Food Biz Wiz, Inc. assists packaged food, beverage and taxable grocery brands with your wholesale strategy, guiding you on how to land on the retail shelf (whether it's physical or digital) and have high sales once you do. We support emerging brands through our online course, Retail Ready®, and weekly on Food Biz Wiz®, our award-winning podcast.💻 ⚡️ ABOUT RETAIL READY®: Retail Ready® launched in January 2016, and has supported over 1,500 emerging food, beverage and taxable grocery brands since then. Retail Ready® covers my three-step framework for growing your wholesale business: Attract, Pitch & Grow through 12 main lessons. The educational content is delivered through video lessons, editable workbooks, live support sessions, industry expert Q&A calls, and a private Facebook group for students and alumni (and more - it's jam-packed!). It's my absolute favorite way to work with clients, and I'm so happy to have developed a system that GETS RESULTS for my students, based on my years of 1:1 consulting work.If you'd like to learn more about Retail Ready®, click through to www.alliball.com/waitlist or send me a message!🎙💡 ABOUT THE FOOD BIZ WIZ® PODCAST: I'm the host of the award-winning Food Biz Wiz® Podcast: a weekly food industry podcast with over 6,500 monthly downloads.Launching, growing, and scaling a packaged product in the food industry is daunting - from understanding production, incubator programs, commercial kitchens, and co-packing, to mastering your brand strategy, packaging design, and marketing, to navigating growth on the retail shelves and e-commerce platforms, and eventually working with brokers and distributors - every step of the way is challenging.Find the full line-up of episodes at www.foodbizwiz.com

Through my 1:1 consulting business, I split my time equally between helping packaged food producers with their wholesale strategy and supporting brick & mortar & online retail stores with their grocery operations.On the store side, I helped retailers understand how to manage product assortment to drive sales & profitability, streamline ordering & receiving practices, manage inventory, drive trial and sales through strategic merchandising, execute category reviews, and manage Buying teams.Over time, I followed the advice that I gave my clients every day, and narrowed my target audience. After 4 years of supporting both sides of the food industry, I stopped taking 1:1 retail clients, and turned my full energy to supporting packaged food & beverage brands through Retail Ready®, my online course, which I still teach today at Food Biz Wiz, Inc.

In my consultant position at La Cocina, I oversaw the day-to-day operations of their Holiday Pop-Up Shop at Ghirardelli Square. In this seasonal shop, I managed the build-out, merchandising, and store layout, transforming a vacant storefront into a bustling, vibrant retail space for the Holiday season. Daily, I controlled cash, managed inventory and orders for all of the vendors, ensured captivating visual-merchandising, and coached staff in sales technique, display-building, and operations.

As Store Manager & Head of the Grocery Department, I am responsible for the steady growth and continued success of the grocery department, the largest department at Bi-Rite Market. I own staff from hire to termination, managing their training, scheduling, reviews, and service skills, while providing on-shift instruction and evaluation as well as long term mentorship. I oversee our product quality and assortment, our ordering & receiving, and our visual merchandising. I own category management of all aspects of grocery, from chocolate, coffee and bread, to prepared foods, dairy, and olive oils. Furthermore, I control our labor percentage and budget, COGS and the sales performance of the department while maintaining all aspects of the department’s operations and the smooth running of the sales floor.

In my role of Assistant Grocery Buyer for the grocery department at Bi-Rite Market on 18th Street, I managed the operational logistics of ordering and receiving product for the largest department in the store. I worked with approximately 3,000 unique products by managing several hundred orders per week, ensuring the appropriate quantity and product assortment were maintained at all times with minimal spoilage and waste. Simultaneously, I managed the store's Stocker team and Ordering team, while owning on-floor merchandising and signage, displays, and promotional changes. Furthermore, in the Assistant Buyer role I implemented an electronic inventory system through Catapult, and developed methods of tracking sales, spoilage, and shrinkage in the grocery department. The initial system which I put in place is still used at both Bi-Rite locations. Finally, a large portion of my time was dedicated to developing and executing a vast product assortment, while weeding out slow sellers and highlighting fast movers by owning and overseeing Category Management for the grocery department. I also, alongside the Head Buyer for the Family of Businesses, owned pricing, merchandising, and marketing/promotional strategies for the grocery department.

I oversaw the daily operations of The Go Game, where I organized, tracked, and allocated staff and “gear” for approximately 20 events per week, ranging from 10 participants to 3,500 participants per event, spread across the country. I managed and assigned 15 SF based employees’ monthly schedules, and hired, scheduled and supervised over 500 contracted workers in the Bay Area. Additionally, I supported HR with duties including creating our employee handbook & vacation policies, assisting in hiring and termination, and overseeing our benefit plans.

At DIS, I collaborated with academic advisers to plan, organize, and chaperon approximately 116 academic and adventure tours per year for American & International students studying in Copenhagen. In this role, I managed, approved and analyzed financial aspects of study tours including budgets, expense reports and invoices, and hired, trained, and supervised four work-study students to provide travel information and advice to approximately 1100 other students. I updated the DIS website daily with travel articles and tour information, keeping the students abreast of travel opportunities and logistics for them, and ensured the smooth execution of each tour.