The CPGenius Blog

For Poppi, Improving Deductions & Accrual Accuracy Came Down to One Thing

angela@promomash.com (Angela Guzman) — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 18:51:14 GMT

Poppi, the fast-growing prebiotic soda brand partly responsible for creating an entirely new category of better-for-you beverages, has scaled quickly across national retail channels in the last few years - culminating in its acquisition by PepsiCo in 2025.

In 2024, the Poppi team was searching for a solution to help them deal with increased complexity in trade spend, deduction management, and accrual accuracy. But as a fast-moving team, they were looking for more than just software. Hear from Ayyaz Zakaria, CFO at Poppi, on why they chose Promomash and what made the difference in solving their trade and deduction challenges.

UNFI SSA Deduction Change in 2026: What Suppliers Need to Know

Yuval Selik — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 22:01:42 GMT

If you work with United Natural Foods Inc. (UNFI) as a supplier (natural CPG manufacturer or brand), you’ve likely heard about changes coming to how deductions are processed starting February 1, 2026. It may be confusing at first, but for CPG brands it actually promises to be a cleaner, more predictable approach for accounting purposes.

Here’s a clear, brand-focused breakdown of what’s changing, why it matters, and how to prepare.

4 Trends Shaping CPG Trade Promotion & Deduction Management in 2026

caa@promomash.com (Chris Ambarian) — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 19:07:43 GMT

The consumer-packaged goods industry is entering 2026 amid a new wave of expected roller-coaster change. Higher inflation, tariffs, and increased regulation continue to threaten to upend the most fragile brands – and shake up even the most stable ones.

Still, what once felt like isolated market shifts are now increasingly expected as “business as usual.” Long-shifting consumer behaviors, the converging digital and physical grocery shopping experience, shrinking brand teams, and AI are all changing how brands plan, promote, and protect profitability.

This article dives into these four trends and their impact on trade and deductions in 2026 and beyond. Buckle up – and expect nothing less than another crazy ride in CPG!

The Most Expensive Lie in CPG: Why Promo Lift Doesn’t Mean Success

Yuval Selik — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 20:13:38 GMT

In the world of consumer packaged goods (CPG), few numbers grab attention like a report showing a 120% sales lift during a promotion.

How the Best-Performing CPG Brands Manage Trade Spend

Yuval Selik — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 19:36:35 GMT

In today’s retail environment, trade spend is one of the largest and most critical line items on a CPG company’s P&L. Yet, for many brands, it remains one of the most misunderstood and mismanaged parts of the business. The challenges are especially pronounced for growing brands: the faster you scale, the harder trade spend becomes to track, optimize, and justify.

5 Profit-Draining Traps CPG Brands Fall Into – and How to Avoid Them

Yuval Selik — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 15:00:00 GMT

There’s no screaming alarm for profit erosion in CPG. It happens gradually over time. It hides in Excel tabs, unclaimed deductions, and trade promotions that “look fine on paper” but quietly bleed margin in execution.

IRL (In Real Life) is Back in 2025: Seizing the Opportunity with In-Store Demos

tate@promomash.com (Tate Glasgow) — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 19:46:43 GMT

After years of enduring digital solitude post-pandemic, consumers are coming back to life - IRL, or "in real life," that is. And that includes everyday experiences like retail and grocery shopping. This - and other factors - are driving a revival of in-store demos in CPG.

Handling Deductions is Smoother than Butter for 4th & Heart

angela@promomash.com (Angela Guzman) — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 22:00:42 GMT

A deduction management solution that actually worked. This is what Max Dichter, CEO of ghee butter brand 4th & Heart, was seeking in 2022 when he turned to Promomash for help with an increasingly overwhelming amount of deductions. Having tried multiple approaches in the past with limited success, the 4th & Heart team knew they needed something more scalable, efficient, and reliable as the brand continued to grow.

How to Allocate Trade Funds for Maximum ROI

Yuval Selik — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 13:49:44 GMT

In CPG, effective trade fund allocation - the practice of distributing trade spend across different channels and retailers - is essential for a brand's success. How can you ensure you allocate for maximum delivery and ROI?

Deploying AI in Trade Promotion Management and Deduction Management: A Balanced Perspective

tate@promomash.com (Tate Glasgow) — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 15:23:31 GMT

Summary: AI is transforming trade promotion management and deduction management, but success lies in balancing automation with human expertise. While AI enhances efficiency, speeds up deduction processing, and improves trade spend insights, it can't replace strategic decision-making. Trust in AI depends on transparency, accuracy, and its role as a support system—not a standalone solution. Promomash’s human-in-the-loop (HITL) approach ensures brands get the best of both worlds: AI-driven speed and expert-driven accuracy. As AI-powered solutions flood the market, CPG brands must ask the right questions to ensure they choose technology that truly adds value.

