and marketing that bring shoppers to the shelf.
• Does the price work? A wholesale price that leaves the retailer its margin and still makes you money at volume.
• Is it different? Something their current range does not already cover.

About a hundred independents

Brands we work with have heard the same rough figure from category managers again and again: around a hundred independent stockists is when a chain starts to listen. It is not a rule, and some categories need more or less. It is a useful target, because it gives you enough stores to show a real sales pattern and enough reorders to prove the product keeps selling.

Several months of sales data matters too. A buyer wants to see that sales held up after the first order, not one good month after a launch.

How long a supermarket listing takes

Expect anywhere from three months to a year from the first conversation to stock on shelf. Range reviews happen on a fixed calendar, so if you miss one you wait for the next. After that there is often a trial in a set of stores, commonly a few months, before a wider rollout.

Some chains also charge for shelf space or expect you to fund promotions. In the US these are called slotting fees. Independents almost never ask for either, which is another reason to build there first. Our CPG distribution guides cover distributors and the costs of going wider.

Owner-operated stores are the bridge

In some markets, supermarket stores are run by their owners, and those owners can often take a local product for their own shelves. In New Zealand that is Foodstuffs, with New World, PAK'nSAVE and Four Square. In Australia it is IGA. These stores sit between a corner deli and a national listing. See our guides for New Zealand and Australia.

In the US, regional grocery chains play a similar role. In the UK, farm shops and fine food shops do much of the early work, as our UK guide explains.

How to get to a hundred stockists

1. 1Start with one city and one store typeCafés, delis or health food stores near you. Cluster them so you can deliver and visit.
2. 2Contact enough stores to learnFifty stores might bring only a few replies. Around 150 in a city gives you a result you can judge.
3. 3Send samples only to stores that askIt saves stock, and every sample lands with someone expecting it.
4. 4Track reorders, not only first ordersA store that reorders twice is a stockist you can name to the next store and to a buyer.
5. 5Widen once it worksAdd a second store type or a second city, then a distributor when delivery becomes the problem.

What independents teach you

Independents give you more than a number to quote. They tell you, quickly and for free, whether your price is right, whether the packaging stands out on a crowded shelf, which flavour sells and which one sits. They tell you whether the product needs a tasting to move or sells on its own. A chain will not give you that feedback, and getting it wrong in a chain is expensive.

They also teach you to run the business behind the product: taking orders, delivering on time, invoicing and chasing payment, checking in before a store runs out. A supermarket expects all of that to work from day one. Practising it with fifty stores is much cheaper than learning it with five hundred.

Where LaunchPal fits

We do the part that takes brands the longest: finding the right independent stores and getting the first conversation going. We find the stores that fit your product, write a separate email to each one, send it from a domain we set up so your own is never at risk, and stop the follow-ups when a store replies. Our clients average a 10-15% reply rate.

We do not pitch the supermarket for you, and the AI does not reply to stores for you. When a store replies, you take it from there. Then Flow keeps track of samples, first orders and reorders, which become the numbers you take to a category manager.