If you’re working in a DTC food and beverage brand, you might be ready to make the step into retail. You know you’ve got a fantastic product, you’ve got loads of great reviews and your sales are on the rise. 

But something is making potential partners swipe left. 

The problem likely isn’t your product. It’s most likely to do with your packaging. 

I'm Vicky 👋 co-founder of Kind and Wild, a branding studio I launched in 2025 with my partner Jayson Ellis. We work with food and drink founders to build brands from the ground up — not just how they look, but how they connect, communicate, and hold up in a retail environment.

In this article, I’ll share what we've learned about retail and what partners are looking for in a product: so you can make sure you get yours on shelves 

Why retailers reject your products

In my experience, the gap between a great DTC product and a retail-ready brand is almost always packaging. And the rejection usually happens before a single word is spoken.

That’s down to one simple reason: buyers are busy. They receive a huge number of pitches and make an almost instant judgement about whether something feels shelf-ready. 

What they're asking themselves, usually without even realising it, is: does this look like it belongs here? Is it clear, professional, and shelf-appropriate? Does it immediately communicate what the product is and who it's for?

If the pack design doesn’t communicate the product and its positioning immediately - or if it raises any red flags around compliance basics (ingredients, allergens, labelling clarity, and barcode/format) - it often won’t earn the next step. That’s because the buyer assumes the operational side will be even harder work.

Avoid these 3 common packaging mistakes to in the retail environment

Getting through the door is one thing, but packaging mistakes don't just lead to rejection at the pitch stage. They can affect performance on the shelf too. Here are some common mistakes we see brands making with their packaging: 

1. Saying too much at once

Brands often feel they need to communicate every benefit, every value, and their whole story on pack. The result is noisy and unclear, and shoppers switch off fast. The strongest brands are usually the most focused ones. Pick the most important thing you want someone to understand in two seconds, and lead with that.

2. Playing it too safe

Following category conventions is understandable, especially for newer founders. But trends are a ceiling, not a blueprint. If your packaging looks like everyone else's, there's no reason for a buyer or a shopper to choose you over what's already there.

3. Not designing for the shelf environment

Packaging doesn't exist on a white background. It's competing with dozens of other products, under strip lighting, being scanned by a shopper in a split second. If you've only ever evaluated your packaging on screen or in a flat lay, you haven't really tested it yet — and it will show.

So you know what to avoid — but what does shelf-ready actually look like in practice? Here's what we recommend to every food and drink founder before they approach a retailer. 

Independent shops vs major retailers: what are they looking for?  

Before diving into how to get your packaging right, it's worth understanding that not all retail opportunities are the same — and what works for one type of buyer won't necessarily work for another.

What independent retailers are looking for 

An independent deli or bottle shop is usually led by emotion, curation, and the relationship they have with their customers. They've built a carefully chosen edit of products that reflects their taste and their store's identity — and they want new additions to feel like a natural fit.

The pitching experience here tends to be personal. You might be speaking directly to the owner, and if they love what they see, they'll often take a punt and try a few units. The decision can be quick, and it's usually led by gut feeling as much as anything else. What wins them over is a brand that feels distinctive, looks great on shelf, and that they can picture themselves championing to their regulars.

What major retailers are looking for 

A major retailer is a different beast entirely. They're thinking about scale, risk, and cold hard numbers — and the process often reflects that. You might be dealing with multiple teams: a buyer, a category manager, a compliance team. Each one has their own criteria, and getting through the door means satisfying all of them.

What really gets you over the line isn't just a great product. It's whether you can deliver consistently, whether your packaging is compliant, whether the barcodes and case packs are sorted, and whether the whole operation will hold up across hundreds of stores. They need to know your packaging is retail-ready — what it looks like on shelf, not just online. dash

In other words: independent stores can say yes because they love it. Major retailers say yes when it's not just a great product, but a reliable operation they can plug straight in.

Understanding which doors you're knocking on should shape how you prepare — and that starts with your packaging.

How to make sure your packaging is shelf-ready

1. Get your strategy straight first

Most founders come to us thinking they need packaging or visuals. What they actually need first is strategy. You need to understand your positioning, your customer, and what makes you different before you brief any design work.