The Butterfly Effect of a Disorganized Trade Calendar: Small Mistakes, Big Revenue Losses

Yuval Selik — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 15:21:12 GMT

Summary: Disorganized trade calendars quietly drain revenue, waste resources, and damage retailer relationships—making trade spend optimization critical for CPG brands. Many brands unknowingly lose money through overlapping promotions, unvalidated deductions, and misaligned retail strategies, leading to missed opportunities for growth. By streamlining trade calendars, aligning promotions with retailer priorities, and leveraging integrated tools, brands can turn chaotic spending into a profit-driving strategy. This blog explores common trade calendar pitfalls and proven solutions to maximize ROI, reduce deductions, and optimize trade spend for sustainable growth.

The Hidden Cost of Unaccountable Trade Spend

Yuval Selik — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 20:14:06 GMT

Summary: Many CPG brands unknowingly bleed cash due to poorly managed trade spend, a hard lesson the author learned firsthand as a founder. Trade promotions often fail to deliver ROI, deductions go unvalidated, and cash flow takes a hit, threatening a brand’s survival. Without visibility and control, brands end up paying for ineffective promotions, inaccurate retailer charges, and lost dollars in deduction disputes. The solution? Ditch spreadsheets, centralize trade spend data, validate promotions in real-time, and implement a structured deduction management process. By taking accountability, brands can stop the financial drain, protect margins, and secure long-term profitability.

The Power of Unit Economics in CPG

Yuval Selik — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 21:31:41 GMT

Summary: Success in CPG retail isn’t just about growth—it’s about profitability. Too often, brands focus on sales volume without considering whether each sale adds real value. That’s where unit economics comes in. By understanding the profit contribution of each unit—whether by retailer, product, or promotion—brands can make smarter decisions, optimize trade spend, and drive sustainable growth. Ignoring this leads to wasted resources and lost investor confidence, while brands that focus on unit economics unlock smarter growth opportunities. With tools like Promomash, brands can track profitability in real time and make data-driven decisions that fuel long-term success.

Overspending on Trade Promotions? How to Find Out and Fix It.

Yuval Selik — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 18:27:50 GMT

Summary: Overspending on trade promotions is a common challenge for CPG brands, often leading to diminished profitability instead of increased sales. To optimize trade spend, brands need structured oversight, measurable KPIs, and data-driven strategies. Red flags include low promotional ROI, excessive discounts with minimal sales lift, high trade spend relative to sales growth, and lack of visibility into outcomes. Solutions involve conducting trade spend audits, aligning promotions with clear KPIs, leveraging AI and predictive analytics, exploring alternative tactics like loyalty programs and product bundling, and implementing post-promotion analysis (PPA). By adopting these strategies, brands can transform trade promotions into a competitive advantage, ensuring every dollar drives measurable sales and profit growth.

Flying Blind: The Case for Real-Time Trade Promotion Management (TPM)

Yuval Selik — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 18:44:22 GMT

Many CPG brands still rely on spreadsheets or outdated tools and settle for stale, incomplete data to measure trade promotion performance and effectiveness. This limits their visibility and ability to control their destiny in retail. It can also lead to inefficiencies, lost revenue, and missed opportunities. In this blog, we introduce the idea of Real-Time Trade Promotion Management (TPM) as a solution to optimize trade spend, reduce costly errors, and enable timely, data-driven decisions that improve the health of your overall business.

The Role of Trade Promotion Management (TPM) in Growing Your Retail Business

tate@promomash.com (Tate Glasgow) — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 19:33:29 GMT

In a recent episode of the Foodbevy podcast Startup to Scale, our Co-Founder Chris Ambarian sat down with Jordan Buckner to discuss the critical role of trade promotion management (TPM) systems in managing the complexities of trade promotions, deductions, and chargebacks as a brand grows. While basic tools like Excel may suffice initially, brands soon need TPM systems to handle the increased scale and complexity of promotions across retailers and regions. Implementing TPM requires upfront effort, but early adoption significantly benefits brands by providing strategic control over trade spend, maximizing ROI, and ensuring effective cross-departmental collaboration.

Milkadamia Case Study: How Promomash Helped Optimize Trade Spend Management and Profitability

angela@promomash.com (Angela Guzman) — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 19:09:33 GMT

Before partnering with Promomash, Milkadamia lacked internal processes, procedures, and a platform to track chargebacks from distributors and trade spend from retailers. They had no visibility into the amount or type of chargebacks at the distributor or retailer level and didn’t reconcile, validate, or dispute them—resulting in a significant impact on their P&L.

