Douglas Raggio - What He Learned Reviewing 12,000 CPG Deals & Why 70% of Honey is Fake

On this episode, we’re joined by Douglas Raggio, the founder of Pass the Honey and author of So You Wanna: Start a Food or Beverage Business.

Douglas spent a decade as an investor reviewing over 12,000 food and beverage deals before launching Pass the Honey — a single-serve honeycomb brand on a mission to combat one of the most pervasive forms of food fraud in the world. Today, the brand is scaling rapidly in Kroger, Albertsons, and Sprouts, all while pushing a regenerative beekeeping agenda that goes far beyond what “organic” can promise.

We go deep on Douglas’s non-traditional approach to CPG - from why he believes in margin over virality, to how he’s building a new category in the produce aisle, not the honey shelf. We also unpack key decision points from his book and why most founders misunderstand what “success” really means in food.

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Episode Highlights:

 🍯 Why 70% of honey on the shelf is fake
 🐝 The problem with “organic” honey, and what regenerative apiculture offers instead
 📦 Building a new category in the produce aisle, not the honey set
 💸 Margin vs. consumption: the only two numbers that matter
 🔁 Why Pass the Honey doubled sales after doubling their price
 🔍 Why some products shouldn’t “fit” anywhere in the store
 🏪 How dump bins unlocked 50–70 unit weeks at Kroger
 📊 Top-down vs bottom-up pricing strategy
 🚪 Saying no to accounts that don’t meet minimums
 ⚖️ How Douglas thinks about store count vs velocity
 📉 Why 95% of CPG brands fail, and how to avoid being one of them

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Table of Contents:

 00:00 – Intro & Origin Story
 03:00 – Honey Fraud & Broken Standards
 08:00 – Building Pass the Honey’s Regenerative Supply Chain
 13:00 – Advice for Founders Entering CPG
 15:00 – Book Lessons: Endgame Clarity & Critical Decisions
 21:00 – What Retailers Want: Profit, Not Just Velocity
 28:00 – Managing Margins & Avoiding “Store Count FOMO”
 36:00 – Brands & Trends Douglas is Watching
 38:00 – Final Thoughts & Where to Find Douglas

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Links:

Pass the Honey – https://www.freshhoneycomb.com
Buy the book – https://a.co/d/ibCGJbs
Follow Douglas on LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/douglasraggio

Follow Adam on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-martin-steinberg
Check out https://www.kitprint.co/ for CPG production design support.