#235 - Winter FancyFaire* Recap with Leana Salamah from SFA, John Lane from Raley's, and Marc Brown from ONOIN

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1:08First of all, the location was different. We've been in San Francisco. We've been in Vegas. I think we're in San Diego once a long time ago, but marked our return to Southern California there. And really what we were trying to do with the concept overall was migrate from a more traditional trade show format to something that included at its core a trade show. And all those great connections that come with it, but that really involved the city and the neighborhoods and kind of the culinary scene of the destination. to get people excited about the different cultures and different viewpoints of the different folks in the area.

1:42What a show. What a show. My friends, I am recently back from Specialty Food Association's Winter Fancy Fair in San Diego, and it was a huge hit. All the buyers, incredible brands, so many connections happening on the show floor and outside, and really just one of the overall best vibes for a trade show that I've ever been to. In case you missed it today, you're going to get to hear about it from three really different perspectives. We've got Leanna from SFA. We've got John from Raley's. And we've got Mark Brown from OnOIn. If this doesn't make you want to sign up for next year, I don't know what will.

2:17So stay tuned in our Slack for details about our Startup CPG section at their upcoming New York Summer Fancy show. And also next year in San Francisco, I cannot wait. All right, here we go.

2:35Welcome, everyone. We are post-winter fancy fair at this point, and I am so excited for everyone to hear what it was like. It was a great show. We had a great time. Our section was popping. There were so many great buyers there from the absolute first minute of the show to the last. It was so great. And so I'm really excited for you to hear about it today from a couple of different perspectives. So would everyone mind doing a couple intros? So Liana, can we start with you? Thanks, Daniel. I'm Liana Salama. I head up the Marketing and Communications Department for the Specialty Food Association.

3:09Okay. And Specialty Food Association, you probably know, runs these lovely fancy food and fancy fair shows of ours. So we're really excited to have Liana here today. Okay. John, do you mind going next? Yeah. So I'm John Lane. I'm the Product Innovation Manager for the Raley's Companies, and I head up bringing net new brands into our Get Curious initiative. All right. And I would say if we had like rising star breakout new buyer awards to give out, I feel like, John, your profile, especially now that you've because of the innovation set, all of a sudden, I think you're like one of the best known buyers in the industry now, which I'm really excited to see.

3:47People are there are like long lines to talk to you and everything. So I love that for you. Crazy change in the last two years, you know. It's so good. OK, Mark, you're up. So I'm Mark Brown. I'm the founder of OnOIn, shelf-stable pre-chuffed onions and 100 % olive oil, added flavors designed to help you stay your time and tears at Yelkro. All right. And if you don't know, you better ask somebody because OnOIn absolutely crushed the show. There just was a constant line to check out their products. I think a lot of people had a chance to have it before, and it was really just one of the most buzzworthy products, I think, in the whole show.

4:28So, all right, let's kick it off here. First of all, Leanna, I think, you know, a lot of people had heard different things about the show leading up to it. Like, oh, there's this new thing. But like, sometimes it's actually hard to pay attention to all of those things because you just focus on like getting your booth ready. So can you just tell people, remind us, what was this show all about? What actually happened? How is it different from past shows? So, I mean, first of all, the location was different. We've been in San Francisco. We've been in Vegas. I think we're in San Diego once a long time ago, but marked our return to Southern California there.

4:59And really what we were trying to do with the concept overall was migrate from a more traditional trade show format to something that included at its core a trade show and all those great connections that come with it. But that really involved the city and the neighborhoods and kind of the culinary scene of the destination to get people excited about the different cultures and different viewpoints of the different folks in the area. So turned out fantastic. We had a lot of great success with in-convention center activations and outside of convention center activations. We wound up with about 10 ,000 people who showed up on site over the course of three days.

