Food Retail Veterans Guiding Education

A 42-year veteran of the CPG industry. Mike led Natural Specialty Sales, the natural and specialty division of Acosta Sales & Marketing from 2002-2018. He’s worked with hundreds of small companies across every category in the natural channel. Today Mike heads business development for The Factory LLC in Bethlehem, PA. The Factory provides growth capital and industry expertise to brands ranging from $2-$20m in sales.

Advises brands with smaller budgets how to optimize marketing plans for ROI.

Industry leader in bringing natural, organic and specialty products to market.

Gillian helps ethical national and international companies attain their growth goals for 30+ years. With a background in strategic branding, marketing and finance as well hosting a nationally syndicated green radio talk show, Gillian provides fresh and dynamic insights and strategies to build companies into Iconic Brands. Her greatest passion is to help ethical companies succeed in their efforts to make the world a better place.

With 20+ years of experience building brands and leading strategic growth, advises and guides emerging brands on brand strategy, marketing, channel strategy, promotion planning, product development, pricing, consumer insights and market research.

A 20-year industry veteran in conventional and natural retail, Betsy helps emerging and mid-sized Natural & Organic brands gain distribution at retail, develop promotional and trade strategies, solidify channel strategies, and manage broker relationships.

Jerry is a focused and strategic thought-leader with 2+ decades of experience leading a multibillion-dollar, privately held regional supermarket chain. He specializes in providing leadership to empower organizations to achieve their goals by streamlining operations, rebranding, re-imagining the possible, and delivering innovative, customer-centric business strategies to drive growth in sales and profitability.

Tim is a 37-year veteran of the CPG industry, with sales, marketing and Agency expertise. Specialties include: Business development for consumer products, new business formats, product sales expansion into new channels, client relationship management, branding and consumer marketing.

Provides actionable insights & strategic solutions to brands seeking to grow sales. His podcast & courses teach what retailers really want, how to get products on shelf and how to save valuable time & money. With 25 yrs. experience, Dan shares category management expertise to empower brands and raise the bar in our industry.

John founded Maggiore’s Sales & Marketing in 2003 as a Food Brokerage and Consulting firm specializing in Natural and Specialty products. He previously worked for Stop & Shop as the Category Manager of Natural Food. As a Food Broker he represents Natural Food brands to supermarkets in New England. As a consultant John helps companies develop and implement their Sales Strategy.

Betsy provides eCommerce strategy expertise to CPG brands, ranging from launch stage to multi-billion dollar companies. In her experience with Amazon.com and other eCommerce partners, she guides brands through this channel, aligning marketing, finance, OPS, sales and other strategic teams. McGinn eComm has launched, optimized and recalibrated 50+ brands on Amazon.com, increasing their growth, revenue, and overall success.

Blake is the head of Interact Boulder, a sales-effective, creative agency obsessed with the food & beverage industry, wholly focused on helping brands embrace strategically-led design. Interact has a 25-year history, and has partnered with over 100 food and beverage clients on branding and package design projects.