The Sweet Spot: Navigating B2B Ingredient Marketing in Baking (Ep. 6)

In this episode of the Ingredient Marketing Podcast, host Jake Oliver welcomes Alex Allen, Chief Operating Officer of Skinner Baking. With a focus on sweet goods, Skinner Baking specializes in private label and contract manufacturing, producing everything from danishes to brownies. Alex shares insights into the company's growth journey, the challenges of the B2B ingredient market, and the importance of maintaining high product quality while scaling operations. He discusses the evolving landscape of consumer preferences, including the demand for healthier options, and how Skinner Baking is adapting to meet these trends. Join us for a deep dive into the world of baking ingredients, contract manufacturing, and the strategies that drive success in this competitive space.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Ingredient Marketing Podcast, the show for food and beverage ingredient suppliers and manufacturers focused on driving awareness, interest, and demand. Each episode, our host, Jake Oliver, talks with ingredient brands and industry experts about what's actually working in B2B ingredient marketing today. Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

All right, well, most of our listeners sell B2B in the food and beverage, ingredient suppliers, manufacturers, and the teams behind the brands. Today I'm joined by Alex Allen, Chief Operating Officer from Skinner Baking. Baking businesses can have a few different lanes: production, formulation, private label, food service. I'm excited to unpack how Skinner works and how you've grown to this point. Alex, thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Glad to be here and uh excited to share about James Skinner and what we do. So we are a sweet goods bakery provider. We provide Danishes, brownies, muffins, cinnamon rolls, things like that, primarily in the private label and contract manufacturing space. So most people have eaten our product without ever knowing they've eaten our product. We also do some food service customers, and so we're in pretty much every major retail chain and often in many of many other stores. So we make millions of pounds of sweet goods a week and uh ship all over the country.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Very cool. So to expand on that a little bit, what role, if any, would you say your website has played in in your growth to this point? Uh being transparent? When I look at your website, it really comes off uh a bit more D2C at first, right? The the finished goods, the Danishes, and had to do a little bit of digging to understand the the B2B sides of your of your business. How how do you feel about the website? And is that something that that really serves the B2B side of your business, or is that something that your brand is maybe looking at working on in the future to align better with the B2B business model?

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Yeah, yeah, there's probably an opportunity there on the B2B side. We have some products that are Skinner labeled, so we have those displayed on our website, but we're also able to make all a much broader array of products that you know our website is set up for B2C, but I've seen some other, you know, contract manager focused companies have a really good B2B website where people can find them as a contract manufacturer and submit requests and ideas, and it sort of becomes like a job quoting a development process. So that's definitely something that we think we could look at. Cool.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

And if you were to go in that direction, so you just spoke about it a bit. What do you think would be the primary, you know, if if my B2B audience co-manufacturing private label could take one action from my website that would serve us the best, what would that action be? Is it a job quote like you were just explaining? What how would that look?

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Yeah, it'd be it'd probably we'd probably want to have some level of like register to see what we do, but we we would want them to be able to see our like range of product capabilities that we normally don't brag about and uh have an understanding of like our size. When somebody decides to like create a brand or somebody's growing and they need capacity, it can be really hard for them to figure out who is who is making these things. So if somebody is out there and they, you know, let's say they got a high protein brownie bar or something like that, and and they're making them in their single line factory and they get a huge order, there's not an easy way for them to go find somebody like us who can scale up and make hundreds of thousands of like brownie bars on short notice. And um I think that's really been a challenge is it's a challenge in that ecosystem where startups need to scale quickly for them to even find reputable contract manufacturers is hard.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

You mentioned like a brownie bar. Is there any rhyme or reason to the types of products that you guys are developing? Is it a lot of like functional stuff? Can you talk a little bit about the applications?

