BusinessEntrepreneurship

Shelf to Scale

Devesh Tilokani

Shelf to Scale is a podcast featuring conversations with the founders, operators, and industry leaders behind today’s growing consumer products.

Each episode explores how brands expand distribution, navigate retail partnerships, and scale across new channels and markets.

From emerging CPG/FMCG startups to established manufacturers, we unpack the real-world challenges of growing consumer products across retailers, regions, and distribution networks.

Hosted by Devesh Tilokani, Shelf to Scale brings together perspectives from across the consumer goods ecosystem to share what it takes to scale

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25 episodes
weekly
Avg 36 min
English

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Thursday · 39 min
$4M Company, $748 in the Bank: A CFO on CPG Cash Flow
A $4M company finished the year with $748 in the bank. A 100-store retail win would have run another brand out of cash in 5 weeks. Fractional CFO Scotty Palmer breaks down why profitable CPG brands run out of cash, and the numbers to fix first. Scotty Palmer is a CPA and fractional CFO who works with food and beverage brands, including a hot sauce brand, distilleries and breweries. His last corporate job was at Honey Baked Ham. He started his firm by helping a family friend's business that was profitable on paper but had no cash. He breaks a business down into 5 layers: cost of goods, overhead, working capital, pricing and the growth tax. Key takeaways: Profit isn't cash. Slow insurance payments, debt payments and owner draws left a $3.5 to $4M company with $748 [check] in the bank. Model a big retail win before you say yes. A distillery started in 10 stores instead of 100, the first POs funded the next round, and it's now heading to 54 stores. Go through distributor deductions line by line. One company had almost half a million dollars in deductions, about 12% of revenue. Cash conversion cycle: days to get paid, plus days inventory sits, minus days to pay suppliers. 50 to 70 days is pretty good. For late payers, try 2/10 net 30. Never rely on one co-packer. One brand lost its only cheese supplier, then lost Costco, and went from $2M to $600K overnight. Before you scale, hit at least 3 of these 4: 40 cents gross margin on every dollar, more current assets than current liabilities, 12+ months of consistent profit, and at least 4 months of cash runway. Get Scotty as your fractional CFO free for two weeks: callwithscotty.com
October 22 · 33 min
16 Hours, Zero Chocolate: How Mindful Monk Got Into Whole Foods
Alice Grey waited 16 hours for chocolate to come out of a 20K machine. It never did. Here's how she fixed it, got into Whole Foods and 140 stores, and why her first hire tripled the business. Alice Grey is the founder of Mindful Monk, dark chocolate squares sweetened with monk fruit juice concentrate and sold in the fridge section. She started making them in her kitchen in 2018 while pregnant with her second daughter and managing gestational diabetes. Today Mindful Monk is in about 140 stores across Canada, Whole Foods is its number one store, and she just launched Cacao Blends, a single-serve hot chocolate line. Key takeaways: Whole Foods lists through category reviews. After approval it took another 6 to 8 months to hit shelves, so plan for over a year. If you make it in-house, retailers like Whole Foods and Sobeys will ask for a food safety audit. Get a consultant or lean on founder friends. Alice passed her first one with 94%. Co-packers wanted her to swap ingredients, so she kept her chocolate in-house. For hot chocolate she found a co-man who used her ingredients. Vetting a co-man: price, MOQs, which brands they've worked with, and your gut. Your first hire should take over the task eating most of your time that you can train someone to do. For Alice that was production. Find Mindful Monk: Website: https://mindfulmonk.co/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mindfulmonkchocolate
October 15 · 35 min
The $200 Amazon Test Every CPG Founder Should Run First
There’s a $200 Amazon program that gets 30 brutally honest strangers to review your product before you commit to a manufacturer’s MOQs. Most founders have never heard of it used this way.Shahnawaz Sheikh swears by it, and his own brand went from a website contact-form inquiry to every SKU in every Goodness Me store. Shahnawaz Sheikh built and exited Mommy Knows Best to a venture capital firm, spent a year chasing generative AI, and came back to brand building with Canadian Grace, a Canadian-made beauty oil brand (argan from UNESCO biosphere reserves in Morocco, marula from Namibia, batana from Honduras). He spent the first six months online only, tracked return rate instead of retention, and walked into retail buyer meetings, including Walmart Canada, with a folder of proof points instead of a pitch. Canadian Grace is now heading for 200+ stores across the GTA and expanding its travel retail placement from Toronto to Vancouver and Calgary. If you’re a CPG or beauty founder deciding between online and retail, Canada and the US, or wondering how to get a retailer to come to you, this is the playbook. GUEST Shahnawaz Sheikh, Canadian GraceLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shahnawaz-sheikh-b692401a/ Website: https://canadiangrace.ca/SHELF TO SCALE Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani.
