How Product Discovery Platforms Empower Food Entrepreneurs in 2020

How Product Discovery Platforms Empower Food Entrepreneurs in 2020
Specialty food sales are continuing to outpace the growth of all food, up by 10.3% in 2019, compared to 3.1% for the entire food industry. The 2019 State of the Specialty Food Industry Report, compiled by the Specialty Food Association, credits this massive growth to a few key factors: product innovation, diverse consumer lifestyles, and a wider availability of specialty foods through mass-market outlets. The market conditions and industry momentum are all contributing to this category being particularly competitive. In this highly innovative space, Product Discovery Platforms are carving new ground, enabling food entrepreneurs to revolutionize the industry and succeed at a higher pace than ever before.

 

What are Product Discovery Platforms?

Product Discovery Platforms are a relatively new trend in the world of eCommerce. These new product marketplaces enable food shoppers to find niche products developed by independent creators as well as venture-backed food founders. Product Discovery Platforms are typically powered by technologies like Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, to facilitate product matching between buyers and sellers, and create advanced product recommendation algorithms.

 

Top Food Product Discovery Platforms in 2020

What are the leading Product Discovery Platforms in 2020 where food entrepreneurs can list their products? We’ve done the research – here are the industry leaders:

RangeMe is the leading online platform that streamlines product discovery, sampling, and sourcing between suppliers and retailers. It boasts a network of over 7,000 retail shoppers, 150,000+ suppliers and more than 600,000 different products listed on the platform. For food suppliers, RangeMe offers the essential tools they need to grow their food business: Brand Profiles, highly customizable Product Pages and  Profile Sharing capabilities.

Hubba helps independent retailers find, purchase, and sell-through unique products for their stores. The platform caters primarily to the food and beverage industry and even boasts a search function based on preferred diet: Organic, Keto, Paleo, Gluten-Free, Kosher or Vegan.

  Hubba platform screenshot of homepage

 

SpoonGuru helps consumers discover the right food whatever their dietary preference, health objective or lifestyle choice, using AI-powered, dynamic and intelligent tags. The platform offers business, grocery, CPG, and restaurant solutions. 

NuORDER is a leading wholesale eCommerce platform helping brands and retailers buy and sell smarter. Brands use NuORDER to deliver a seamless, collaborative wholesale process, where buyers can browse products, plan assortments visually, and make smarter buys in real-time. This results in shorter sales cycles, reduced errors and an increase in sales volume.

FromOzz is a global B2B ecosystem connecting B2B buyers and sellers, wholesalers and service providers. Sellers choose the Marketplace they want to join, create their Seller Profile and add their products to the FromOzz ecosystem, all with a few clicks of the button.

Tundra is reimagining wholesale with a frictionless marketplace that allows independent businesses to freely transact, scale and thrive. The platform charges no transaction fees or commissions and offers advertising capabilities to a wholesale community of over 10,000 global buyers.

 

What Benefits Do Product Discovery Platforms Bring for the Food Entrepreneur?

With an influx of new, alternative food brands, industry retailers, regardless of size, are seeing a huge uptick in pitches for the next food best-seller. “Regardless of form, the trend will be that the next generation of successful retailers will rely on the ability to reduce the paralysis that comes with too many choices and curate a relevant assortment of products for their consumer,” says Ben Zifkin, CEO and Founder of Product Discovery Platform Hubba.

Product Discovery Platforms offer some important benefits for the food entrepreneurs:

  • The ability to showcase products to thousands of buyers with just a few clicks of the button, without any advanced technical or business knowledge required;
  • The ability to submit independent, undiscovered food brands directly to retailers;
  • Complete transparency into the buyer-seller matching process;
  • Avoiding lengthy, traditional product discovery methods, by enabling food entrepreneurs to place their products on the shelves in a fraction of the time it would take if using traditional methods;
  • Level the playing field between giant brands and small, nimble entrepreneurs, allowing them to showcase their products and increase brand visibility, without the hassle of having to build a website;
  • Make smart business decisions using industry insights provided by most Products Discovery Platforms;
  • Curate products in collections and enabling discovery based on category, smart AI-powered product tags, as well as consumer lifestyle criteria;
  • Discover industry-rated, quality service providers.