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Those are the areas that we're starting to be asked about. So most of our customers are coming from the national retailer chains, and so they're selling, they tend to be selling private label products, which are sort of generically the things most Americans like, like cheese fruit, Danish, make it taste good, we'll put our label on it. And the lot of the innovations happen by branded startups, and then when it becomes big enough, then a retailer might private label it. And so it seems that a lot of these lower sugar protein products are are becoming big enough mainstream that the retailers are saying, Hey, we're seeing SKU velocity with these claims. Can you make a version of the product you make for us that's lower sugar, higher protein? So that's some of the work we're starting to do. Definitely the natural flavors, natural colors is this year's big hot item with all of the rule changes. Gotcha. Makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Who's usually involved in the decision-making process to work with you guys? Like what is the what is the job title? Is it is it RD? Is it procurement? Is it the founder who's reaching out to you? What does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Yeah, so from the national grocer side, it's usually a category buyer. We sell into a few categories. So a lot of the Danishes sell into the breakfast category. Then there's somebody who does desserts where we sell brownies and lemon bars. And then there are some people, some chains have something like called a sweet good that doesn't, it's not really breakfast, it's not really dessert, and that's where like our cinnamon rolls will sell into. Some retail chains just have private label bakery, and they just buy all of it. So it kind of depends on the store and how they segregate their buyers. And then for a contract manufacturer where we're making products in their brand, they usually have a director of supply chain or a contract manufacturing buyer, somebody like that, who you know, they view us essentially as like an ingredient supplier, as like an upstream partner. And so from their end, their buyers are like supply chain professionals.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

Shifting gears here for a second, and I'll let you talk a little bit more about Skinner Baking. Oh, yeah, I imagine in private label co-manufacturing and baking, there's other options out there. So, what what makes Skinner baking different and what do you see as the main value that you bring to the table?

SPEAKER_01 6:24

We have maintained our higher volume, higher touch mix. So a lot of a lot of our competitors have cheapened up their products, taken out the automation, or have changed their ingredients so that instead of having a truly laminated butter shortening filled product where you have all these layers of dough massaged together and then hand folded and filled and topped, a lot of that has gone automated. And so they've cheapened up the cheeses and the fruits and the and instead of a laminated dough, it's more of like a cake mix. And um and so our product quality is still really high, and we're doing it at speed. So there's lots of smaller bakeries that are still making everything by hand. We have these big lines with dozens of people making dozens of Danishes at speed, and so you get handcrafted high quality bakery product at grocery store prices, and that's kind of our big selling point, is we're still that's where we're that's our niche is at scale and at high quality.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

Right. And is that what if if you were in your customer shoes and you asked your best customer what is the reason they've stuck with you? Do you think that's what they would say?

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Yeah, they've told us it cuts better. They're like your costs are higher, but it just every time we try to bring somebody else in, your stuff just cuts better. There's a reason you know you cost more and we can tell in the quality of the product. That's gotta be validating.

SPEAKER_02 7:47

Awesome. So let's talk growth. How has Skinner Bacon grown to this point? What actually has has driven your momentum? Is it trade shows, any online digital marketing? What what's gotten you to this point?

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Um, I think the number one thing that's got us here is consistent quality. We're putting the customer's name on the product and they need it to have consistently good quality and be delivered on time. And then if they see that, then they have given us more business. So it started, you know, here's the products we can make. Can you make us more? Can you make us these other things? And that's where some of our line extensions into cinnamon rolls and brownies came from was customers who appreciated our quality and wanted us to kind of pivot into those areas. And then getting new customers is some shows, some cold calling, tracking down who people are, and then once they see, oh, you're the guys who make that product for our competitor, yeah, can you make us a similar type item?

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Right. Is there a lot of um, you know, I don't know if NDAs are are typical here, but uh we have to be careful with you know what you share as far as what competitors you work with, and I see how you for sure would leverage that for more new relationships, but it's gotta be sensitive.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Yeah, it's one of those things that uh it's not really trade secret, but it's like uh it's like people kind of know who their other people are and other people in the space. And then there's a typically a lot of these customers, the grocery chains have annual and seasonal requests for quotes. So then us and the other people making products are presenting our products and our pricing. And so some of it's fairly formal. Some of it is, you know, hey, I kind of like that product. If you can make us, you know, a version, you know, it's like the customer has Apple spice, and can you make us a mango spice? You make it different enough, different size, different flavor profile, but they like it, and they might do it as like a limited time offering. Yeah, we'll buy a couple truckloads, we'll put them in every store and see how it sells, and if we like that, then you can bid on our next seasonal or annual set. Cool.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