October 2 · 31 min
Ethnic Grocers Lose $210K a Year Per Store. Here's Why
Being in Whole Foods won't get your product into an ethnic grocery store. Aaqib Usmani, CEO at Tasteport, explains what actually does. How do CPG brands sell to ethnic and independent grocers, and why are those stores losing $210K in profit a year per location? Aaqib works with the international grocers that serve North America's Asian, Latin and African communities, and his platform holds a catalog of over 15,000 SKUs. In this conversation he breaks down how CPG founders should approach ethnic grocery stores: why trust beats sales stats, why store-by-store visits beat Zoom calls, why real customer content outperforms influencer content. He also shares the number behind his business: by his estimate, cultural grocers lose about $210,000 in profit per location every year to expiry, redundant labor and poor product discovery. If you are a CPG or FMCG founder trying to get on shelf in independent and specialty grocery, this is the playbook. GUEST Aaqib Usmani, Tasteport LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaqibusmani/ Website: https://tasteport.com/ SHELF TO SCALE Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani. #CPG #EthnicGrocery #RetailDistribution
September 25 · 32 min
He Quit Goldman Sachs to Make Snacks From Food Waste
Yousuf Ahmed left Goldman Sachs to turn leftover oat milk pulp and corn grits into a better-for-you Cheetos. Why did his first product, a $15 cookie sandwich, have to die before B-Sides could work? B-Sides makes upcycled crunch puffs from food manufacturing byproducts that would otherwise be thrown out. Before that, Yousuf launched a premium pastry line in 25 NYC locations. He calls it "very expensive market research." He then spent around $30K formulating a snack puff, hit 40% organic reorder rates with zero retention marketing, and chose a Canadian co-man because the lowest US MOQ was 50,000 lbs versus 5,000 lbs in Canada. If you're building a snack brand and trying to get unit economics, positioning, and your first production run right, this one's for you. GUEST Yousuf Ahmed, Founder of B-Sides Email: yousuf@enjoybsides.com Website: https://www.enjoybsides.com/ SHELF TO SCALE Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani
September 10 · 37 min
How to Get Your Product on Shelf in Canada | CPG Distribution
Jim Kavanagh spent 49 years in Canadian grocery as a Sobeys and Metro category manager, a distributor, and now a food broker. He explains what getting on shelf actually costs. In this episode: - Why a $30,000 listing fee can be the wrong move in year one, and what to take instead. - What a category manager is thinking the moment you sit down: what am I removing for you? - Off-invoice programs, free fills, shrink allowances, and the costs founders never model, - How to read a store before you pitch it, including the dust ring trick - Why retailers now demand non-GMO certification instead of accepting the claim on pack, - The signs Jim uses to decide a brand isn't ready for a broker yet Jim founded Brandseed Marketing in 2014 after leaving a senior grocery role at 51. He represents better-for-you brands into Canadian retail and works as a master broker into the US. He turns down brands that compete with each other on the same shelf, which is rarer in brokerage than founders assume. Website - https://www.brandseedmarketing.ca/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jkavanagh/ Shelf to Scale is a weekly podcast for CPG and FMCG founders navigating distribution, retail, and international scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani. Follow on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
September 3 · 27 min
How This Ice Cream Brand Went From 200 to 700 Stores | CPG Pivot
He was in 200 stores with pints. He killed the entire product line and went to 700. The idea that did it came from his sister, talking about her toddler's baby food. Sam Rose founded Rosebud Ice Cream and spent two years making every single pint by hand. Wake at 5am, teach boxing, drive from Denver to Longmont, make ice cream from 2pm to 2am, then deliver to Whole Foods before they stop receiving at 11. Two years of that got him to roughly 200 stores. Then he pulled pints entirely, put soft serve in a pouch, and landed in about 700. This episode is the full mechanics of a CPG packaging pivot: why frozen retail distribution punishes new brands why a co-packer will take your machine and refuse to run it how he got retail buyers to say yes to a blank hand-packed pouch with taped-on artwork. If you are a CPG or FMCG founder fighting for a shelf facing that only opens when someone else loses theirs, this is the episode. GUEST Sam Rose, Founder and Cream Executive Officer, Rosebud Ice Cream LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samuel-rose-19998b1b0/ Website: https://rosebudicecream.com/ SHELF TO SCALE Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail buyers, co-packers, and international scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani. New episodes every Thursday. #CPG #RetailDistribution #FoodAndBeverage
August 27 · 35 min
He Did $1M Running In-Store Demos. Here's What Works
