How to sell your product to large retailers in Canada

Here’s how brands sign with retailers like Walmart, Save-on-Foods, or Whole Foods.

Have you created a food or beverage brand but aren’t sure how to move from selling with independent retailers to getting on the shelves of Canada’s largest retailers? This blog is for you. While it would be easy for us to say there’s one step: work with BNQ, that’s not quite right. There is a lot of prep your brand can do before choosing to work with a food and beverage broker.

If you’re already selling with independent retailers, that means your brand meets Canadian Food Guidelines. If you’re not certified yet, jump over to our blog, How to start selling organic and natural food and products in Canada, and then come back here when you’ve completed your certification and licensing stage. Don’t miss the note on Canada’s new 2026 labelling requirements.

Now that you know you’re in the right place, let’s get started. Retail buyers are pitched thousands of brands every year. Here’s how brands stand out and get noticed.

Solve a consumer challenge.

To stand out from your competitors, you need to clearly articulate how you solve a consumer challenge. Such as Millsie Fine Foods, they sell delicious plant-based spreads and dips that taste like anything but a cheese substitute. They are sure to be a crowd pleaser at any event.

Retailers love this brand because there are very few other brands that deliver the taste, quality, and brand recognition in the vegan dips and spreads space. In short, they’re in demand and attract first-time buyers looking for a new vegan option.

So, can you clearly answer: What challenge does your product solve, AND how is this attractive to a retail buyer?

Data-backed sales strategy

When pitching a retail buyer, the numbers matter. Your brand needs to show up with the data to back up why your product would do well with a retailer and which regions are expected to perform best. Leveraging historical data with your brand’s current projections can make a retail buyer’s decision easier. When they can clearly see alignment between your brand’s buyer demographic and their retail locations, they’re more likely to shortlist your brand.

At BNQ, we use Tableau to consolidate all of our brand’s data into a single, clear, actionable view. Pulling from ERP systems, CRM platforms, spreadsheets, inventory feeds, and retailer data: Giving our team and yours a real-time picture of performance. This allows us to track trends over time, forecast demand, and identify more growth opportunities for our brands.

What’s next? – The Pitch

Okay, so now you know you can clearly articulate how to solve a consumer challenge and build a sales strategy based on historical and current data. The next step is a pitch that captures the attention of the retail buyer. But let’s be totally transparent here. Even perfect pitches get overlooked. Not for any reason other than buyers are busy and can’t process every cold email they get.

The Canadian retail industry is still run on relationships, and busy retail buyers are quicker to trust a brand recommendation from someone they know (the brokers at BNQ) than a cold email. We’re not saying it’s right or fair; it just is the way the industry currently works. While we know that working with a food or drink broker may feel like a financial hurdle your brand is not ready to take on, we would also like to let you know that not all broker pricing has been made equal.

Most brokers charge you a fee and then a commission on all your sales -> As of last year, we set that old way of doing business on fire and threw it out the window. (All figurative outdoor spaces have been marked safe from this dramatic description.) At BNQ, we offer tiered flat-rate services. You choose the package that fits your current budget and goals, and then you can change it when you’re ready. And we charge ZERO% commission. That’s no commission ever. No exceptions, no surprises.

AND if signing up for a monthly package is beyond your current reach, let’s talk about our $1,000 Pay-to-Pitch service. Only $1000, and we pitch your brand to one retailer. You guessed it, no commission, no surprises, and no extra costs. For more on this, reach out to Alex, she’s happy to answer any questions.