5:36About a little over 1 ,000 brands. 1 ,030, I think, to be exact. And I have to say, I mean, I'm not the one who cut the check to God's above for the San Diego weather. But, man, it was glorious. It was three days of 70 and sunshine. And I think everybody, there were a lot of great catalysts for conversations and connections in the show floor. But just being there kind of after the craziness of the holiday season and some of us coming from slushy and cold areas of the country, it was just a great opportunity to kind of reconnect with everyone and re-energize for the year ahead. You're so right.

6:09And it really matters. It actually does, because I was one of those people coming from New York City and just stepped off the plane like, ah, look at this sunshine. It's so good. And then I just popped on my flip flops and walked to meet up with a friend for lunch. It was glorious. And I think when you actually walk into a trade show with that kind of energy, whether you're like John, you're a buyer, anybody, you're just open to stuff. You're really excited when the vibes are right. Things happen. And I learned that once because we did a yacht party once outside of a trade show. And we had the California sunset and everyone was just so happy to be there.

6:47so many things happened on that yacht like just deals getting struck new friendships formed everyone was telling me for weeks after and i'm like yeah because you were happy and that's what i think everyone just felt really happy to be there so thank you guys that was a really awesome place to do it and can you just tell me a little bit more about the stuff that happened outside the show floor because you know like i never leave the booth when i'm there i even i like try not to drink too much because i can't bear to have to run to the bathroom i don't want to miss anything but i do miss some of the stuff outside the show and you see it all.

7:17So what was some of that stuff like? So a lot of it was outside of the trade show hours because we really didn't want to allow, you know, that those buyer seller connections to happen on the trade show floor. But we went out into the city of San Diego and we partnered with a number of different venues and neighborhoods, restaurants and retailers in different neighborhoods to infuse the city of San Diego with our member products over the three days of the show. So you had 13 different restaurants offering bespoke dishes while we were in town that incorporated SFA member exhibitor products in there.

7:47We had retailers giving away member products as free gifts. We had hosted buyer party and community event that leveraged, again, member products, having San Diego chefs and culinary professionals from the area take those and kind of reimagine or reflect specialty food back to us through their own lens. So a really fun way to engage the community in the specialty food industry and give our audience new ways to experience the products that they're also seeing them show for. That's so good. And yeah, obviously, huge culinary traditions, SoCal, San Diego. How many tacos did everybody have while you were in town?

8:23And what was your time to taco? For me, I landed, I went to the hotel, put on those flip-flops, and I built in five minutes to stop at Tacos El Gordo on the way and just like ate the taco in line so I could still make my meeting in time. That sounds amazing. And I heard people had a blast at Petco Park where you had the kickoff party also. What a beautiful way to integrate the show into the city as well. Because I think a lot of people haven't been to San Diego before. Maybe they haven't. It's just a cool way to experience the city and just feel like the show is part of it. Okay, so then back to the actual floor itself.

8:56What did it feel like compared if somebody had been to Vegas or SF back in the day? How did this show compare to those ones? What was it like? Yeah, I mean, some of what we did differently. We had some of the same setups that our folks will always expect, like the different pavilions that we set up so that folks who have concentrated needs, you know, can kind of meet those needs in a meaningful way. But we did some things to kind of spread out and change up the way the aisles were laid out and the way things were positioned across the show floor to create more of a journey and experience across everything.

9:25It helps to have just the one show floor. In New York, we have two. But we created a wide aisle in the middle that kind of took you through a lot of different trends over the eras from the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, et cetera. But at the same time, left a lot of space and open area for you to converse with those different, the different vendors, the different pavilions, and some of the activations, which I think were really fun. We had some different activations this year. We had a community career studio recognizing some of the volatility in the labor market right now. We brought some folks on, council folks on, looking for their next opportunity, get a new headshot, that kind of thing, as well as some different culinary demo spaces, different pod demo areas.