Matthew Kubick has run tens of thousands of in-store CPG demos since 2015, and he says a profitable demo can still be a failed one. Here is how he reads the numbers.In this episode:- Why he tells brands to take a loss on every unit sold at a demo- The metric that tells you whether the problem is your rep, your price, or your product- Costco roadshows: what six figures in four days actually costs you up front- Why the same product ships in different pack sizes to GNC and Walmart- Why 90 percent of CPG brands should sell direct to consumer before retail- The reason he turns down brands who negotiate on a ten demo minimumMatt founded Local Demo Service in November 2015 after a prayer, a farmers market booth in Honolulu, and a job bagging coffee for nine dollars an hour. He now runs demo and field marketing activations nationwide for brands including Laird Superfoods and Alice Mushrooms, and this year the business crossed a million dollars in revenue. He also runs the activations for the two best-selling beverages on Sprouts shelves right now.If you are planning your first retail demos or you have a Costco roadshow on the calendar, this is the operational detail nobody publishes. GUEST Matt Kubick — Local Demo Service LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-kubick/ Website: https://naturalbrokerage.com/ SHELF TO SCALE Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani #CPG #FMCG #RetailDistribution #CostcoRoadshow #FoodAndBeverage
August 20 · 33 min
How to Build in Public and Launch a Food Brand | Cotto
She was blending cottage cheese in a rented New York commercial kitchen and meeting strangers in parks and Starbucks to hand off the dips they'd bought online. That unscalable model is exactly what got Cotto onto shelves at Fairway Market and West Side Market. Kendall Kransdorf started Cotto after health issues forced her to cut foods out of her diet and cottage cheese became her main whole food protein source. She built a social audience before the product existed, used it as a free focus group to lock her packaging before printing a single case, and sold through a commercial kitchen so she could iterate the formulation week to week instead of waiting on a co-manufacturer. In this episode she breaks down the parts of the refrigerated CPG business nobody warns you about: free fills, who actually pays for promotions, the distributor markup between you and the retailer, nine to twelve month retailer review cycles, and why a late freight truck costs you a week of shelf life you can never get back. If you are building a refrigerated food brand, or trying to get from specialty stores into chain grocery, this is the operational reality. GUEST Kendall Kransdorf — Founder, Cotto Instagram / TikTok: @getcotto Website: https://getcotto.com/pages/find-us SHELF TO SCALE The podcast for CPG and FMCG founders navigating distribution, retail, and international scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani, #CPG #FoodStartup #RetailDistribution
August 6 · 37 min
He Lost $120,000 to a Recall. Here's What Saved the Company
One dairy trace cost this Canadian plant based brand $120,000, three months of unpaid shipments, and a public recall. PlantUp founder Aamir Malkani on getting into Sobeys, UNFI, and 1,200 retail stores across Canada. Aamir came to Canada from a textile manufacturing family in India, knew nothing about food, and cold messaged plant based protein suppliers on LinkedIn until one took a bet on him. Three years later PlantUp is in the frozen aisle and the snack aisle at Sobeys, Metro, Longo's, Fortinos, Whole Foods, Save On Foods and IGA. This conversation is the unglamorous version of CPG distribution. How he booked a trade show booth directly opposite UNFI, served dumplings like a food fest, and turned a lukewarm distributor conversation into a national buyer referral in one afternoon. Why he and his co-founder personally walked into 54 Sobeys and Foodland stores in five days and converted 42 of them before a single category review. Why he thinks a Toronto brand chasing national listings in year one is making a mistake, and the 7 million person math behind that. He also breaks down what a broker actually does versus a distributor, why trade spend is the line item most founders underestimate, and why he switched from pea and chickpea protein to Canadian grown fava beans for the snack line. Then the hard part. A dairy trace in the biggest butter chicken bite run of the year, a national recall, chargebacks that kept arriving seven months later, and what he did on a 20,000 member Facebook group instead of going quiet. If you are trying to get a food or beverage brand onto Canadian grocery shelves, this is the playbook. GUEST Aamir Malkani — PlantUp LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aamirmalkani/Website: https://plantup.ca/ SHELF TO SCALE Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani
July 30 · 27 min
Self-Manufacturing a CPG Food Brand: Why oomé Built Its Own Smokehouse
