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Amy Kushner shared thisSomeone just sent me this article on a class action suit filed against UNFI (or perhaps I am late to the party?) https://lnkd.in/gKwpEuK9 It is a fabulous read for a Friday afternoon. Shabbat Shalom.
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Amy Kushner shared thisWhy I hate OI's. Egregious over-buying. Ridiculous Audits. Even more ridiculous overpull reports. Anyone else feel the same way? (Cute puppy to cover up how "f"-ing annoyed I am.)
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Amy Kushner shared thisThis is both a testimonial and a review for Sydney Webb the creator of and her new Meyer Lemon Cream Toto Cookie. Sydney posted here on LinkedIn a “Guess Toto’s newest flavor and win a box of cookies”. I guessed Lemon Blondie. The actual flavor was Meyer Lemon Cream. Close enough, apparently, because I won a box of cookies. A few days later, I opened my PO box and found one of those “you have a package” keys. It was my cookies. Naturally, I ripped the box open right there in the Post Office lobby. Here’s the thing. In another life, I lost 40 pounds. Twice. Since then, I’ve been pretty obsessive about what I eat. I read labels. I count calories. I work out like an idiot. A lot. A few years ago, I discovered Toto Cookies and literally had to recalculate my daily calories to fit them into my life. I’m not kidding. (A mere 240 kcal and worth the extra time) There is just something about a Toto cookie. The coconut sugar. The almond butter. The oat flour. The fact that you can actually read the ingredient list. The texture is perfect. The new Meyer Lemon Cream is another winner. (I am still committed to my S’mores and Birthday cake) The lemon comes through in every bite, and the hardened, lemon-drizzle icing on top tastes like lemon candy. I’m not usually a lemon person, but I loved it. The white chocolate chips and lemon flavor reminded me of biting into a really good lemon muffin or scone. And check out the ingredients on those white chocolate chips- it's all just so deliciously clean. Gluten free. Dairy free. Soy free. Vegan ecstasy for picky-ass eaters like me. I was honestly afraid to drive home with three more cookies and no willpower, so I gave two of them to a dad with five kids in the parking lot. My only request was that the kids actually eat them right then and there. They each took a bite and immediately said, “These are good.” I have one cookie left. It’s in my freezer. Post-Gym treat! Sydney, thank you for the cookies. You already know I’m a huge fan. And no, I didn’t share with him. 🍋
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Amy Kushner shared thisHas anyone actually cracked the code for the Frozen direct-to-consumer/e-commerce model? Cold chain costs are high. Overnight shipping is expensive. Packaging and spoilage risks are constant (soggy packaging, freezer burn). Most frozen brands weren’t built for e-commerce logistics. The balance is tricky. After a decade-plus of time spent in the freezer space (brr, it’s cold), the economics don't work when brands go it alone with a D2C model. Unless you’re a bigger brand or have customers with unlimited cash flow, shipping a pint or two of ice cream overnight is a loss. Dry ice, labeling, and 24-hour turnaround make it brutal for small brands. (I really am envious of those dry goods that ship easily, don’t cost as much, and add to margin.) So what’s the solution? Leverage what can be done online: • Platforms like Instacart, Thrive Market, and other online food delivery plans can be an alternative • Retailers with an online cart, which still move the needle more than trying to ship overnight (make sure to have all your online agencies up to date with labels, etc.) I always love to hear what others are doing in the frozen DTC e-commerce challenge, and if you have something that I don't know- spill!