Deduction Management: From Matrix to Metrics - Know Your Data

caa@promomash.com (Chris Ambarian) — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 19:05:01 GMT

Blog Summary: Managing deductions effectively is crucial for CPG brands to protect their bottom line, especially as they scale. By using key performance indicators (KPIs) and situational management, businesses can streamline deduction recovery, improve promotional spend efficiency, and enhance profitability. Outsourcing deduction management is often recommended for mid-sized brands to ensure clarity and scalability, while larger brands may benefit from building in-house capabilities.

6 Signs You Need Better Deduction Management Today

Yuval Selik — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 07:00:00 GMT

Summary: This blog outlines six clear signs that indicate when a CPG brand should consider outsourcing its deduction management process. From lacking a dedicated deductions specialist to struggling with backlogs, lost margins, and growing operational complexity, the post helps brands evaluate if they’ve outgrown manual or in-house approaches. It introduces DeductionGenius by Promomash as a comprehensive solution that combines technology and human expertise to manage, reconcile, and recover invalid deductions efficiently freeing up internal resources and improving profitability.

Revenue Growth Management | 6 Strategies for Emerging and Midsize CPG Brands

angela@promomash.com (Angela Guzman) — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 03:09:10 GMT

The past 4+ years have been no walk in the park for the CPG industry. Supply chain disruptions and inflation have added pressure to CPG manufacturers from all sides. While inflation is slowing, shoppers have grown tired of dishing out more and more of their household income for food – adjusting their behavior accordingly and making more cost-conscious decisions. (Recently PepsiCo announced that sales of Frito-Lay snacks actually fell compared to the previous period).

A Guide to Great CPG Field Marketing Management

rachel@promomash.com (Rachel Roedel) — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 16:51:33 GMT

Ready to dive into the wild world of field marketing management and in-store demos? If you work in marketing for a growing Consumer-Packaged Goods (CPG) brand selling in retail stores, this is for you. Whether you're new to the game or looking to refine your strategy, this guide will break down what makes a field marketing program truly effective. So grab a cup of coffee, sit back, and let's chat about how to make your field marketing efforts profitable and successful.

The Trifecta of CPG Trade Spend Management

Yuval Selik — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 15:18:45 GMT

Distributor chargebacks and deductions can do significant damage to brands, costing them millions of dollars annually. While many of these charges are stipulated in the distributor agreement, a sizable portion is mistakenly levied on brands. In fact, industry experts estimate that invalid deductions amount to anywhere from 10% to 25% of a brand’s annual trade spend. Unfortunately, the burden falls on brands to challenge and rectify these inaccuracies.

Graza Sets Itself Up for a Sizzling Future with Promomash + Crisp

angela@promomash.com (Angela Guzman) — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 18:00:33 GMT

Setting your company up for future success is just great leadership. And that's exactly what was top of mind for Melissa Ferrie, Head of Sales at growing olive oil brand Graza, when she came to Promomash looking for improved visibility into trade spend, streamlined trade planning, and a better way to manage deductions. Most importantly, moving away from the spreadsheets at this crucial point in the company's retail journey would allow them to capture critical data and insights that would help them better plan for the future.

Reclaiming Your Team's Time: 3 Strategies for Handling Deductions

tate@promomash.com (Tate Glasgow) — Thu, 23 May 2024 17:36:40 GMT

In the daily operations of your business, certain tasks drive immediate progress, easily justifying the use of your team's time. However, others, like deductions, aren’t as straightforward to prioritize. On the one hand, it can be seen as a priority because it directly affects the bank account and bottom line. On the other hand, the severity of impact and urgency is directly tied to the volume and amounts of deductions we’re talking about.

9 Keys to Success for New Retail Launches: Advice from Client Brands

tate@promomash.com (Tate Glasgow) — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 16:14:31 GMT

In the ever-evolving landscape of CPG, one timeless truth remains: It’s hard. Whether you're launching a new product or expanding your brand, establishing trust and getting off to a good start with your buyers is essential. We thought we’d ask our own client brands that have “been there” and “done that” for advice they’d share with other growing brands pursuing a new launch. So, with that said, here are 9 keys to success – straight from brands who have launched and grown successfully.

3 Lessons from Brands at Expo West 2024 on Achieving Sustainable C.P.G. (Cash, Profitability & Growth)

angela@promomash.com (Angela Guzman) — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 12:21:22 GMT

Each year, there are always a few new themes that tend to surface from Expo West. This year, as usual, food innovation was evident everywhere (plant-based candies and gummies, anyone?). But if you look beneath the surface of the booth displays and samples, there was another identifiable trend we noticed: a focus on sustainable growth and profitability. In just about every conversation we had, it was apparent that more than ever, brands were exploring ways they could save time, money, and grow profitably.

Hyper-Growth Brand Mid-Day Squares Chooses Promomash to Tackle Trade Spend and Deduction Management Challenges

angela@promomash.com (Angela Guzman) — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 12:24:29 GMT

On the road to becoming a $100M brand, Mid-Day Squareshas faced plenty of challenges. Anyone who has followed this buzzy brand on their reality TV-style journey knows.But when the time came to address the growing pains caused by an overwhelm of deductions and lack of visibility into their trade spend and overall growing business, we were honored that theMid-Day Squares team chose Promomash as their partner to solve these challenges and fuel growth towards the big goal.

