"For the first three months of that relationship we actually saw a decline [in sales] because we weren’t servicing it ourselves."
Strong Roots founder Sam Dennigan has revealed how his sales took a hit when he stepped back from one part of his business when he was starting out.
Sam, who set up the brand of healthy frozen foods in 2015, shared how he used to drive around distributing his own stock to stores.
The experience gave him invaluable insights into what his customers wanted, he said on this week's episode of All In.
"For the first six months, I was in one van and one of my brand managers was in another van... and we literally just used to cover 100 stores.
"Because you were so hands-on you were learning exactly whether it was working and whether it wasn’t working.
"Dublin stores with sweet potato fries it was very easy because people were used to those through TGI’s and Eddie Rockets but country stores this was a totally new concept for them… They just didn’t know what to do with it or want it.
"After six months we got into a deeper relationship with one of the retailers where they physically distributed the product and actually for the first three months of that relationship we actually saw a decline (in sales) because we weren’t servicing it ourselves.
"Everyone thinks that you build, you build, you build [and] you get the golden egg of going into one of the retailers direct and actually then you have to work harder because they don’t look after it as well as you can. No-one ever will."
Sam features on this week's episode of All In, JOE's brand new business show.
All In, backed by AIB, is available everywhere you get your podcasts and on YouTube every Wednesday
