What does a retail buyer actually ask for?
Case pack, case cost, minimum order and lead time, almost always in the first exchange. Then a sell sheet, insurance, and increasingly some evidence that you can trace a lot. Having those ready and consistent is most of what separates a maker who gets a meeting from one who gets a slow no.
The first four numbers
A category manager is working out whether you fit a shelf and a margin. They ask for case pack, case cost, minimum order and lead time because those four decide it, and they ask early because most conversations end there.
Answer them in one message, in the same units every time. A buyer comparing you to two other makers should not have to do arithmetic to compare.
The sell sheet
One page: what the product is, why a shopper picks it up, the four numbers, your contact, and an image. Not a brand story, not three pages. A buyer scans it in fifteen seconds and either forwards it or does not.
Consistency matters more than design. The price on the sell sheet, the price in the email and the price on the invoice being the same number is a surprisingly common failure.
Insurance, sooner than you expect
Many retailers ask for product liability insurance and a certificate naming them. The amount is the buyer's requirement, not a law's: one grocer's vendor guide, read 20 September 2026, asks for $1,000,000 of coverage. Ask yours what they need, and expect the request at exactly the moment you are trying to say yes quickly.
Knowing your broker before the question arrives is worth the afternoon it takes.
Traceability, increasingly
Buyers ask whether you can identify what went into a lot and where that lot went. Some send a supplier questionnaire, some ask in passing, and the ones who ask in passing are still judging the answer.
This is not about a certification. It is about being able to say: this lot, made this day, from these ingredient deliveries, shipped to these customers. If you can answer that in a minute, you are ahead of most makers your size.
What loses the conversation
None of these are about the product being bad:
- Different numbers in different places
- A case cost that cannot support their margin at the shelf price they have in mind
- A lead time that turns out to be aspirational when the order arrives
- No answer on insurance, or a promise to sort it out later
- Taking a week to reply to a buyer who is deciding this month
Most shelf-stable products — sauces, granola, baked goods, jam — are not on FDA's Food Traceability List, and for those the traceability rule does not apply. If yours is (nut butters, fresh soft cheeses, fresh-cut produce, deli salads), it may apply, depending on what you do with the food: the rule has exemptions, among them food you apply a kill step to. It took effect in 2023, and FDA may not enforce it before July 20, 2028. The rules check tells you whether your product looks listed, along with the other rules for your product.
Check your product →Common questions
Check this yourself
This is general information for U.S. food businesses, not legal advice, and rules change. Check it against the sources below and against your own state's rules before you rely on it.
Sell by product · Sell by state
What each state’s cottage food law says, in its own words: sell by state. Every kind of product: sell by product.