5 Strategies to Boost Retail Sales Velocity

tate@promomash.com (Tate Glasgow) — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 21:25:17 GMT

If you’ve been in CPG long enough, you’ve likely been challenged at one point or another when it comes to sales velocity. In CPG, sales velocity is the measure of how quickly a brand’s products sell off the shelf. In other words, it’s that moment when “the rubber meets the road” because it proves that shoppers really do (or don’t) love your products. So, suffice to say, sales velocity is one of the most important metrics that any brand should be tracking. If you want to dig deeper into what it is and the math behind it, our partner Crisp provides a very helpful detailed breakdown here.

Introducing CPGenius by Promomash: How We Help Brands Run Their Business Better.

angela@promomash.com (Angela Guzman) — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 16:36:40 GMT

Santa’s elves aren’t the only ones who were working their tails off over the 2023 holidays.

Promomash + Crisp Partnership Celebrates One Year, a Client Milestone & Industry Award

angela@promomash.com (Angela Guzman) — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 00:15:27 GMT

Every now and then you come across partnerships that are so synergistic, you just know they were meant to be. When Promomash and Crisp partnered last year, we knew the impact was going to be big. But one year later, it's truly undeniable. From being recognized with an industry award to providing a real impact on a fast-growing group of brands across CPG, we couldn't be more pleased with the progress we've made so far. And the best part is it's only just begun! Here are some highlights from the first 365 days of this groundbreaking partnership, and a sneak peek of what to expect in 2024.

Partner Q+A with Crisp: Yuval Selik on navigating and executing holiday promotions

Jessica Fisher / Crisp — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 07:55:29 GMT

[This article was originally published here on www.gocrisp.com]

Crisp’s partner-in-promotions, Promomash CEO Yuval Selik, demystifies the intricacies of successful holiday promotions, providing brands with a clear roadmap to navigate the season.

10 Strategies to Help Brands Weather the CPG Winter

Yuval Selik — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 17:32:03 GMT

Winter is coming, but it feels like it’s already been here (economically speaking) for the last 6 months in the CPG industry. Raising money is an essential activity for growing brands. With capital having dried up, some brands have had to pull back on growth plans – and more sadly, others have had to pull out altogether.

The 6 Top Mistakes Brands Make When Going Into Retail

Yuval Selik — Mon, 14 Aug 2023 22:33:37 GMT

No matter what business you are in, getting experience in what you do and avoiding mistakes is often based on the principle "learning by doing." But if you are a new founder or owner of an emerging CPG brand getting their product on store shelves, there isn't much time to learn - it's more do, do, do.

Naturally, when you're getting into a business without much knowledge and experience there's going to be lots you don't know...until it slaps you in the face. And if there is an industry where you'll get slapped around a few times, it's CPG! 😱

Decoding Trade Promotions for Direct vs. Indirect Customers

Yuval Selik — Wed, 12 Jul 2023 16:02:13 GMT

Why does managing promotions for indirect customers often feel like you're in a game of 3D chess? Let's break it down…

Why Cutting Promotion During Hard Times is the Worst Thing to Do

caa@promomash.com (Chris Ambarian) — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 15:10:19 GMT

Early in my executive career, our top salesman in the world (out of 400 salespeople) shared an allegory that has really stuck with me through the years.

If You Don't NO, Now You NO: The Art of Saying "No" Strategically

Yuval Selik — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 18:37:29 GMT

In an industry like CPG where so much is happening all at once, it's crucial to recognize that every "No" makes room for a more significant "Yes."

Manzana Takes a Bite Out of Deductions with Promomash

angela@promomash.com (Angela Guzman) — Tue, 30 May 2023 16:57:47 GMT

Manzana Products is a producer of organic apple cider vinegar, apple sauce, and apple juice in California. The company has a rich, 100-year history of producing apples out of Sonoma County, and today operates as both a private label and CPG brand business that prides itself on using clean ingredients with no additives or preservatives. Their brand, North Coast, is in major retailers across the country.

5 Ways to Finally Tie Demos to Actual Sales

caa@promomash.com (Chris Ambarian) — Tue, 23 May 2023 15:46:46 GMT

If you’re an emerging CPG brand – especially one that’s introducing a new, innovative product to the market – demos and sampling are essential to driving trial and building brand loyalty. And, COVID notwithstanding, it continues to be the best way to do it for brands trying to make it in retail.

The Honey Pot Seizes Opportunities for Continued Growth with Help from Promomash + Crisp

angela@promomash.com (Angela Guzman) — Wed, 10 May 2023 19:35:57 GMT

Over the past 6 years, The Honey Pot Company has experienced exponential growth in retail.