Have you invested time or money into any marketing initiatives to acquire new customers, new relationships, and looked back on it and felt like it really did not pay off. It it was not a good marketing investment.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Before I got here, they spent quite a bit of time kind of on the website and on artwork and that kind of stuff. And like you said, as like the business to consumer. We're just not set up for people to buy our products like online or uh go find them in the stores. Even the stuff in our name is sort of treated as like a private label. So so for some of the smaller chains, we make stuff in our name, and that way they can have a smaller MOQ. So if if they're not ordering a truckload, they can buy our products at like a case quantity. Right. We don't necessarily always know where those go. Those are going to like small regional grocery stores. So it's so we can't even like put it up as a like product, you know, go find our product near us. It's it's a branded product, but it's not really sold like a branded product. So that was kind of an initiative that kind of fell apart was trying to be a consumer-facing brand when we really just need to be a business-to-business solutions provider.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

Makes a lot of sense. And you know, something I talk about a lot in these episodes is it's tough to invest well into digital, even web, you know, a website, you have to nail, I mean, exactly what you're saying, you have to nail what who do you want to speak to and what is a productive way to get in touch with you that works with your back-end processes, so the content and the the architecture of your website. Um, but you know, beyond just the website creation, AEO, email marketing, advertising, all these things that in traditional B2C industries are a lot more straightforward. It's tough in this B2B, very kind of old school relationship business. And so, yeah, that's one of the reasons behind the question is we love learning any tidbits where people have been able to really invest, invest effectively in some online marketing strategies. So on that note, do you see kind of looking forward for your future? Do you see whether it's digital or or events, what do you feel like you need to invest in to continue growing?

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Sort of like ideation for the customer. So the customer, you know, they're a big national chain and they're trying to sell stuff. And if we can show them their product with new claims and how it would look for them so that they can understand, like, you know, customers are saying low sugar, high protein, Danish. What does that look like? It sounds gross. Well, this is how you sell it, and this is how you put it on your website, and this is how you do it, you know, in ways that used to be really expensive. I wonder if there's like tools and stuff we could do to like help ideate for them so that they have better ideas of what we're able to make for them and how they would sell it and position it.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

I love that. That's a great answer. Okay, well, last couple questions here. As you look towards, you know, it could be marketing related or not, as you look towards the next five years for you guys, uh, next phase of your growth. What do you see as the biggest challenges facing you?

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Carbohydrates have been sort of under attack for decades. You know, Atkins diet and keto diet, and seems to be this GOP one is a little bit stickier, and also demographics are just changing. So that is a challenge and an opportunity. The people that are seeking out a sweet treat um are valuing the experience more because it's less often. So they want it to be more indulgent and are willing to pay a little bit more. You know, the days of, well, I buy a box of donuts and bring it to work every day. That's sort of gone away. Now it's like, well, donuts are uh, you know, a special treat on the weekend or on a special day or a birthday or an event. And so we're well positioned in that we're already the high end of the sort of like sweet treat space.

unknown 13:47

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

And so our challenge is probably going to be to continue to maximize that differentiation, you know, natural, real ingredients, shorter ingredient lists. A lot of the space has been driven by consistent look and shelf life. The store wants to take it out of the freezer, put it on the shelf, and have it be great for two weeks. Right. Somebody can come by and buy it. How do we do that with natural colors, natural flavors, less preservatives? That's gonna be the challenges. How do you do mass grocery while being natural and real products and really indulgent? Yeah, it's a it's a tough it's gonna be a tough circle to fill.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

Well, Alex, this has been great. I feel like there's a lot of tidbits in here and people who will listen, the challenges and things will will really resonate with. So thanks for thanks for sharing everything today. And is there anything that we didn't talk about that you'd like to share about Skinner Baking? Give us a call.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

If you're baking something and it's sweet and delicious, we might be able to help you do it. And where could people find you? You can find me on LinkedIn or any of our company on LinkedIn. And if you go on Google and just call our 800 number, you get into our customer service and and they can find us too. Cool. Well, thanks again for coming on, Alex, and thanks everybody for listening.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Take care. All right, thanks, Jake. That's it for today's episode of the Ingredient Marketing Podcast. If you enjoyed the conversation, be sure to subscribe for more insights on marketing, food, and beverage ingredients. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.