Distributor or broker? Miki Talebi built oomé smoked tofu into Whole Foods and breaks down the CPG distribution mistake most founders make. If you think signing a distributor means your product will finally get on shelves, this episode is the correction. Miki Talebi, founder of oomé, grew a premium smoked tofu brand into Whole Foods, Save On Foods, Metro and Longos with no CPG background and a PhD in psychology instead. She explains why she self-manufactures (there are no vegan smokehouses) why her product has to stay between 1 and 4 degrees or it gets rejected at the dock how she prices at a premium and makes retail buyers more money doing it the distributor-versus-broker confusion that quietly kills early food and beverage brands. Essential listening for any CPG or FMCG founder working on distribution, retail, and getting into grocery. GUEST Miki Talebi — oomé Instagram: @thisisoomeWebsite: https://thisisoome.com/pages/store-locator SHELF TO SCALE Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani
July 23 · 36 min
How to Choose a 3PL That Won't Lose Your Inventory | Rahim, Get Set Prep
How to choose a 3PL for your ecommerce or CPG brand from a 3PL owner who once had a fulfillment company lose his entire $1,500 order. Rahim is the founder of Get Set Prep, a Toronto 3PL fulfilling for CPG and ecommerce brands across Canada and the US. In this episode, he walks through the complete playbook for finding a fulfillment partner: when to switch from self-fulfillment to a 3PL, the 5 data categories you need for an accurate 3PL quote the questions to ask a 3PL before signing how to negotiate a 3PL contract — including why the strongest lever isn't price. He also shares a warehouse tour checklist for spotting red flags before your inventory arrives, and why 75% of brands that outsource fulfillment to him grow sales month over month. If you're a CPG founder comparing third party logistics providers or still packing your own boxes, this is the buyer's guide. GUEST Rahim Velji — Get Set Prep Website: https://getsetprep.com/contact-us/ Email: rahim@getsetprep.com Rahim's Phone Number: ⁠416-802-0816⁠ SHELF TO SCALE The podcast for CPG and FMCG founders navigating distribution, retail, and international scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani
July 16 · 40 min
Rejected by Dragons' Den 3 Times. Now in 1,300 Stores.
An ice cream brand put freezers in the produce aisle, next to the bananas, and sales jumped 200% in six weeks. How does a local startup out-merchandise global brands, survive three Dragons' Den rejections, and land 1,300 stores? Yazeed Yasin co-founded NanaShake with his wife Tamara after their son's asthma ruled out dairy and every alternative on shelf made things worse. In this episode: the pivot from a COVID-closed Toronto scoop shop to national CPG distribution, the four product iterations behind Nanopops 4.0 why they deliberately avoided the pint category for six years, the merchandising move no ice cream brand had ever pulled off. GUEST Yazeed Yasin - NanaShakeLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yazeedyasin/Website: https://nanashake.com/store-locator/ SHELF TO SCALE Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani
July 9 · 41 min
0 to 250 Stores in 12 Months Selling Vietnamese Fruit Snacks
David Ngo helped build North America's #1 poop bag brand. Then he bet everything on dried mango from Vietnam and hit 250 stores in 12 months. How do you scale a CPG brand when your first dollar doesn't come back for 9 months? David launched Nam Fruits in May 2025 and will be in 250+ Canadian stores including IGA, Provigo, and Metro by the end of June 2026. In this episode he breaks down the exact math: why a $1 retail product needs to survive a store margin and a distributor cut, why trade shows cost $6-10K and are still worth it, and why he says he couldn't have started this company without AI. If you're a CPG founder trying to crack retail distribution especially with an imported product, this is the operating manual. GUESTDavid Ngo — Nam FruitsWebsite: https://namfruits.com SHELF TO SCALE Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani
July 2 · 40 min
The Pricing Mistake That Kills Beverage Brands
Costco will pull every price you've ever sold at, find the lowest, and ask for 40% under it. Here's how a beverage operator prices so that never happens. Autumn heads R&D at Gnusante (Newbies, Radiate, 52 North) without a food science degree, after a career in ballet, modeling, and scuba diving. She breaks down the real margin math of beverage, the clear-pouch sampling trick that catches dishonest feedback, why a 33% velocity jump came from making the product smaller, and the barcode change that can get you delisted overnight. If you're building a CPG brand and trying to survive the move from DTC to retail, this is the operator detail most founders learn the hard way. GUEST Autumn — Gnusante (Newbies, Radiate, 52 North) Website: https://www.gnusante.com/ SHELF TO SCALE Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani
June 25 · 30 min
From 0 to 1,500 Stores With Cottage Cheese Ice Cream
He made ice cream out of cottage cheese. It's now headed for 1,500 stores. How do you build a frozen category that didn't exist, then get Sprouts, Whole Foods, and a 500-store retail win in your first year? Smear Case is the first and only frozen cottage cheese ice cream. Half the fat, half the calories, and the most protein of any pint on the shelf. Joe coined and trademarked the word "Froco" before he'd sold a single unit, won the Albertsons Innovation Launchpad pitch at Expo West (and 500 stores with it), and is closing in on 1,500 doors nationwide. If you're a CPG founder trying to create a category instead of fighting for shelf space in an existing one, this conversation is the playbook. GUEST Joe Rotondo - Smear Case LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephrrotondo/ Website: https://smearcase.com/ SHELF TO SCALE Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani | Silvertop Trading.