At Kind and Wild we run strategy sessions to really get to the soul of your brand. In a 3-4 hour session, we get to see founders light up about their brand in a completely new way. It gives them the space to have a brainstorm with us and really dig into the heart of what they’re creating - their story, their why, what makes them different, and where they want the brand to go. From here, we start to shape their packaging direction. 

2. Nail your packaging hierarchy

Now you’ve got your strategy, we can start designing. How your logo, product name, variant, and key call-out are ordered and weighted affects how quickly a shopper can understand what they're looking at. If everything is given equal importance, people have to work harder to make sense of it. On the shelf, that usually means they move on. Good hierarchy gets a product noticed, understood, and picked up in a matter of seconds.

👉 We break down the packaging hierarchy of a Goodrays can in this article. 

3. Stress-test your packaging on an actual shelf

Before you pitch to anyone, put your packaging in a real retail environment. Surround it with competitors, look at it from a distance, under harsh lighting, for just a couple of seconds. Does it communicate the product immediately? Does it feel professional and shelf-ready? If you have to think about it, so will a buyer.

4. Sort the compliance basics

Allergen labelling, legal copy, barcode format, case pack sizes — these aren't exciting, but getting them wrong is one of the fastest ways to lose a buyer's confidence. If the basics aren't in order, a retailer will assume the rest of your operation isn't either. Get these right before you approach anyone.

5. Understand what your target retailer actually needs

An independent deli and a major supermarket are looking for very different things. An independent wants a brand they can champion — something distinctive that their customers will love. A major retailer wants to know you're a reliable operation: consistent supply, compliant packaging, and a brand that will hold up across hundreds of stores. Know which doors you're knocking on, and make sure your packaging and pitch reflect that.

6. Build a brand with its own personality

The brands that land well with buyers — and stay on shelf — look like they were built with a genuine identity, not designed to chase a current trend. Considered typography, a palette that works psychologically and across every context, a visual language that feels ownable. Trendy design can actually be a red flag to buyers, because it suggests the brand will date quickly and need a costly refresh. Build something that feels like it'll still be relevant in five years.

7. Check out competitors in your category 

Spend time in the fixture before you finalise anything. What colours are competitors defaulting to? What formats and fonts have become so common they've blended into the background? Understanding the landscape isn't about following it — it's about spotting the gaps.

When a buyer looks at your product sitting next to competitors, they're asking whether your brand makes the shelf look good — and whether it feels like it belongs there for the long term. Knowing your category well enough to stand apart from it is what answers that question with confidence.

8. Invest in foundations before marketing

If your packaging isn't doing its job yet, putting budget into marketing won't fix it — it'll just amplify the problem. For retail, packaging is the primary touchpoint. It has to work completely on its own, with no founder in the room to make the case. Get the foundations right first, and everything else becomes so much more effective.

Bootlegger Coffee: Strategy and vision for a brand in its next chapter

One of our most recent clients was Bootlegger Coffee, and they're a great example of what opens up when you take the time to revisit and redefine your foundations through strategy. They were moving into a new chapter in product and lifestyle, and wanted to be intentional about how they took the brand with them. 

We started, as we always do, with our strategy workshop. It's a three to four hour session where we give founders and their teams the space to really think about where they’re going, in this case revisit their story, their why, and what makes them different. It's always the part of the process I find most rewarding, because you can visibly see things start to take shape. Brands often come in thinking they need packaging, copy or visuals, and they do - but what they really need first is strategy.

With Bootlegger, what started as a conversation around messaging and copy quickly became something much bigger: alignment on direction, clarity on positioning, and a real confidence in what the brand was becoming. Once that strategy was in place, every design and copy decision that followers now has a purpose behind it.

Design packaging for more retail sales

If you're a food or drink founder building towards retail and want a close creative partner, you can connect with me on LinkedIn or find out more at kindandwildstudio.com.

And if you're managing a growing library of packaging assets and brand visuals, Dash's digital asset management software gives your team one place to organise, find, and share everything — no more digging through Google Drive or Dropbox. 

👉 Learn more about ecommerce digital asset management and find a place to keep your product packaging designs..