I am Sue Sullivan and Reddit saved my sauce and rub company, Hot Squeeze. Tomorrow, I’m heading to Wal-Mart for my last, big pitch for distribution. Whatever happens, I wanted to say thank you for all your support and AMA! Helping me out with this AMA will be Lawrence Wu, the founder WUJU hot sauce!

Have you been before? Little white rooms, digital clocks in the wall. You generally have 15 minutes to pitch, and they'll watch the clock like a hawk. You'll be one of 10 or so different companies the buyers see that day, so don't feel discouraged if they seem apathetic. The buyers rotate departments in different intervals, so you could be meeting with someone just transferred from electronics - they won't care if you use some exotic ingredient unless it's a solid differentiator. The market for your product is saturated - do your homework ... research can be expensive but help you know what you're talking about. Mintel probably has a canned report that will run you around 3k. Two things they'll want to know are units per store per week (for past accounts) & ballpark unit & case pricing (at different volumes) so they can guage whether it's even worth their time considering their own profit margin requirements. Don't be two aggressive with low pricing - their job is to squeeze every cent out of you. I honestly didnt read much beyond bbq sauce and pitching wally world, but if you performed well in some of their competitors stores (kroger for sure), let them know passively.

What's nice about walmart is that they want nothing to do with food brokers. If someone offers to rep you, tell em go pound sand.

/r/IAmA Thread