Shelf to Scale

Devesh Tilokani
  • 5.0 (7)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Weekly

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

  1. 3d ago

    $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

    $4M Company, $748 in the Bank: A CFO on CPG Cash Flow

  2. Oct 22

    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

    16 Hours, Zero Chocolate: How Mindful Monk Got Into Whole Foods

  3. Oct 15

    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.

    The $200 Amazon Test Every CPG Founder Should Run First

  4. Oct 2

    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

    Ethnic Grocers Lose $210K a Year Per Store. Here's Why

  5. Sep 25

    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

    He Quit Goldman Sachs to Make Snacks From Food Waste

  6. Sep 10

    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.

    How to Get Your Product on Shelf in Canada | CPG Distribution

  7. Sep 3

    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 brandswhy a co-packer will take your machine and refuse to run ithow 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

    How This Ice Cream Brand Went From 200 to 700 Stores | CPG Pivot

  8. Aug 27

    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

    He Did $1M Running In-Store Demos. Here's What Works
See All (29)

Trailer

5
out of 5
7 Ratings

About

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

Information

  • Creator
    Devesh Tilokani
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    29
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Devesh Tilokani
  • Show Website
    Shelf to Scale