Answers
Straight answers on getting onto a shelf.
The questions founders ask me in the first twenty minutes, answered the way I answer them across a table. Every figure has a source. Where it is my own experience rather than a published fact, it says so.
Written by Andy Lister, founder of Launch!, twenty-five years across aquariums, retail and sales. About me. Last checked 21 September 2026.
Stage 01
Foundations. Before there is anything to sell.
How do I start a food business in the UK?
Register with your local council at least 28 days before you trade, put a written food safety system in place, and get the label right, and you can legally sell food from your own kitchen. Registration is free and cannot be refused.
The council will inspect you and give you a Food Hygiene Rating from 0 to 5. Displaying it is optional in England and compulsory in Wales and Northern Ireland, but a buyer will ask what it is either way, so treat anything under 5 as a problem to fix before you pitch. A food hygiene certificate is not compulsory. Get the Level 2 anyway; it is a day's work and the first thing a technical manager asks about.
Your food safety system has to follow HACCP principles. For a small business the Food Standards Agency's Safer Food Better Business pack is the accepted way to do that, and it is what the inspector expects to see. On labelling, prepacked food needs the name of the food, a full ingredients list with the fourteen allergens emphasised, net quantity, a date mark, your name and address, storage instructions and a nutrition declaration in the set format. Get the allergen emphasis wrong and nothing else on the pack matters.
The honest part: none of that is what decides whether the business works. The product does. Do the compliance properly in the first month and then spend every hour you have on whether anyone will buy it twice.
Registration timing: gov.uk, Food business registration, updated 25 June 2026. Free registration that cannot be refused, home kitchens, inspections and certificates: gov.uk, Starting a food business, updated 19 August 2026. Hygiene ratings: gov.uk, FHRS guidance for businesses. Food safety management: gov.uk, Safer Food Better Business. Labelling: gov.uk, Food labelling and packaging. Allergens: gov.uk, Allergen guidance for food businesses.
Do I need SALSA or BRCGS to sell to shops?
For farm shops and independents, usually neither; for a regional or national grocer, SALSA is the minimum and some categories will want BRCGS. Which one depends on who you are selling to, so decide the target before you buy the audit.
SALSA is the scheme built for small producers. It is run as a non-profit by the Food and Drink Federation, the NFU and UK Hospitality, aimed at businesses with roughly one to fifty staff, and it costs £850 plus VAT a year for food and drink production, with approval typically taking one to three months after you have prepared. BRCGS Global Standard for Food Safety is the international benchmark, used by over 22,000 sites in more than 130 countries, and it is a bigger undertaking. Its Start programme, with Basic and Intermediate levels, is the on-ramp for a growing business that is not ready for the full standard.
Retailers publish what they accept. Ocado's supplier manual, for example, takes BRCGS Food Safety at grade A, BRCGS Start Basic, or SALSA. That pattern, SALSA as the floor and BRCGS as the ceiling, is what I see across the grocers, and it is why I tell founders to start SALSA the month they decide grocery is the goal, because a buyer who likes the product will not wait three months for the certificate.
One caution from experience: BRCGS is not accepted by every multiple for own label, and it runs on its own clock. If a range review is six months away and you have not started, you have already missed it.
SALSA scope, cost and timing: salsafood.co.uk, About and Costs (prices from 1 January 2025). BRCGS adoption and Start: brcgs.com, Food Safety and Start. Ocado accepted accreditations: Ocado Retail Supplier Manual, May 2026, pages 10 to 11 (supplied to listed suppliers, not published). Farm shop and independent practice is from my own work, not a published rule.
If the mark you need is vegetarian, vegan or plant-based, that is a different body
How do I get a barcode for my product?
Join GS1 UK; a brand turning over under £100,000 pays £50 a year and gets ten barcode numbers, which is enough for most launches. Never buy barcodes from a reseller, because retailers check the number against the GS1 database and reject anything that does not match.
