Shelf Talks
Shelf Talks is the podcast for female founders, CPG entrepreneurs, and product-based business owners who want to get their products into retail stores and build brands that thrive once they're on the shelf.
Hosted by Roberta Townes, a retail buyer with more than 15 years of experience discovering and launching products at national retailers, each weekly episode features honest conversations with female founders who have successfully landed on retail shelves. Together, they pull back the curtain on how they pitched buyers, built wholesale partnerships, scaled distribution, increased brand awareness, and overcame the challenges of growing a product-based business.
Whether you're preparing for your first retail pitch or looking to expand into more stores, you'll gain practical strategies for retail readiness, wholesale growth, buyer expectations, merchandising, and increasing sell-through once your product hits the shelf.
If you're ready to turn your product into a retail success story, you're in the right place.
New episodes drop every week. Subscribe to Shelf Talks and learn what it really takes to get your brand retail-ready and winning in stores.
Looking for even more retail guidance? Roberta's book, Shelf Talk: A Step by Step Guide to Getting Your Product in Retail Stores, is available on Amazon.
Shelf Talks
From a Backpack to Retail Shelves: Denise Woodard’s Early Retail Strategy Building Partake
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Denise Woodard didn’t launch into national retail overnight. Before building Partake Foods into the powerhouse brand it is today, she was hand-unloading pallets, storing inventory in a storage unit, and walking into stores with cookies in a backpack.
In today’s Shelf Talks episode, we’re revisiting a part of my powerful conversation from October 2025 where Denise shares the scrappy, early-stage strategies that helped her get Partake Foods onto shelves. From using competitor store locators to build her first retail target list, to personally demoing products and promising store owners she’d come back until every box sold, Denise breaks down what it really looked like to build retail momentum from the ground up.
You’ll hear how she:
• Identified her first retail opportunities
• Landed early independent accounts
• Used demos as her first marketing strategy
• Collected customer feedback that reshaped packaging and positioning
• Turned grassroots hustle into larger retail opportunities
If you’re an emerging founder dreaming of getting into retail stores, this episode is proof that big retail wins often start with small, consistent action.
Listen to the full episode released 10/06/2025
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Reach out if you know of a female founder with an impactful brand and retail story and leave a review if you found value in this episode! Hello@shelftalks.com
Purchase the book Shelf Talk: A step by step guide to launching your product in Retail Stores by Roberta Townes Buy Book