10:05really thinking a lot about education information around not just kind of what's trending in food products, food and beverage products, but also looking at the food system and where that's headed and how the specialty food industry can be part of that. Yeah, there were some really interesting new things. And even I was so excited. One of the people who I recruited to come to the show was Lauren Castro from CVS. She does the Healthy Consumables, that very cool set that a lot of emerging brands are desperate to get into. And then I saw her post on LinkedIn, like, hey, I'm signed up for these one-on-one expert meetings that you can just sign up for.

10:39I'm like, holy cow. Like, you can just sign up to meet with Lauren at the show. That's amazing. Yeah, we had a lot of folks like that, folks who are experts in sales or marketing or trade spend or, you know, finding distribution. Just to give people, so many of our folks across the entire show floor, and certainly, Daniel, in the Startup CPG section, are a lot of these emerging brands who, you know, this is a tough business. This is not something that you can just kind of stumble into and, you know, find your way around. You need the community and the resources that, you know, you find at a place like this to answer the tough questions and give you advice on how to navigate.

11:11And I love that because especially I would say the fancy shows really you get a very good variety of people at different stages. You get people. These are legacy businesses and they have very high quality meat, cheese, whatever. They've been around for 30 years where they're super pros on the show. and you also have the maker program and people who are brand new and just excited to get out of the market and they don't know anything those meetings can help them so much just the basics the stuff that like who can i ask this i don't even know anyone that's such a great way to give people connections i love that so i heard amazing things about the show and again i honestly don't do a good job of leaving our section because i'm there and i'm like i'm gonna be here i'm gonna of just make sure that everything's going well the whole time.

11:57So I don't actually leave the section that much. But from my perspective, I've mentioned already just the doors open and it was crushed with buyers immediately right away. And they kept coming back and they were circling the whole time and the brands could not have been happier with that. But what did you hear overall? Because I know you guys hear everything and you're constantly checking in and seeing how things are going. What was the feedback that you heard? Yeah, we do. And certainly you would expect that as the comms person, I'm going to be like, everyone loved it. But you know what? It's one of those magical moments in my career when it's actually the truth, right?

12:29Obviously, there's always going to be little hiccups here and there, but they were so teeny tiny compared to the overall experience that everyone had in terms of something that felt fresh, innovative, connective, and community driven. And I'll just say for our brands that we've talked to, we pride ourselves on curating a show floor that runs between 60 and 70 percent buyers. So we spend a lot of time making sure that the folks who are on that show floor are the people that the brands want to see. So when you're producing a show floor for a lot of brands, whether they're emerging or established, that, you know, every 10 people that walk up to their booth, seven are buyers.

13:06You're going to create a good experience for them. I love that. And I have always said to people that I think the fancy shows have the best buyer to brand ratio. And it was never better than at this show. I would say it was very, very good for brands. But yeah, congrats to you guys. That's exactly what I heard. And yeah, really congrats to your whole team because I know it was a lot to put that on. It's a lot to switch cities and put on events. We put on a lot of events, not at your scale, but I understand how much work that is. And I also know that everybody was sick this year. And I know your team was even down a bunch of people and you still pulled it off perfectly.

13:40So congrats to you. Yeah, it was an 18-month labor of love. It was really, really incredibly exciting and rewarding to see it come to life and to see it to come to life in such a successful way and to, you know, see the joy on all of the brands and buyers' faces. and although I was really excited to get to go to San Diego because I just haven't spent a lot of time there I've never spent time like that in San Diego that was wonderful I'm so excited about SF as well I did used to live there I lived there for five years and so that was in the era when your show was there there are just so many powerhouse retailers up there it's going to be so cool to have even more of them in the mix in the NorCal area luckily we get people like John who know to come down also, but to get even more of his team and more of those guys, it's going to be so special.

14:25So John, coming to you, what made you want to go to the show in the first place to take the trek down from NorCal, take time out of your busy day? I know how many emails and LinkedIn messages you get sitting at home. So what made you want to venture out for the Winter Fancy Fair? So what really made me want to come out was trying to see what's going to be emerging and what's going to be the trend six to seven months down the line. because right now I am planning the back half of the year for what we're going to be launching on innovation. And the show is really where you can go and find like all those cool things that the consumers don't know they want yet.