GS1 UK's own guidance quotes Amazon on this: identifiers that do not match the information held by GS1 are treated as invalid. Grocery buyers apply the same test through their own systems. The number you get is a GTIN, licensed to your company, and every variant needs its own: each flavour, each size, each pack format.
You also need a case barcode. The outer that goes to the warehouse carries an ITF-14, which is your product GTIN with a leading zero, printed on the case itself or on a label. A one-product brand in one size needs a GTIN for the pack and an ITF-14 for the case. Add a GTIN every time the range grows. The last digit is a check digit calculated from the others, so if a buyer's system rejects a number, it is usually a typo in the artwork rather than a licensing problem.
Membership bands and GTIN allowances: gs1uk.org, How much does GS1 UK membership cost, reviewed 19 January 2026. Reseller rejection: gs1uk.org, Get a barcode. Case barcodes: gs1uk.org, How do I create barcodes for cases, reviewed 5 December 2025.
Should I get the vegetarian or vegan trademark?
If the product qualifies, yes, and do it while the artwork is still a file, because the mark has to be on the pack shot a buyer sees, not added after the first print run. The Vegetarian Society Approved marks take around four to six weeks; the Vegan Society trademark takes thirty to sixty working days.
The reason is what the shopper does in the aisle. The Vegetarian Society's own research, run by YouGov in March 2023, found 82 per cent of shoppers would rather see an accreditation symbol on the pack than read through an ingredients list, and 84 per cent of plant-based shoppers trust the mark more than a manufacturer's own symbol. A buyer knows those numbers. A mark answers the first question in the meeting before it is asked.
The Vegetarian Society runs three marks, vegetarian, vegan and plant-based, and one application can cover all three for a product. Fees are quoted rather than published and depend on turnover and product count. The Vegan Society's mark is the alternative for a strictly vegan positioning; it needs a traceable supply chain and its fees are also quoted on application. Both assessments look at cross-contamination on shared lines, so check how your production is scheduled before you apply.
Vegetarian Society timeline: vegsoc.org, How to get certified, updated 27 February 2026. Shopper research: vegsoc.org, Business benefits, YouGov March 2023. Vegan Society timeline and eligibility: vegansociety.com, Vegan Trademark FAQs.
Stage 02
Buyer ready. The numbers that survive contact.
What margin does a supermarket expect on a food product?
Work on a retailer wanting 30 to 40 per cent of the shelf price before VAT, with independents and farm shops at the top of that range and above, and set your RRP backwards from there. Pricing forwards from your cost is the most common mistake I see and it is why so many first trade price lists get sent back.
The published aggregate is lower than the ask on a single line. The Competition and Markets Authority's July 2024 report charts the major UK grocers' weighted average gross margin at roughly 27 per cent for 2023 to 2024, up from roughly 26 per cent the year before, but that is blended across everything they sell. On a branded challenger product in a category with own label, the front margin a buyer wants is higher, because your line has to earn its space against something they make more on. In my experience convenience and symbol stores sit around a third, farm shops and delis want 35 to 45 per cent, and a delivered wholesaler takes its own slice on top before the retailer's.
Margin is not markup, and buyers speak in margin. A 35 per cent margin means the retailer keeps 35 per cent of the selling price; the same gap expressed as a markup on your price is 54 per cent. If a wholesaler takes 25 per cent and the retailer takes 35 per cent, you are left with 48.75 per cent of the shelf price before VAT, not 40, because the two margins compound. Build the sheet from the shelf price down through every layer and you will know your trade price before anyone asks for it.
Aggregate gross margin: CMA, Competition and profitability in the groceries sector, 26 July 2024, figure 2.6, which charts the weighted average rather than stating it as a number. Margin versus markup and the compounding example: retail pricing guidance published by GROSS., undated, checked September 2026. Channel bands are my own experience across convenience, farm shop and wholesale accounts and are not a published statistic.
What should be in a sell sheet for a retail buyer?
