Commercial and Category Support

When considering entering a new non food grocery market, having the guidance of an expert that knows the ins and outs of that market is invaluable. Having helped over 40 international businesses successfully enter the UK market, we have a comprehensive knowledge of the vital steps for success. We provide a complete solution to entering the market: providing detail on the relevant category and key competitors, recommending a route to market, sourcing a distributor or agent, refining product formulation and packaging through consumer research and managing customer accounts.

While it can be tempting to approach the major supermarkets and hardware stores straight away when entering a new market, successful brand entry often requires a more thoughtful and nuanced approach. It can be advisable to build brand awareness through smaller consumer accounts to demonstrate a successful track record to the larger retailers or household goods wholesalers when they are eventually approached. Having helped a number of brands enter the market this way, we can advise on the most suitable route to market for you. Whether this be in the retail, wholesale or foodservice markets, we have both the knowledge and contacts to make your brand a success within the household category.

No matter how good your food and drink product tastes or your brand appears, if you are unable to attract the attention of the retailers or wholesalers in the competitive UK marketplace, your product will struggle to gain traction. Having an agent or distributor on board that knows the market, and is passionate about your food and drink product or brand, can mean the difference between becoming a mainstream brand and being destined for the brand graveyard. With our proprietary database of UK distributors and agents, we can help find the right UK partner for you.

Having worked both client and retailer side, we have a good idea of what both parties want to get out of the buying-supplying relationship and we focus on delivering the win:win. In the first instance, we can help advise on which buyers to contact, how to approach them and how to present your brand to appeal to their specific requirements. We can be as involved as you want us to be – whether you want us to coach and support you through your retailer pitch or whether you just want help finding out who to contact, we are happy to help.

Once you have achieved your listings, we can also help manage your account, as we do for a number of international clients who are often focused on several new food and drink markets at a time. Responsiveness and efficiency are traits highly valued by retail and wholesale customers, and our team of account managers at HRA Global can ensure your retail accounts are handled smoothly and contact is kept regularly with buyers so as to react to opportunities and deliver promotional and in-store marketing plans.

One of the key pitfalls for many food and drink brands approaching the retailers is not knowing the category well enough. Modern retail buyers expect you to be fully up to speed with price movements, market share, competitors, packaging trends and food and drink flavour developments. With our access to the most up-to-date market data, we can create a thorough category analysis which details food and drink consumer trends, recent NPD, competitor brand positioning, pricing and performance. This will help us to identify the gap for you as a food and drink brand and, if necessary, refine its positioning to help it stand out from competition and increase buyer appeal.

By putting together a clear food and drink Value Proposition from the outset, this ensures you can build and retain a strong brand while staying focused on your core customers. A Value Proposition is an exercise that produces a clear brand identity and a precisely defined target audience. Putting together a Value Proposition internally can be challenging as distilling a brand into a simple core essence is often something companies find almost impossible to do. By using our trained eye for unique propositions, HRA Global can help in this process by asking the key questions to get to the heart of what your brand is about and how to make it a success.