Founder Bea Dixon started the company from her kitchen in 2012, and a few short years later the company’s feminine wellness products went from being sold primarily in Whole Foods to expanding into Target, Walmart, CVS, Walgreens, and several other major retailers globally. Dixon also gained attention as one of the first Black women to raise over $1 million in venture capital.

While the growth has been amazing, there are of course growing pains that have come along with it, especially when it comes to trade spend. The Honey Pot needed a way to better analyze and act on the mountains of data behind their trade performance and spend. This case study details their specific challenges, how the Promomash + Crisp partnership delivered acomplete solution, the onboarding experience, and finally, results and insights to date.

THE CHALLENGE:

Catching ‘Lightning in a Bottle’

With the rapid growth The Honey Pot was experiencing in its retail channel, understanding their trade spend at a granular level and whether their promotions were really working was becoming increasingly critical to the business.

Chelsea De Loughy, Director of Sales and Rosalyn Risdon, Director of Sales Planning, faced the challenge of balancing retailer demands for increased spend, a growing influx of customer deductions, and the constant need to make decisions that benefit the company strategically and financially.

“We have been fortunate to be what we call ‘lightning in a bottle,’” said De Loughy. “Having seen tremendous growth, controlling trade spend wasn't necessarily our top priority, but we did have a need to ensure our rate of growth was sustainable, and that our promotions and the efforts we were putting into play were beneficial to the business,” she further explained.“We knew we had likely lost trade dollars that we couldn’t get back and would never be able to track...to continue to grow and thrive as a business, we needed something.”

With no formalized process in place or systems in place to manage their largest customers, De Loughy and Risdon struggled to understand what was working and what was not in their trade spend and lacked a way to effectively compare forecasts to actual results. While they did get point of sale data from their retailers, it would come in the form of a giant excel spreadsheet, to which they would add their own shipment data. They would then have to manipulate it all, which was quite a cumbersome exercise.

“We had our own loose promotion tracker, so to speak, in spreadsheet form,” said De Loughy. “It was capturing the top line, but we weren’t able to take a magnified look deeper into it to review that trade spend in depth, especially when it comes to the deduction invoicing and coding. When those come through, it's hard to determine what goes into what bucket.”

“The promotional pieces and tracking that working and non-working trade spend was difficult because we did not have the right systems in place,” said Risdon. “I'm managing Target and Walmart – those are two big customers that take a lot of time. Budgeting funds for promotions and dealing with the amount of deductions received, not only from promotions but from OTIF charges too, was definitely a challenge.”

THE SOLUTION:

Promomash + Crisp

After seeing its Trade Promotion Management Platform in action and learning about how its turnkey Deduction Management service works, the team at The Honey Pot concluded that Promomash offered the best solution to solve their challenges.

In addition, thanks to the newly launched Promomash + Crisp partnership in October 2022, The Honey Pot team also gained access to the Crisp retail analytics platform. Not only would this give them access to Crisp’s powerful retailer dashboards, but it would also give them Crisp data-enabled reporting and analytics within Promomash.

The combination of Promomash + Crisp helped The Honey Pot streamline day-to-day operations and make more strategic decisions for their retail business in several ways:

Cutting the time to interpret / analyze promotions by having all data available and easily consumable in one place, Promomash, instead of multiple systems/spreadsheets.
Viewing retailer landscape and performance in one screen, at a macro and micro level, with Crisp’s easy-to-use dashboard.
Tracking deductions and associating them to trade spend more effectively by outsourcing deduction management to Promomash.
Having more effective customer conversations and negotiations by being able to quickly analyze the financial impact of promotions in Promomash, including actual lift generated.
Identifying void and growth opportunities in retailers where presence is not as strong as it could be using retailer-specific sales data in Crisp.
Uncovering the real story behind promotions by using Promomash + Crisp hand-in-hand to understand overall business performance and results at a granular level.
Avoiding assumptions about baseline sales by using actual data from Crisp paired with promotional data in Promomash to capitalize on opportunities to grow ROI.

GETTING STARTED:

The Onboarding Process

Going in, both Risdon and De Loughy understood that in order to get the most out of the Promomash + Crisp solution, a sufficient amount of time and attention would be required from The Honey Pot team to secure all the data and assets needed for a proper setup.

“The Promomash and Crisp teams were very buttoned up and organized in communicating what we had to provide and how we should provide it,” recalls Risdon. “The work on the front end to get Promomash set up takes some time, but it’s garbage in, garbage out...so we needed to make sure that everything we were providing was accurate so that we were getting accurate data back from the dashboard.”

Risdon went on to explain that in hindsight, the process would have unfolded more quickly if all internal teams had aligned from the beginning of the project. Her recommendation for other brands going through the onboarding process is to have an internal owner for the project.