One page: the product, the pack shot, RRP and trade price, case size, barcode, shelf life, storage, dimensions, your accreditation, where it is already listed, and one sentence on the gap it fills. Nothing about your journey. The buyer will ask about you if they like the numbers.
The two published lists I point founders to agree on the core. GS1 UK's guide to getting listed with Whole Foods Market says buyers want full product detail, ingredients, images, RRP, current distributors and stockists, whether you can offer exclusivity, minimum SALSA or BRC accreditation, and your expected rate of sale. Ocado's supplier manual adds the operational side: a clear SKU-specific barcode, storage classification, product dimensions, shelf life stated as both minimum life on delivery and total life from manufacture, case size, and at least one product image with full back-of-pack data.
Cost price, lead time and minimum order are not on either published list and every buyer asks for all three. Put them on the sheet. What I take off is the founder story, the mission statement and any claim that does not have a number behind it. The story goes in the meeting, where it works. On the page it reads as a substitute for the numbers.
Buyer requirements: gs1uk.org, guide to getting listed with Whole Foods Market, 26 June 2023. Operational requirements: Ocado Retail Supplier Manual, May 2026, pages 12 to 17 (supplied to listed suppliers, not published).
How much does it cost to get listed in a supermarket?
A designated supermarket cannot charge you simply to list an existing product, but it can ask for a new-line fee, promotional funding and marketing contributions, so budget for those and get every one of them written into the supply agreement before you accept the order. Most independents and farm shops charge nothing.
The rules are the Groceries Supply Code of Practice, which applies to the fourteen retailers with UK grocery turnover over £1 billion: Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons, Aldi, Lidl, Co-op, Marks and Spencer, Waitrose, Iceland, Amazon, B&M, Home Bargains and Ocado. Under the code a retailer cannot require a payment to secure a listing except for new lines, cannot require payment for better shelf positioning outside a promotion, cannot make you fund more than half the cost of a promotion, cannot charge for marketing costs unless the supply agreement says so, and cannot change agreed terms retrospectively. Shrinkage charges are banned outright.
The cost that catches founders is not the fee, it is the trading terms: retro discounts, promotional price cuts you fund, and the cash gap while you wait to be paid. The Groceries Code Adjudicator's 2025 survey found payment delays and inaccurate forecasting were the two most common supplier complaints, each raised by 17 per cent of suppliers, with delisting without notice at 15 per cent. Model the cash before you say yes, not after.
Designated retailers: gov.uk, Groceries Code Adjudicator, about. Code provisions: GSCOP Explanatory Note, paragraphs 3, 6, 7, 9, 12 and 13. Survey findings: gov.uk, GCA 2025 annual survey.
What is a JBP and do I need one?
A joint business plan is a written agreement between you and a retailer on what you will both do over the next year or so: the volume you are aiming for, the promotions, the retail media, who funds what, and how you will measure it. You need one the moment a retailer asks for it, and you should want one before that, because it is the document that stops a listing being a one-off order.
A good JBP fits on one or two pages and runs about eighteen months. It covers the range and where it sits, the launch and promotional calendar with dates, the funding on each side stated in pounds or percentages, the retail media plan if there is one, the rate of sale you both expect and when you will review it. The point is not the document. It is that a buyer who has agreed a plan with you has a reason to keep you at the range review.
Two things from doing these with regional Co-op societies. First, the JBP and the supply agreement are not the same thing, and the terms the Groceries Code says must be in writing, payment terms, marketing contributions, wastage, need to be in the agreement, not just the plan. Second, retail media has a critical path: bookings for an in-store campaign are typically made five weeks ahead of a Wednesday live date, so a JBP without dates is a wish list.
JBP definition and contents: Making Business Matter, joint business plan guidance, undated, checked September 2026. Written-terms requirement: GSCOP Explanatory Note. Joint planning as a factor in reasonable notice of delisting: gov.uk, GCA guidance on de-listing practice, 27 November 2014. Retail media timing from my own key account work.