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Amy Kushner shared thisI am celebrating my 10-year anniversary with June Lim and StarLite Cuisine. Woot-woot! When I joined the team in late 2015, we were the “mature” token vegan brand that nobody outside the West Coast wanted to talk to. We made it fun, and called it “The Great Race”. (Anybody remember that show?) Well, here we are 10 years later, and we’re still in the race! (no investors either). This past year has been wild. At the start of the year, we rolled out in our unicorn, Wegmans (7+ years of trying to get past the gatekeeper to the buyer, i.e., never give up). We also launched Giant and MOM’s, and we’ve got New Seasons, Nugget, and a huge retailer in Texas lined up in the next few months( no names because it is jinxing until we’re on the shelf, another “never give up”). We’ve maintained a 10-year relationship with Sprouts and continued with many others, including NCG, Natural Grocers, Jimbo's, Mother’s Market, Heinen’s, Festival, The Fresh Market, Thrive Market, Market of Choice, PCC, Baron’s, and so many other retailers. And a big shout to our wonderful broker partners! All of this has been part of the great race. Our biggest win this year? Pushing back on deductions with BOTH Distributors (it's worth the tickets and time). We showed up with receipts, kept it “classy”, and got over $50K back. Maddening and BIG (really BIG) fun rolled into one. And for the record, slow movers on the warehouse list are simply “endangered species” that require a little more attention. She once thanked me for pushing the tin cart up the hill; I thought it was the other way around. As the wisest man once said, “Iron Sharpens Iron”. Happy anniversary, June. #CPG #WorkingMoms #EatMoreTacos
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Amy Kushner shared thisI have such a pointed and jaded view of all of this. Processing my thoughts so this is pre-post, because I worry I will never work again if I give my view from 10 years selling Alt-Protein, Plant- Based and Vegan- just quiet to avoid controversy, but this is a “flammable” subject. Any other brand that pulled the financial shenanigans that Beyond did would have been shut down years ago for financial loss. All the animals saved didn’t stop the brand from bleeding. Such a lesson on investment spend, and over extending.Beyond Meat Denies Filing For Bankruptcy In New StatementBeyond Meat Denies Filing For Bankruptcy In New Statement
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Amy Kushner shared thisA good week, and in the words of my colleague, June and to use her words, "An Unheard of Week" in Starlite's history- 1) We Just got four SKUs into a retail chain that we didn't submit to during reviews; the category manager reached out to us, and it is a sweet, good-to-be-in retailer. 2) We pushed back with "the receipts," and we will be getting over five figures back in deductions from an unspecified distributor. (if you aren't using Floret, you need to seriously consider doing so). Indeed a great week. CPG rules. It isn't brain surgery. Have a good product. Be kind. We are all doing this together. Don't be hating and recognize we all want to make money and then work on the solution. But the foundation will always be "A Good Product". You can't stay in business without one. If anyone wants to know what we did to get that money back, let me know. ;) Shabbat Shalom and Happy Friday the Fourth of July (in what seems a very Dystopian time, perhaps that is just me?)
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Amy Kushner shared thisSummer Solstice- and the Sun! My part-time hustle away from food; (been making money on the side with my camera, I love her) and sharing for the solstice. Work and life- ebbs and flows. Always Be Closing, but personally working on remembering to stoke the inner fires outside of work. If you aren't doing it already, you need to start.
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Amy Kushner liked thisReposting for reach.Amy Kushner liked thisWe’re #hiring in our NorCal region. Know anyone who might be interested? Rody Oueis Americana Fox- Aulenbacher
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Amy Kushner liked thisAmy Kushner liked thisThe shelf doesn’t remember your pitch. It remembers your performance. Getting authorized answers one question: Will the retailer give you a chance? Then comes the harder one: Did you earn the space? For a founder, the buyer’s “yes” feels like a victory. For the buyer, it’s a conditional bet. What happens next? Velocity, repeat purchase and execution determines whether that shelf placement becomes permanent or disappears. Stop thinking only like a brand trying to sell a product. Start thinking like the retailer deciding whether it deserves to stay. Are you building excitement for the launch or demand that lasts beyond it or BOTH? At Vital Forage, I help founders of emerging CPG brands increase velocity by 20-30%. Struggling to hit retail velocities? After 34 years in grocery leadership at Sprouts and Albertsons I have built a proven 90-Day Retail Velocity Action Plan that that will improve brand awareness and drive velocity. (Visit https://lnkd.in/gySMXt-y reserve a complimentary 30-min “Retail Growth Assessment Call”)