“There's a lot of information to load from a retailer perspective, but there's also a lot of information and access that needs to be given on the accounting side to really be able to get access to all those deductions and that part of it too,” said Risdon.

Additionally, the Promomash team created a new way of entering promotions for The Honey Pot team to accommodate certain complexities in their business.

“The Promomash team’s flexibility in customizing how promotions were entered for us was extremely helpful for our team, and made our onboarding process that much smoother,” recalled Risdon.

Once the sales, accounting, and demand planning teams at The Honey Pot met and aligned on what needed to be delivered to Promomash and Crisp, it was, as Risdon said, “like a light switch” in that the rest of the process moved forward quickly and smoothly. With all of the historical data from the previous year and year-to-date loaded, The Honey Pot team was ready to dig in to better understand their retail business.

Insights & Results

In the several months since The Honey Pot team launched Promomash + Crisp, the team has been diving into both platforms to answer a multitude of questions about their retail business that have long gone unanswered and would either prove or disprove long-held assumptions.

At-a-Glance

Promomash

The first order of business for The Honey Pot team was to turn their deductions challenges over to the Promomash Deduction Management platform and team of experts to begin to properly organize, categorize and track trade spend at a more granular level. Since November of 2022, the Promomash team has been able to identify over $122,000 of deductions as invalid and has so far recovered over $56,000 of that amount for The Honey Pot.

Aside from the value of the recovered deductions, the insights the granular deduction data now provides in the Promomash platform has also started paying dividends for the team.

“It is great to be able to track deductions more closely in real time,” said Risdon. “Before, we were only looking at it on a monthly basis as a pivot table that rolled up into a summary. Now, it’s so much more aesthetically pleasing and less overwhelming to be able to go into the Promomash dashboard and look at deductions in as granular a level as we need. There are really great things our internal team is seeing from that, and we’re very happy with how everything is coming together.”

From a promotions perspective, The Honey Pot team now has one place to load all promotions, which allows them to do something they weren’t able to do in the spreadsheet they previously used: model what the financial impact would be of a range of different decisions related to the promotion.

“Once any promotion launches, we are able to go into the Promomash dashboard and look at what the actual lift was from the promotion based on what the retailer charged us back and what we spent,” Risdon said. “Analyzing that return on investment is really helpful to answer questions like, ‘do we feel these promotions are actually driving our business? Is it worth it? Should we try to stay away from these and negotiate a different type of promotion with the retailer?’ These are all things we're learning as we start to look at our data. It's just really nice to be able to look at that from a specific retailer perspective, and then overall for our total business as well.”

Risdon also points out that there has been a time savings element to having promotion and Crisp sales data in Promomash versus spreadsheets.

“Having it all in Promomash really does save on the backend, just being able to review the performance of those promotions without the extra work before even doing the analysis,” Risdon said. "I can just open up the platform, click on the retailer and promotion, and everything is already there for me. What would probably take an hour of my time pulling together I can now see in Promomash within five to 10 minutes to know exactly how that promotion performed.”

From De Loughy’s perspective, having the data in Promomash has already added value to some retailer conversations.

“Some retailers often times are really trying to negotiate with you on the spend or how deep you're going in on a promotion,” said De Loughy. “Being able to have the data in Promomash to showcase and say, ‘hey, this promotion costs us more than it yielded’ arms us with a lot for that negotiation.”

Crisp

With Crisp, the team has been leveraging the breadth and depth of retailer intelligence to explore growth opportunities in the channel. According to De Loughy, Crisp has become important in understanding The Honey Pot’s retail data in order to execute product launches successfully, identify growth opportunities, and letting the data “guide and facilitate” their decisions.

“With some of our retailers, especially the smaller ones, there’s the question of understanding if all items are launched and still on the shelf,” De Loughy explained. “We can also understand the consumer demographic, like with Target, where we can see where our top-line performance is in which states, stores, or even which SKU. This information can be very beneficial from a marketing standpoint to geotarget or focus on areas where we have a strong base or go after areas where we don't have a strong base, but if we grow that base, we will grow overall.”

Risdon has accessed data from Walmart, Target, and UNFI to help her understand where all of her retail accounts are, what their product assortment is, and how sales performance varies at the store level. With this information, she can forecast demand and find opportunities to optimize sales.

One example of a key business insight uncovered: Risdon noticed in Crisp that major UNFI accounts weren't carrying The Honey Pot's top-selling product in their mix -- leaving significant sales on the table. She then shared this insight with her UNFI buyer to get the best-seller stocked. Within three months, it was introduced into 900 stores, becoming Honey Pot's second-highest seller in both units and dollars at UNFI.

Ultimately, Risdon says, finding these distribution gaps creates a win-win partnership.