Stage 03
The right doors. Not every door.
How do I get a buyer to list my product?
Pick the three or four retailers whose fixture has a gap your product fills, find out when they review that category, and send one short email that names the gap, the RRP and the margin, with a one-page sell sheet attached. Thirty cold emails to buyers who have no space for you is not a strategy, it is a spreadsheet.
Every buyer has a range review, and most of the year they cannot list you even if they want to. Find out when it is. Tesco, for example, is described by trade sources as running an annual review with mid-year check-ins. Then use the door the retailer has actually built. Tesco and Waitrose source through RangeMe. Sainsbury's has relaunched Future Brands, taking applications until 11 October 2026 in two categories, mindful drinking and feel-good convenience. Co-op's Apiary programme is for independently owned businesses turning over under £1 million. Booths runs its own supplier portal with a meet-the-buyer event every three months. Morrisons has a supplier portal. Waitrose's BrandsNew programme, in its guidance to applicants, asks for evidence of consumer demand, a supply chain that can meet a 75 per cent minimum shelf-life rule, strong margins and a plan for cash flow, because supermarkets rarely pay up front.
What gets the reply is the email that says one thing. Your category has thirty SKUs and none of them is X. Here is X, at this RRP, at this margin, ready to ship in this case size, accredited to this standard, already selling at this rate in these stores. Can I have twenty minutes before the review. That is the whole email. If you cannot fill in every blank in that sentence, you are not ready to send it, and that is the more useful thing to know.
Tesco sourcing via RangeMe: rangeme.com/tesco. Sainsbury's Future Brands: Grocery Gazette, 17 September 2026. Co-op Apiary eligibility: The Grocer, 14 January 2025. Booths supplier process: supply.booths.co.uk. Waitrose BrandsNew guidance: Startups.co.uk, 28 May 2025. Review cadence is trade commentary, not a retailer statement. The email structure is mine.
How do I find the buyer's email address?
Start with the retailer's own supplier route, because most of the big ones now want new brands through a portal or a programme rather than a cold email, and a buyer who gets your email around the portal often just forwards it there. Where a direct approach is right, the trade press and LinkedIn will give you the name in ten minutes, and the retailer's email format is rarely a secret.
The Grocer, Grocery Gazette and the retailer's own press office name buyers when they move roles, which is also the best time to write to one, because a new buyer is building a view of the category and has not yet decided what to protect. LinkedIn gives you the title. Do not send a connection request with a pitch in it. Send a short note that says you have something for the range review and ask for the right route in.
The door most founders miss is the wholesaler. For convenience and symbol stores, the buyer who decides whether your product reaches the shelf often sits at Booker, Bestway, or one of the buying groups, not at the fascia. Almost half of independent convenience retailers buy from Booker, so one wholesale listing can open several hundred doors that no individual store owner could have opened for you.
Booker reach: The Grocer, Big 30 wholesaler report 2025, citing Lumina Intelligence. Retailer supplier routes as linked in the previous answer.
Should I sell through a wholesaler or direct to stores?
Direct when you have a handful of stores and a van, wholesale the moment you have more stores than you can deliver to profitably, and often both at once with different price lists. The wholesaler takes a margin, but it also takes the stock, the credit risk and the four hundred small deliveries.
The UK food and drink wholesale sector turned over £33.6 billion in 2023 to 2024, of which £17.5 billion was sales to retailers, mostly independents. The three biggest, Booker, Costco and Sysco, took more than half of it between them. If you want to be in symbol group stores, Nisa, Premier, Londis, Budgens, Costcutter or SPAR, the range is usually decided at the group or the delivered wholesaler, so that is where the pitch goes.