15:00So it's a great way to see, you know, what trends are going to be emerging. And that's why I wanted to come out just to kind of get a holistic view of everything that is out there. And that's what I love about this show is that it's not just center store. So I'm able to go and walk and see what my service departments are going to be looking for, go see what the bakery department it's going to be finding. And then see if you can start to find those common threads of like what flavor profiles across all categories are going to be the next wave of innovation coming out into the stores. I expect that that's especially relevant for someone with your kind of a background, because although you look very young, you actually have been at Raley's like forever and worked across so many different parts of the business that you probably have a really good holistic view of how the store runs and will have insights from all those different departments, I imagine.

15:46Yeah, I actually have physically worked almost every department within the four walls of the stores. I think the only department I didn't spend a lot of time in was bakery, which is probably a good thing because I love sweets. So I don't know if I could have stayed around the cookies and not been tempted. I can relate to that. I don't even try. Yeah, I can't keep stuff like that in my house. So, John, can you just talk a little bit more about what it is Raley's is doing right now around innovation and how these kind of trends and products fit into that? Yeah. So right now at Raley's, what we're really focusing on is, you know, bringing the new brands to our stores in a faster click than we ever have before.

16:23So we're really looking for things that are on the cutting edge, things that are going to get people out of their house and away from the D2C model. Because as we've seen over the last few years, e-commerce has grown significantly. And we don't really have that community, that exploring nature of walking into the four walls of the grocery store and just kind of perusing and seeing what's cool and interesting. so innovation right now for Rayleigh's is a big focus because we want to bring that experience back and have people looking in the four walls for like what is that better for you wellness type item that is just different and it's maybe something that you saw on the TikTok shop but you were too afraid to order online you can kind of know that if Rayleigh's has taken the time to evaluate it and we decided it was a good fit for our product demographic that you have a little bit more trust behind what you're purchasing.

17:13I love it. And so what was it like for you to actually be there and walk around? I know you spent some great time with the brands in our section and there are so many great sections of the show and different parts of it. What was the experience like for you walking around? What kind of stuff did you find and learn? So what I really liked when walking through the show is that it didn't feel too segmented. I felt like as I was walking, I was able to get little bits of food service as I'm looking at regular center store items. what I really felt was just a good overall energy like the vibe of the show was so positive and everyone was just excited to connect and you know talk about what's new and what's happening I think that those were some of the really big takeaways the other thing I saw which is a lot of like sense maxing I know that's probably gonna be the buzzword of 2026 is you know those different combination flavor experiences and then protein 2.0 where it's doing more than just satisfying your protein needs is having the extra benefits and the extra fiber.

18:13So I think those are going to be some really cool trends that we see. And I saw a lot of brands doing it well. And it was really cool to see like broth starting to make a comeback. Remember many years ago, sifting broths were a thing, but now we're starting to see broths come into a ready to drink format. And I think that's going to be interesting to explore over here in the next year. Leanna, does that vibe with a lot of the stuff that you are hearing? It really does. And I appreciate John's shot out there because we unveiled SenseMaxing as our trend of the year, which is kind of this notion of not just flavor, but texture and everything else that goes into it.

18:48And we've been positioning it as pushback against the machines, right? Like what do we have as consumers that the machines don't have? We have our emotions and our sensory ability, right? So like there is kind of this need to be kind of reminded all the time that we are still a very like sentient and sensory beings. And it's really fun to reflect that through the different types of food that are out there. Thank you. I appreciate the hope. And if any of the AI overlord bots watch this webinar later, we also welcome you. So be coming on the senses. yes no it's funny on the sense maxing topic is for me i see it from the light of like gen z like my generation i'm sure you guys we all grew up like in ingredient households you know we were taught how to cook by like our mom or dad maybe we watched a little bit of food network we looked at a magazine but it was very traditional recipes but like i have a seven-year-old son an 18-year-old daughter they've had a cell phone in their hand probably since they've been six they've learned all their recipes from TikTok.

