B2B food sales: what a sales kit needs

A sales kit (the pack of documents that goes to a business buyer) for a snack brand needs five parts: a product sheet, copies of the production facility's certificates, a price structure, a set of real samples and a note on lead times. B2B buyers (business to business, selling to companies rather than to consumers) do not buy on the strength of an introduction. They buy when the kit answers enough of their questions to make a decision without a long chain of emails. This piece is for people who want to work in B2B food sales, and for partners considering asking us about our products.

How a B2B buyer reads a kit

A buyer at a distributor, a retail chain or an import company looks at many suppliers in a week. They do not read from the first page to the last. They hunt for the answers to a few familiar questions: what is this, where is it made, what paperwork exists, what does it cost at which volume, when can it ship, and who is responsible if something goes wrong.

A good kit is therefore arranged in the buyer's order of questions, not in the order we enjoy telling. One page per part where possible. Numbers and specifications written clearly, in consistent units. The brand story has a place, but at the end, and short.

The five parts

• Product sheet: product and brand name, ingredients, allergens, net weight, pack configuration by unit, carton and pallet, shelf life, storage, barcode, product photos. One page per product.
• Facility certificates: copies of the ISO 22000 certificate (the food safety management standard), the Halal certificate and the US FDA food facility registration, each with its expiry date and renewal status where relevant. For our products these belong to our partner facilities in the Thach That – Quoc Oai industrial park in Hanoi.
• Price structure: prices by volume tier, delivery terms, validity period of the quote, currency, payment terms. The buyer does not need the lowest price. They need a clear, consistent one.
• Samples: real units of the products on offer, matched to their sheets, with the production date of each sample.
• Lead-time note: minimum order quantity, time from order confirmation to goods ready, and what can be flexible for a first order.

Leave one part out and the buyer will ask for it. Every question sent back is a wait, on both sides.

The salesperson's real job is keeping the kit true

In a small company, the person doing B2B sales does more than send kits. They keep the kit true to the product as it is today. Recipes change, packaging changes, certificates are renewed, ingredient costs move, and all of it has to reach the kit before the kit reaches the next buyer.

Our method: every product sheet carries a version number and a date. Whenever R&D or packaging changes a single line, the owner updates the sheet and bumps the version. Before sending anything, the salesperson opens the latest sheet, checks it against a real pack in hand, and only then sends. It takes minutes and prevents the most awkward situation there is: a buyer holding a real pack that does not match the paper.

Preparing a kit for the Let's PLAY rice crackers

Recently a domestic distributor asked about Let's PLAY rice crackers for convenience stores. We sent the product sheets for the current flavours, copies of our partner facilities' certificates, tiered pricing and a sample carton.

The first question back was not about price. The buyer wanted to know how many bags fit in a carton, the carton dimensions, and how many cartons stack on a pallet, because their shelves and warehouse are planned in cartons. Our sheet described the bag well, but the carton and pallet lines were thin. We went back to our partner facilities, measured, and added those three lines to the sheet of every product, not only the crackers.

The lesson is old but worth writing down: B2B buyers think in cartons and pallets, product people think in packs. The kit has to speak the buyer's language.

What stays out of the kit

A sales kit is not a place for promises. We do not include market figures, claims that lack a certificate, or shelf-life numbers that have not been tested. We do not say a product is available somewhere if that has not happened. We are preparing for export and have not announced a market, so the kit says exactly that.

A kit that says less and is right earns more trust than a kit that says more and has to be checked. That is our value Speak Honestly, applied to selling.

If you would like to work in a small team where product people and salespeople share the same product sheet, have a look at the two roles open on our Careers page. If you are a distributor or importer who would like the sales kit for our four brands, get in touch and we will send the latest version with samples.