The cost is the margin stack. A wholesaler margin sits on top of the retailer's and the two compound, so your trade price into wholesale is lower than your trade price direct, and the RRP on shelf has to hold up in both. Unitas, one of the buying groups, has warned publicly about price variances between channels; a shopper who sees your product at two prices in two shops trusts neither. Set the shelf price first, then the direct trade price, then the wholesale trade price, and never let a direct account undercut a wholesaler that is carrying you into fifty stores.
Sector size: Federation of Wholesale Distributors, Going for Growth, 6 February 2025. Big three share and the Unitas comment: The Grocer, Big 30 wholesaler report 2025.
How do I get my product into farm shops?
Go to the Farm Shop and Deli Show, enter Great Taste, and turn up at the shop with samples, a price list that gives them 35 to 45 per cent, and a six-case minimum they can actually meet. Farm shops buy on story, margin and whether they like you, in that order, and they buy in person.
The Grocer counts over a thousand farm shops and farmers' markets in the UK, and the Farm Retail Association puts the sector at £1.4 billion and around 25,000 jobs. The show that matters is the Farm Shop and Deli Show at the NEC, which ran 13 to 15 April in 2026 with over 1,200 exhibitors and is free for retailers to attend; the Farm Shop and Deli Retailer Awards are announced on the first morning. It is where the buyers who own their own shops walk the aisles.
Great Taste is the other lever. Entries open in December and close in January, judging runs to May, and results land at the end of July. Entry is capped at 14,500 products, judged blind by more than 500 experts, and a star is valid for three years. Fees for a small business are under a hundred pounds a product, and there is a bursary for a first free entry. A one, two or three star sticker on the pack is the most cost-effective piece of marketing a founder-led brand can buy, and farm shop buyers read them.
Farm shop count: The Grocer, on the Farm Retail Association. Sector value and jobs: farmretail.co.uk, About us. Show dates and scale: Farm Shop and Deli Show, What's new for 2026. Great Taste dates, cap, judging and star validity: gff.co.uk, Great Taste FAQs. Margin expectation is my own experience across farm shop accounts.
How do I get a frozen product into convenience stores?
Solve the freezer before you pitch the product, because the objection you will hear is not "we do not want it" but "we have nowhere to put it". A branded chest or upright freezer, priced into your terms, turns a no into a where.
Frozen is a fixture with space in it. Total UK frozen retail is £9.2 billion and growing, one major multiple added more than two hundred and thirty new frozen lines in a single month in 2026 and another is increasing freezer space by over a quarter. The problem is the independent store, where the freezer is a single cabinet full of ice cream and chips and there is no capital budget for another. So bring the cabinet. Suppliers like Gastro-Cool will print your artwork on a chest freezer from a single unit and ship it within a few weeks, and a store owner who is offered a free, branded freezer with stock in it will find a plug.
Then think about the format. A chest freezer wants a pack that faces up and reads from above, which is why shelf-ready outers matter; an upright wants a pack that stands. Pots for Tots, Girl Gone Wild, One Planet Pizza and East Pizzas all fit a chest. Sous Feed suits an upright. Know which yours is before the buyer asks, and know what it costs you to put the freezer in.
Frozen market size and growth: British Frozen Food Federation with Kantar, 2025, members' data as cited across the brand pages on this site. Retailer range and space changes: Grocery Gazette and Retail Times, 2026. Branded freezers: gastro-cool.eu, branding service.
Stage 04
Listed. A start, not a finish.
I got a listing. What happens now?
The first twelve weeks decide whether you are still there in a year, so plan them before the first order lands: stock in the depot on the day, the product on the shelf in the right place, sampling in the stores that matter, and a rate of sale number you can show the buyer at the first review. A listing without a launch plan is a delisting with a delay.
The mechanics come first. You will be set up on the retailer's systems, usually a supplier portal and EDI for orders and invoices, and the first order will come with a delivery window that is not negotiable. Miss it and you have used up your goodwill before a single pack has sold. Promotional calendars are planned months ahead, so if you want a price promotion in the launch window you should have agreed it in the JBP, not asked for it after the listing.