"We're helping the retailer and distributor, because they don't always understand those gaps in distribution. If we can work with UNFI to identify those items in specific chains for the retail buyer, it'll grow our business and it'll grow their business as well."

A Sweet Partnership

Using Promomash + Crisp has helped The Honey Pot manage their rapid growth and trade spend effectively, make more informed decisions, and answer critical questions about their retail channel. According to De Loughy, this is just the beginning as they look ahead to 2024 planning.

“Our promotions could always perform better,” said De Loughy. “That begs the question, what are those obstacles? How do we better plan for promotions in 2024 or the back half of 2023? The bigger dig-in will be just understanding where that miss is, and how we capitalize on that so that we are growing for each of the promotions and showing a real return on investment.”

With Promomash + Crisp, The Honey Pot team is now properly positioned to see their business even more clearly as time passes.

“Having a platform that’s as agile as Promomash, with Crisp data included, is making it easier for our teams to discern real trends and insights over time versus making a lot of assumptions and never knowing if they were true or not,” said De Loughy. “I’m excited for what’s ahead with Promomash + Crisp and what we will learn from our business.”

Learn More

Want to see how Promomash + Crisp can sweeten your brand's pot and
lead to profit growth? Contact us or visit our Crisp partnership page.

Download and share the full case study as a PDF

PAWS for an Important Announcement

Promomash — Sat, 01 Apr 2023 07:00:00 GMT

We're furry excited to announce... 🐾

Over the years we've supported many Pet Products and brands as clients. But this year, we're taking it to the next level.

The Promomash Team’s Top 5 Highlights from Expo West 2023

angela@promomash.com (Angela Guzman) — Thu, 23 Mar 2023 15:35:22 GMT

This year’s Natural Products Expo West show in Anaheim, California was one for the books. It was clear that, three years after the start of the pandemic, things are now really, REALLY, back to normal (finally).

How to Take Deductions from Annoying to Insightful

caa@promomash.com (Chris Ambarian) — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 22:16:42 GMT

There’s been a lot of talk lately within the community about deductions and the horror stories some founders have experienced with distributors and retailers. This article digs deep into deductions to help brands get a better understanding of what they are, why they happen and how to not only get them under control – but also leverage them to understand what’s really going on with trade spend across your retail channel.

Guest Blog: 3 Keys to Effective Trade Promotion Planning

Guest author: Scott Siegel — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 21:52:00 GMT

Brands can weather the storm during challenging economic times, so you’ve probably done some trade promotion planning to reach new consumers, build awareness, and drive velocity this year to keep your edge. But without an effective trade promotion strategy, you might be wasting money.

12 Ways Promomash + Crisp Will Make You a CPGenius

caa@promomash.com (Chris Ambarian) — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 19:16:35 GMT

There are many ways to be a genius, but to become one in CPG is next-level. We call that CPGenius.

To reach CPGenius status is to achieve something 80%+ of brands don't: long-term, sustainable success at the shelf. And in an industry as tough as CPG, that is a remarkable achievement.

So how do you reach that status? How does one become a #CPGenius? Keep reading for 12 tips, or you can skip the scrolling and watch the quick video below.

(Hint: Even we at Promomash can't do it alone. We count on our great partners at Crisp to jointly provide a solution that truly is genius.)

No more flying blind in retail. No more surprises with trade spend.

Crisp and Promomash are each a powerful tool on their own, but when used together the value is exponential and the possibilities are limitless. That’s why it’s CPGenius. (Crisp + Promomash = Genius). So without further ado, let’s dig in, shall we? Here are 12 ways Promomash + Crisp will make you a CPGenius.

MCB. SCAN. OI. OH MY!

Yuval Selik — Thu, 02 Mar 2023 19:17:00 GMT

For consumer brands selling on store shelves, trade promotions are a must to keep product moving and retailers happy. Using in-store promotions effectively can put your limited trade spend to work for you - and increase sales.

Whether your brand is growing distribution or going through the annual planning process, you must decide which customers to promote with, how much promotion is required to maintain shelf space, and where best to spend any additional promotion dollars to deliver maximum growth and profitability.

This is where pricing-driven promotional tactics like MCBs and OIs come in. There’s a lot of confusion around these tactics. What are they? And which one is the best one that NO ONE is talking about?

First, let’s define each.

Temporary Price Reduction (TPR): A tactic that represents spending for the brand during a pre-scheduled duration called a “promotional period.”
MCB (Manufacturer Charge Back): The amount charged by a distributor for shipments to a retailer (an indirect customer) who has been authorized by the brand to purchase products from the distributor at a discount.
Scan: Discount is applied at the point of sale (POS) to the consumer every time a product is “scanned” through the register.
OI (Off-Invoice): A discount amount taken off the sales invoice when a product is shipped to the distributor.

So which promotional tactic is BEST?

