How Brightland strategically grew its Whole Foods presence
It took three tries for Whole Foods Markets to get Brightland olive oil on its shelves. When the retailer first reached out in 2019, founder Aishwarya Iyer wasn’t ready. The brand was less than a year old and while it stocked some independent foodie-focused boutiques, Iyer didn’t want to stray from the direct-to-consumer model while the business was still getting off the ground. In 2021, she said no again.
“I thought, ‘If I’m going to go do this, and have someone as a partner, I better do it from a place of success, and not build the plane as we’re flying it,'” she said. “‘There are times you do that as an entrepreneur, and there are times you have to be strategic.”
But by 2022, when Whole Foods reached out again, Brightland agreed to a one-store test in the Los Angeles market near where Iyer lives. After a positive reception from customers, it expanded to 25, then 60.
This summer, Brightland is more than doubling its presence to 165 Whole Foods across the country that will sell its Alive and Awake olive oils and its balsamic vinegar. And it’s adding its pizza oil, a product that comes in an on-trend squeeze bottle, to 125 stores.
The expansion comes as Brightland grows in all channels, but particular in grocery where sales are up 500% year over year compared to 2023. Its overall business has grown 300% from 2020 to 2023. For Iyer, the growth is a product of the years-long journey building a relationship with Whole Foods and not trying to do too much too soon. Brightland also sells on Amazon, a few locations of Bristol Farms and through independent grocers and retailers.
“It’s one thing to get on shelf, it’s another to stay on the shelf,” Iyer told Modern Retail. “I’ve watched brands go bankrupt because they didn’t know how to maneuver in a retail environment, and I didn’t want to make those mistakes.”
Brightland’s Whole Foods scale-up is the latest example of how DTC food and beverage brands are increasingly looking to traditional grocery for growth. It’s particularly critical in food and beverage, a category that is still predominantly shopped for in person despite the prevalence of online shopping. New Gartner research shows that about 78% of surveyed customers would rather shop for food and beverage products in person, principal analyst Greg Carlucci told Modern Retail. “Looking at the category, in-store is likely to have a large opportunity for growth and expansion,” he said.
But there are challenges like scaling production, navigating distribution and customer awareness that all play a role in whether a company can succeed. Brands like Brightland, as well as infant formula start-up Bobbie, are finding that it can be favorable to scale a relationship with a retailer over time.
Kevin Weiss, vp of retail media at omnichannel advertising platform Skai, said that while DTC-only brands avoid dealing with the middlemen of retailers and distributors, they still need to be in-person with new customers.
“If they want to be a billion-dollar brand — or a multiple-millions-of-dollars brand — you should get into retail,” he said.
But it’s not a simple journey to get onto a shelf, Weiss said. Brands need to ensure they can cover the shelf fees, or else they may be looking to fundraise at the same they’re netting a store to cover the fees. And with grocery stores operating at margins of 1% to 3%, there’s significant pressure to perform well or lose the opportunity. “You have to sell differently [than in DTC], and you have to think about what other products are on the shelf,” he said.
Iyer said that part of what makes Brightland stand out is its premium white glass bottle packaging. And the pizza oil, for its part, is in a squeeze bottle that offers an alternative use case.
As a premium product at $37 a bottle, Brightland might be a splurge for many customers to buy in person. Adding the pizza oil, which is more affordable at $21.99, may also become a new entryway product. But that is partly why the company is cautious about where it is distributed, selling at Whole Foods store locations across California and the northeast.
Iyer said that the company wouldn’t necessarily be having success at Whole Foods had it launched there years ago. The team, she said, wasn’t large enough to necessarily handle the management. It now has a staff of 16, compared to three or four. “All these disparate channels take effort,” Iyer said. “You have to have the team and the support behind that. Now we have that team. Three or four years ago, we definitely didn’t.”