Then the part that is actually selling. Walk the stores. Photograph the shelf. Find the stores where the product is not where it should be, and tell the buyer politely and with the photo. Sample where the shopper is, not where it is convenient. And get the data: your rate of sale by store, every week, from the retailer's system if you have access or from your own orders if you do not. The buyer will look at that number at the first review, and they will look at it before they look at anything else.
EDI and portal onboarding, promotional planning and review practice are from my own account work; I could find no retailer publishing a universal timeline, so treat the twelve weeks as what I plan to, not a rule.
What is rate of sale and what is a good one?
Rate of sale is units sold per store per week: total units divided by the number of stores stocking you, divided by the number of weeks. There is no universal good number, because a buyer measures you against the floor for your category and fixture, but if you are below one unit per store per week in grocery you should expect the question at the next review.
The arithmetic is simple and founders still get it wrong by counting stores that have not yet had a delivery. Three thousand six hundred units across sixty stores over twelve weeks is five a week per store. Sixty stores listed but forty stocked makes it seven and a half, and that is the number to use, because the buyer's system counts stores with stock.
The buyer sees your rate of sale before you do. Tesco has Dunnhumby, Sainsbury's has SIP, Asda has ADR, and the regional Co-op societies share depot and store data with suppliers who ask for it properly. What they are looking for is direction as much as level: a line that started slowly and is climbing survives; a line that launched well and is falling does not. My rule for a frozen or chilled challenger in convenience is that one to two units per store per week holds the space, three and up earns a second facing, and anything under one needs a reason the buyer believes.
Definition and formula: trade commentary, checked September 2026; no regulator or retailer publishes a threshold. Retailer data systems named in Growsights, range review preparation, 2026. The benchmark is mine, from convenience and Co-op society accounts, and it varies by category.
How do I get a second listing after the first one?
Use the first one as the proof: a one-page data pack showing your rate of sale, your on-shelf availability, what the shopper paid and whether they came back, sent to the next buyer before their review with a line that says this is what happened in a fixture like yours. A second listing is a data conversation. The first was a story conversation.
The mistake is to pitch the second buyer the same way as the first. They do not want the founder story; they want to know what will happen in their stores, and the only evidence is what happened in someone else's. Keep the retailer confidential if you have to, headline numbers only, never store-level data from one retailer shown to another, but the shape of the result is yours to share.
Two other levers. A buyer-to-buyer reference, where your first buyer is happy to say you deliver on time and answer the phone, is worth more than any sell sheet. And a listing at a retailer the second buyer respects is a signal in itself; it is why a Booths or a Center Parcs listing opens doors that a hundred farm shops do not, even on smaller volume.
From my own work. The confidentiality rule on comparator data is one I hold to across every account.
Stage 05
Selling. The part that keeps you on the shelf.
How do I get a supermarket to keep my product on the shelf?
Know when the range review is, arrive with your rate of sale trending the right way, and have already answered the objection the buyer is going to raise, in writing, before the meeting. Products get delisted at reviews, and reviews are on a calendar, so the work is in the eight weeks before it.
Every category has a hard question in 2026: protein has plateaued, ready meals are seen as processed, plant-based has lost its novelty, kids' food is under regulatory scrutiny. The buyer knows the question and assumes you do not. Name it yourself, with the data that answers it, and you have changed the meeting from a defence into a plan. Every brand page on this site has an objection band for exactly this reason.
Then the levers you can actually pull. Promotions that pay back, which means a price cut with a volume plan and a funding split agreed in the JBP, not a discount to make a number look better for a month. Retail media where the retailer sells it, booked to the critical path. A second siting on a promotional bay or a basket display, which is the cheapest lift in rate of sale a small brand has. And under the Groceries Code, a designated retailer has to give you reasonable notice of a delisting, and joint planning counts towards what reasonable means, which is another reason to have the plan.