It depends on how you look at it. I find it helpful to ask: At the end of the day, who benefits?

MCB – Retailer wins!
The retailer can purchase more than they need (bridge buy) from the distributor and sell the excess at the non-discounted price.
TPR or Scan – Brand Wins!
The brand only pays on actual shopper purchases. No more, no less.
OI (Off-Invoice) – Distributor wins!
Again, that bridge buy! Distributors will purchase more than they need to get that discount off the sales invoice.

Now, here is what NO ONE is talking about…

The distributor and retailer have zero downsides when purchasing more than they need. Why? Because of something called deductions.

Distributors and retailers are compensated by brands via deductions off of their invoices for shipped product. The reasons for deductions beyond normal trade spend are various – spoiled or expired products, PLCs or Product Loss Claims, to name a few.

Bridge buys can amount to higher discounts and higher deductions, sometimes significantly higher amounts than planned (if the retailer or distributor claims spoilage, for example).

After 16 years in CPG, I know one thing: retail is a difficult journey. The cards are stacked against you as an emerging brand. It feels like Vegas...the House always wins. And the emerging brands feel like they only have two choices:

1. Pay to Play and stay on the shelf (Big flashing ATM sign on your forehead)
2. Say no and get discontinued

There’s got to be a better way.

Arm yourself with knowledge. Know what to expect and have a good understanding of distributor and retailer contract terms when it comes to promotions, deductions and reasons for charges. It’s also helpful to leverage the experience of others in the CPG industry who have been there before.

And finally, to get the most out of your trade spend, you have to measure results quickly and often in order to assess performance and make decisions. And you need to do it efficiently so you don’t end up adding even more to your spending. Keep a close eye on those deductions by planning for them and tracking against actuals to avoid any unwelcome surprises.

If you need help finding that better way, we can help. We work with so many brands each day to help them gain more visibility into their trade spend and the details on where it's coming from so they can make better decisions moving forward...and before it's too late. Contact us and let's talk about your specific challenges with trade spend management.

Guest Post: 3 Classic Mistakes to Avoid When Launching a Natural Brand

Guest author: Karyn McCarthy — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 17:01:19 GMT

With over 30 years of consumer products goods experience with both blue-chip companies and brand-new startups, I have seen many successful new item launches in my lifetime. I have seen what works and why. From that experience, I share below a few key insights here on mistakes commonly made by entrepreneurs when launching their ‘baby’ aka new Natural/Specialty brand!

Those Pesky Deductions: How They Happen and Why Emerging CPG Brands Should Care

caa@promomash.com (Chris Ambarian) — Thu, 12 Jan 2023 23:26:30 GMT

If you’re working with a CPG company experiencing or planning for growth in your retail footprint, deductions are probably quickly becoming (or have been) your biggest headache. We've heard from so many emerging brands that have felt frustrated, helpless, and downright angry once they start realizing those checks they're expecting from customers (finally) either don't come in the amount they expected, or don't come at all.

But there's good news: you're not alone, and you're in the right place to get some guidance on what to do.

Crisp Data is Now Integrated Into Promomash. What Does This Mean for CPG Brands? Everything.

caa@promomash.com (Chris Ambarian) — Mon, 14 Nov 2022 17:15:29 GMT

Managing trade spend effectively is a vital factor for survival of any emerging CPG brand. In fact, most emerging brands die at the shelf because they didn't know how to do this very well. And how could you blame them? Just getting a basic understanding of what your trade spend even IS is in itself a very arduous task, to say the least:

Manually downloading actual sales data from separate retailer portals for each customer...
Subscribing to separate services to get the data, 30 days old, at an additional cost...
Compiling that data into trade promotion management systems or spreadsheets...
Then making sense of it all and trying to extract insights that help you make better decisions going forward.

All of this requires significant effort, resources and time - much more than most growing brands have to spend. And really, how can you understand if any actual lift occurred from promotions when there's a month’s delay in the data?

Spacestation CPG and Promomash Cooperate to Transform How Emerging Brands Work with Retailers

Promomash — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 22:54:35 GMT

The CPG industry serves more humans than any other in this world. And yet when it comes to digital transformation and modernization, it’s the most archaic – laden with paper trails, spreadsheets, and inefficiency at every turn.

Yuval and Chris Have "15 Minutes of Genius" with Alex Bayer of Genius Juice

Promomash — Wed, 15 Sep 2021 17:16:28 GMT

Recently our co-founders Yuval Selik and Chris Ambarian joined Alex Bayer, founder of Genius Juice, on his 15 Minutes of Genius podcast. Various topics were covered - from the story of how the co-founders met, Yuval's recently launched podcast, The 7 Hats, to how and why Promomash was one of the lucky businesses to survive through 2020 and the pandemic, and finally - a topic most emerging CPGs don't want to talk about - deduction management.