🚚 Distribution Debate: Inside UNFI’s New SSA Policy

The relationship between brands and broadline distributors has always been fraught with potential peril and strife. And for many customers of UNFI, that pain now has a number.

The powerhouse national distributor’s new Simplified Supplier Approach (SSA) – which consolidates various service fees and add-ons into a single all-inclusive 2.5% tariff on all purchases – may be more streamlined than previous agreements. But that’s about the only thing everyone will agree on. 

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An Instagram campaign started by an intern for the brand formerly known as Mixoloshe has ended with a rebrand after reels of her smashing cans went viral. 

📶 Yesterday non-alc cocktail Mixoloshe got a new name, SMASHD, after its campaign amassed over 120 million views and gained half a million followers. 

🗓️ Within 60 days of reels, “Nicole the intern” smashed cans in costume, with props and finally with a grand finale explosion to the delight of a new 530k following dubbed the Smash Army.

⚒️ We chatted with the company’s CMO and newly promoted intern about how the team’s experiments in social media cracked the viral code by staying product-agnostic and tapping into a storyline that would resonate with a millennial and Gen Z audience. 

BevNET Insiders can read the full story and learn how SMASHD strategized a storyline for its target audience.

Natural channel distributor UNFI instituted a policy change on May 1 called the Simplified Supplier Approach (SSA) and as you read above – reactions have been mixed at best. The new policy was said to combine many common compliance fees into a single, 2.5% charge. It was originally touted by the distributor as a way to reduce friction, but many suppliers aren’t so convinced. 

The CPG Week team ran down the new policy, shared reactions from industry stakeholders over the last few months and made some predictions on how this change could impact the natural retailers and consumer pricing down the road.

Listen to this week’s episode to get a full overview of the policy change.

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