June 18 · 36 min
He Lost 1,500 Stores Overnight. Here's What He Did Next.
Arshad Bahl built Amrita Health Foods into 1,500 stores across Whole Foods, Sprouts, and Wegmans. Then lost all of it overnight to a product recall. What came next changed how he thinks about everything.In this episode: - Why a product recall was actually the best thing that happened to Arshad's business- The real role of distributors in your supply chain and why it's not what most founders think- How he built his own manufacturing facility for $150,000 using eBay and Facebook Marketplace- Why $10M in revenue at 15% margin beats $100M at 3% and the math behind staying small- What Peter Rahal, the Tom's Shoes founder, and dozens of other big exits have in commonArshad has been in CPG for over a decade — ran co-packers, ran his own factory, ran DTC, ran retail. He's one of the few founders in the space who has operated at every level of the value chain. This conversation is not about inspiration. It's about the structural decisions that actually determine whether a food brand survives. Guest links:- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arshad-bahl-61206373/- Website: https://www.amritahealthfoods.com/ Shelf to Scale is a weekly podcast for CPG and FMCG founders navigating distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani.
S1 · E11
June 11 · 31 min
The Freezer Aisle Is The Hardest Shelf In Retail. Here's How To Get In | Stush Patty
The buyer conversation most CPG founders get completely wrong — and what to say instead. Opal Rowe started Stush Patty during COVID, delivering hot patties out of her car. Today she's in Whole Foods, RABBA, and four provinces across Canada. In this episode, she breaks down exactly how she got there: two rejections from RABBA before getting in landing Whole Foods at her very first trade show the co-packing nightmare behind a product that looks simple. the one mindset shift that changed how she talks to buyers. If you're building a frozen CPG brand or any retail brand, this is the episode. Guest: Opal Rowe, Founder of Stush Patty Website: https://stushpatties.com/ Instagram: @stushpatty New episodes every week. Subscribe for conversations with CPG founders on distribution, retail and the real mechanics of scaling a physical product brand.
June 4 · 38 min
A 26-Year China Veteran's Complete Guide to Asia Sourcing
Paul Weedman has spent 26 years on the ground in Shenzhen sourcing products for brands from the West. He says 60–80% of Vietnam factory inputs still come from China. So what is China + 1 actually solving? In this episode, Paul breaks down the manufacturing ecosystem concept — why a factory is the smallest part of the supply chain why industrial clusters make China nearly impossible to replicate what actually happens when a brand finds a "good factory" and thinks the hard part is over. He also explains the human side of sourcing: why AI can teach you everything and still get you burned, why a translator is the wrong hire, and how a $10M business still comes down to two people walking a street in Shenzhen and sharing a beer. GUEST Paul Weedman — Victure Group LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-weedman/ Website: www.victuregroup.com SHELF TO SCALE Weekly conversations with CPG and FMCG founders on distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani
S1 · E2
May 28 · 38 min
A Distributor Blocked Her For Years. She's Still Here. They Aren't. Here's How
Miriam built Delicious Without Gluten from her basement to coast-to-coast distribution, an 8-year Boston Pizza contract, and a Wegmans pretzel that their own buyers couldn't tell was gluten-free. In this episode: Why the word "gluten-free" killed her Costco demo sales (and what she said instead) How a distributor exclusivity blocked her from Metro for years, and why she's still standing while that competitor isn't The pivot from retail to food service that saved her business after COVID The Wegmans private-label deal that almost died when Trump's tariffs hit The one financial mistake she made on day one that cost her 13 years of clean data Miriam started in fashion, moved into packaging design for food importers, then opened a peanut-free bakery for her daughter. When her two kids were diagnosed with celiac, she rebuilt everything from scratch. The factory had to have drains in the floor and lockers outside the production room. The certification took six months. The pretzel that pulled her into retail came from a kitchen experiment her kids actually wanted to eat. If you're a CPG founder who has been told the same retail playbook for years, this episode is the other side of the argument. Guest links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/miriampearl/ Website: https://www.deliciouswithout.com/ Shelf to Scale is a weekly podcast for CPG and FMCG founders navigating distribution, retail, and scaling. Hosted by Devesh Tilokani.

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