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Amy Kushner reacted on thisAmy Kushner reacted on this“The long goodbye”.💜 This is an older picture of me & my dad one Veterans Day. Both of my parents met in the Army. My dad left this earth yesterday after a long battle with Dementia. In spite of the slow way this disease affects you, he was healthy, all things considered. A respiratory virus quickly turned in to something severe. With in days, palliative care & then freedom from this awful disease. I know there are many other people here that are dealing with something similar, so I share this disease with no cure for a reason. His influence on me was tremendous. He was strict & by the book. Respect was demanded. He was also a good provider, steady, consistent & reliable. Having 5 daughters who weren’t interested in certain things he would naturally teach a son, me, the middle child became that person. (Forever curious & learning) He taught me how to change a tire & the basics of maintaining a car. He helped build the house we moved to when I was about 10-11. After work he’d take off his suit & get in to jeans to go do work there. He often let me come with him. I’m sure I wasn’t much help! He taught me how to drive a nail, how to tape off & paint properly….so many small, practical things that many girls would have no interest in. It’s served me well my entire life. He was in sales for many years. I learned from the best. He taught me how to conduct myself & do what was best for the customer. What was learned that helped build the foundation for my career is too much to list. But mostly, he was my dad. He was a “man’s man”. He’s part of a dying breed that we’ll never see again. There’s a big hole in my family’s heart today…in my heart, as I absorb what just happened, but his memory, life lessons, & love will live on forever. Rest in heaven, dad.❤️
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Amy Kushner liked thisAmy Kushner liked thisWe’re doubling down on AI at Team RonDi. September’s calendar makes that pretty obvious 😅⤵ Diana and I are going into full sponge mode: learning from people building AI, asking questions, and getting our hands on the tools ourselves. Sometimes that means a local meetup. Sometimes it involves a train or a plane. 🚅✈️ Our mission is simple: make AI work for "normies". People who don’t have a technical background and want to understand how this stuff can actually help them in their work. That means taking what we learn, testing it, and turning the useful parts into tutorials and courses people can follow. Including the limitations and the things that didn’t work. You should be able to benefit from AI whether you live in San Francisco or somewhere in the middle of Wallonia. That’s where I’m from, by the way. Not exactly Silicon Valley ❤️ So, I’m officially renaming September “AI month.” Here’s the agenda: ✅ 7 September · How Can Europe Catch Up with AI? Brussels 🇧🇪 With Simon Grimm from Works In Progress. Already ticked this one off! 🔲 15 September · AI Vision by Canva London 🇬🇧 With Kanishka Narayan MP, Cameron Adams, Harry Stebbings from 20VC, and speakers from Amazon Web Services (AWS), Black Forest Labs, Revolut and more. Plenty to learn, and plenty of questions to ask. 🔲 18 September · Build With AI Barcelona 🇪🇸 A hands-on AI building workshop at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. Time to put the sponge to work. 🔲 21 September · Claude & Coffee Claude Barcelona House 🇪🇸 With Fernanda Grace Lins. So happy to see this opening up to a broader audience. Also happens to be my birthday. Coffee and Claude… I’ll take it 🎂 🔲 22–23 September · AI SUMMIT BARCELONA Barcelona 🇪🇸 Two days with people building AI, exploring what they’re working on and what it could mean for the people we teach. 🔲 30 September · Team RonDi’s Canva Clinic at GroundInn Barcelona 🇪🇸 Our turn to help! Diana and I will answer your Canva questions, help improve your Canva and AI workflows, and geek out with you at our favourite local coworking space. Joining any of these? Let me know which one so we can say hello 👋
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Jason Reposa
Lead in vape carts is still a risk. Jeff Rawson, Chair of the Institute of Cannabis Science, explains how leaded hardware can leach into oil and why screening matters. The fixes are simple. Screen hardware before it reaches shelves. Pull suspect lots. Tell customers what to do next. Keep clean records so teams can move fast. This is not a niche issue. It is a public health issue. How are you screening hardware today? 🚨 New episode this Friday, 11am EST on High Functioning Podcast. 👇 Links to RSVP and more are in the comments.
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Taylor Crooks
Cannabis packaging buyers: your label program may be quietly bleeding time and money. After years of working with cannabis cultivators and processors, here are three places we see it happen most: 1. Excess inventory: Labels get overordered, warehoused, and eventually discarded when SKUs or regulations change. We help align purchasing with actual demand and upcoming changes to packaging rules. 2. SKU overload: Managing dozens of SKUs through spreadsheets and emails creates unnecessary work and avoidable mistakes. Our ordering platform keeps approved SKUs organized and repeat orders simple. 3. Production downtime: Secondary printing challenges often come down to a mismatch between the ribbon chemistry and label substrate. We help dial that in so production keeps moving. If any of these sound familiar or you're facing another labeling challenge, bring it to us at the Ohio Cannabis Health & Business Summit. Label Aid is proud to return as a Silver Sponsor this year. Come see Tyler Schmid ("Big Dawg") and me at Booth #523. Beyond talking labels, we're excited to see customers and spend time with the Ohio cannabis community. A special thank you to Lenny Berry and the OCHBS team for building an event that feels like a community and pushes Ohio cannabis forward. #OCHBS #OhioCannabis #CannabisPackaging #CannabisLabels #LabelAid
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Ferron Salniker
The RNDC supplier exodus and its California closure were our most read stories of 2025, and it appears 2026 wants part of that action. - Proximo Spirits - owner of Cuervo - will ditch RNDC nationally, the distributor announced in an internal memo today. - The move isn't a big surprise, but is a major blow to a distributor that lost many of its other major spirits suppliers last year. What will happen next? Full story linked in the comments. Credit to Dave Infante for first reporting the news.
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