Alejandro Velez, co-founder of Back to the Roots, describes the retail traction of their new organic cereal line in Costco following in-store sampling demonstrations.
Assertion Partly supported
Velez: Back to the Roots products are in over 14,000 stores globally
“And these amazing products, which are ready to grow, ready to eat products, a mushroom farm, a water garden, a garden in a can, and now organic breakfast cereal and breakfast toppers that are now sold in over 14,000 grocery stores around the country, and Canad…”
Assertion Partly supported
Back to the Roots reached every US Whole Foods in three months
“We put this in, in one Berkeley Whole Foods store. Within three months, we were nationwide with Whole Foods, every single store in the country”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Back to the Roots raised $500k in pre-orders before manufacturing Water Garden
“We had a 100,000 dollar goal, ended up doing 250,000 dollars in 30 days of pre-orders. We took that momentum, took it over to our website, another quarter million dollars. So this is half a million dollars of pre-orders without even creating the damn thing.”
Assertion Supported
Whole Foods, Petco, and Nordstrom launched Water Garden nationwide together
“So we took that buzz and went back to Petco, went back to Whole Foods, went back to Nordstrom, and for the first time ever, those three retailers took this product on nationwide. So we had a national launch with Whole Foods, national launch with Petco, Nationa…”
Assertion Partly supported
Velez: Post, Kellogg's, and GM own 90% of $10B cereal market
“Three Goliaths, Post, Kellogg's GM, running the show. They own 90% of this ten billion dollar industry”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Velez: Whole Foods was the only grocer to respond to early pitches
“We took that same bucket, walked it into every single grocery store in like a 50 mile radius from Andronico's, every Andronico's in Berkeley and Oakland. We went to Farmer Joe's. We went to Berkeley Bowl. At the time, there was only one Berkeley Bowl. We walke…”