Challenge
Our client was the founder and CEO of a successful gourmet jam manufacturer. The brand was well developed but positioned in a niche segment. The CEO wanted help to develop a plan to take the organization to the next level of growth. They had significant distribution in gourmet food distribution but it was clear it would not meet the growth the CEO was seeking. He hired the Valen Group to help develop a growth strategy to double sales.
Approach
Our analysis identified that the existing penetration had focused on a gifting occasion with limited growth without significant marketing investment and uncertain gain. However, we found sales in other channels and customers showed that their gourmet jam is accepted by consumers for everyday consumption. We decided that while we would continue to support gifting and the gifting occasions, the growth strategy would switch to expanding channels and the everyday usage occasion.
We developed and tailored strategies by channel: wholesale, direct-to-consumer, and retail stores and modeled financials to determine profit at $100MM in sales to obtain a 10-15% profit.
Results
We developed a five-year growth plan that would more than double the business. Valen helped identify most promising options for growth including shifting resources into more mainstream grocery and national expansion to grow their brand awareness and leadership position. The investment into the premium tier of mass retail could be managed to maintain a premium equity but also provide significant growth to meet aggressive growth goals. Ecommerce and other channels would be managed by profitability and to enhance growth. The result was an exit a few years later led by the CEO who had wanted to use this growth plan to secure this final goal.