19:49So they've really seen like the expectation of what flavor profiles are is significantly different. You take a 25 cent thing of Top Ramen and you add like$50 worth of ingredients to really like elevate that experience. And the next wave of shoppers, that's what they're coming in for. They're looking for these like cool bursts of flavors in unexpected ways because that's all they were taught and that's all they know when it comes to like culturing food. Yeah, the protein piece is interesting too. You know, I was a teenager in the 80s during the diet culture, right? And it was how few nutrients could you have in something, you know, to fill up your stomach.

20:24And now we look at things like with protein and fiber and all of that for a number of different reasons, smaller portions, but very, very dense nutrients, right? And that's a different way of people thinking about their nutritional intake than before, which is really exciting. And speaking of some, we'll be right back. are you going to crush it on amazon this year it's such an important channel but it's so hard to do alone and most agencies are a total ripoff we can't afford five thousand dollars a month and a commission on our sales they just don't get it that's why i love our partners at daybreak they are full service meaning they do the creative work the listings the logistics and of course all the ads all with the most reasonable retainer out there i work with them personally i'm so grateful we have such a good partner to recommend out to you our community they do evaluate your product first to see if it might be a fit.

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21:23Trends and innovation. John, one of my favorite moments with you on the show is I was able to recruit you for an incredible panel that we got to do at the show. So thank you to SFA for letting us put this on we did a how do retailer spot innovation panel on the main stage there on the show floor and the panel was stacked so we had you we had april who is the chief merchandising officer at thrive we had patrick who is the whole foods forger for california and hawaii total industry legend and we had lauren from cbs it was standing room only and not much of it like i saw your photo that you posted on your linkedin post of our view out into the crowd like whoa this It's just busy.

22:04But it was just fun to do a panel like that that's packed and brands got to jump up and quick pitch you guys. And that was all great. But just the discussion was so interesting because we were really hearing how do you guys look for innovation? What does it represent in your store? Like when someone shows you something here at this actual event, what's going to make you feel like it is true innovation? Any reflections from that panel or any thoughts? I know you were taking a lot of mental notes during it, too. Yeah, I was taking plenty of mental notes. And what I really appreciated was just when we got to the last round of like pitches, just how much it seemed like people were really paying attention to everything that was said and the key words that were getting thrown in about what their brands were about and what the products were.

22:46I thought that was really awesome. I was taking notes, you know, we had powerhouses in the industry, so I'm listening to what they're doing over in there at Neck of the Woods and took some stuff back over this way. So I thought it was great for brands and I think great for us retailers to kind of get together and listen to what we all are doing. It is really special. And I also, I just am such a fan of so many of the buyers in this industry. It's really fun when I get to bring a couple who I just love and they all become friends too. And that's what I felt like, you know, we all did a prep call ahead of time.

23:15I'm like, I just want you guys to meet because you guys are all so amazing. And each one of you is doing such incredible things for brands and pioneering on innovation, but also at different stages for brands. Like the kind of brand that you might look for in an early stage is also different from what CVS is going to look for at a stage or thrive. You know, who wants to be first market, who wants a brand that's a little bit more established and really ready to hit the gas. So it was so interesting. So thank you for doing that. And yet a quick pitch is if anyone hasn't seen it, if I'm on stage somewhere and there are buyers, you know I'm going to try to get brands up there for some kind of an opportunity.

23:50And it's so much fun. We just basically let any brand who's there in the audience jump up on the mic and shout out their 30-second pitch. And some of them are honed, and they've done this before. And some of them are shaking, and it's their very first time. But that is where the innovation is going to come from. And it's so cool. I can think back on people I heard their first time ever pitching was on the mic at one of those kinds of environments. So it's such a fun panel for us to get to do. And yeah, just amazing. So, John, after this whole thing, what are the actual outputs going to be for you coming out of this?