Delisting notice and joint planning: gov.uk, GCA guidance on de-listing practice, 27 November 2014, and GSCOP. Promotional funding limits: GSCOP Explanatory Note, paragraph 13. Category questions are drawn from the sourced objection bands on the brand pages of this site.
Is influencer marketing worth it for a small food brand?
Yes, once you have a listing to send people to, and usually not before. Gifting product to creators is the cheapest way to build rate of sale a small brand has, but content that sends a shopper to a shelf you are not on is money spent on someone else's sale.
What it costs is more transparent than it used to be. Fluencers Group, who I recommend for this, publish their gifting packages: from £2,850 plus VAT for 150 creator dispatches, 100 stories and 20 videos over 21 days, up to £8,500 plus VAT for 1,000 dispatches over 45 days. Content you own from a gifting wave then works four times: on your own channels, on your Amazon or TikTok Shop listing, in the sell sheet for the next buyer, and tagged to the retailer that listed you, which a buyer notices.
The rule that trips people up is disclosure. The Advertising Standards Authority treats a gifted product as a payment, so every post has to carry a clear label, and the preferred one is simply "Ad". "Gifted", "Sponsored", "Spon" and an @mention on their own are not enough, and the label has to be visible before the reader has to tap to see more. Brief the creators on that in writing, because the brand carries the risk as much as the creator.
Package pricing: fluencersgroup.com, influencer gifting service, September 2026. Disclosure rules: asa.org.uk, Recognising ads: social media and influencer marketing, and the CMA and ASA updated influencer guidance, 2025.
Should I sell direct to consumer as well as through retail?
Yes, as long as the shelf price and your own website price are the same, because a buyer who finds you cheaper online will not list you and a shopper who finds you cheaper in store will not come back to the site. Direct is a second revenue line and a source of evidence; it is not a place to discount.
Online is a real and growing share of grocery, 13.5 per cent of sales in the four weeks to 27 December 2025 according to NIQ, with 29 per cent of households shopping online that month and ecommerce the fastest growing channel. And shoppers expect parity: in a 2026 survey of UK shoppers, 78 per cent expected in-store prices to match online, and two-thirds were frustrated by channel-exclusive deals. Price parity is not a courtesy to the retailer, it is what the shopper assumes.
What direct gives you that retail cannot is data. Who buys, how often they come back, which flavour they choose second, what a subscriber is worth against a one-off buyer. That is the evidence a buyer wants for the second listing and it is why a brand like Sous Feed, selling direct with a subscription, walks into a first retail meeting with something most founders do not have. Run direct for the numbers. Run retail for the volume. Keep the price the same in both.
Online share: NIQ, UK shoppers turn to online grocery shopping for Christmas, 7 January 2026. Price parity: survey of UK shoppers commissioned by Pricer, reported by IT Brief, 7 May 2026.
Working with me
The question under all the others.
What does a fractional head of sales actually do?
The job a head of sales would do if you could afford one, for two to four days a month: decide which doors to knock on, get the pricing and the pack right, sit in the buyer meetings, and then manage the account once the listing is live. You get one person who has sat on the other side of the desk, not an account team.
It works best for a founder-led consumer brand somewhere between £250,000 and £5 million turnover, which is the range where the product is proven, the founder is doing the selling themselves, and the next step needs someone who has done it before. I cover all five stages, from the first label to the key account review, and most founders meet me somewhere in the middle.
What it is not: a lead generator that sends a hundred emails a week, a consultant who hands you a deck and leaves, or a substitute for a product people want to buy twice. If the product is good, I will tell you where it fits and go and get it listed. If it is not ready, I will tell you that too, in the first twenty minutes.
Days, turnover range and the five stages as published on this site.
A question that is not here? Email it and if it is one I get asked more than once, it goes on the page.
Quoting this page. You are welcome to quote any answer here, in print, online or in an assistant's reply, as long as the quote names Andy Lister and links to launchbrands.uk/answers. Figures carry their source and date; please carry those with them.