B.You Açaí
Expertise
Açai berries
Website
byouacai.com
The Company
B.You Açaí is a Brazilian company that manufactures, exports and distributes organic açaí berry products worldwide. Their best seller is their Açaí smoothie, followed by açaí sorbet (sweetened with coconut nectar), açaí powders & purées. After launching in 2016, B.You has already established a strong presence in Europe, the Middle East and Asia in under 3 years. B.You Açaí supplies for premium mass retailers that value organic products like Silpo-Foods, Rewe, Globus, El Corte Inglês, Spinney’s, Carrefour, Lulu, and more.
Learn more about B.You Açaí here.
The Challenge
In 2018/2019, B.You set out to increase their sales in Europe and the Middle East. To develop in these markets, they registered for the Wabel Drinks Summit to meet one-on-one with head buyers in their target countries.
After their registration, the pressure was on. They would be scheduled 30-minute B2B meetings with 12 buyers of their ideal purchasing groups… 30 minutes, one-on-one, face-to-face to sign their ideal contracts.
Their goal? To sign as many big deals as possible.
B.You Açaí ended up succeeding with flying colors. Read on to discover how:
B.You’s Steps to Success
Targeting the right buyers
B.You had done their research. They knew that over 1 million tons of Açaí Berry is expected to be consumed across the globe by the end of 2026. With the huge supply-gap in Europe and the Middle East, they strategically selected these areas to target.
Not only did they want to provide a product that was under high demand but they also wanted to offer it in a way that meets the needs of their customers. Thus, they ensured that their products be nutritious, clean-label, free-form, organic and vegan, but most importantly, full of life and flavor. Along with this offer, they are able to position themselves as a high quality brand and sell at premium pricing.
From B.You’s targeting, Wabel was able to put 12 meetings in place with buyers that met the following criteria :
1. Premium mass retailers
2. That have large areas dedicated to organic products
3. Based in Europe and the Middle East
“The WABEL summit was very effective and the best sourcing event we have attended to date. The organization and quality of the match-making was second to none. We were thrilled to work with a company that has such high energy and excels in the preparation leading to the event as well as the follow-up process.”
Mauricio Matos, B .You Açaì COO
Preparation
As B.You Açaí was notified in advance with which purchasing groups they would be matched with, they were able to prepare properly and study each group. Their preparation process entailed studying their prospects’ websites, Wabel platforms and LinkedIn profiles to understand the following aspects:
– Business in general
– Internal roles
– History
– Their clients
– Structure
– Hierarchy
– Current performance
– Recent growth strategy
Meetings & Pitch
The day had come to meet with their buyers at the Summit. B.You Açai had 30 minutes to pitch to each buyer. During their meetings, they strongly displayed their confidence in their high quality products and set relational foundations for future partnerships, key factors to getting buyers behind their product. The taste samples were a big hit amongst the buyers, and B.You Açai knew things were looking promising.
“We were very confident to just be ourselves and show them the wonderful work and growth of our company. At the end these big buyers want great products, but even more to work with great people. We were sure to provide them with both.”
Mauricio Matos, B .You Açaì COO
Follow-up
After the Summit, it was time for B.You Açaí to follow up and not let any buyers slip through their fingers. B.You interpreted the reaction of each buyer and made follow-up plans accordingly.
“It is crucial to align expectations and set a timeline with your prospect in order to avoid several communication attempts with no response. Buyers usually have hundreds of people bombarding them with offers and new products. We were upfront and committed, but patient.”
Mauricio Matos, B .You Açaì COO
Results & Future Plans
After meeting and following up with their targeted buyers, B.you signed 4 big deals with retailers and distributors like Somexport, Ms Group and Fozzy Ukraine.
They experienced an 80% growth since 2018, and are on track to hit 130% annual growth by the end of 2019. B.You continues their quest in Europe and the Middle East and plans to attend the Wabel Drinks Summit again in the future.
Results were so satisfactory that this led to B.You opening their EU Headquarters and Distribution Center early in 2019 to further increase their EU presence and support to their distribution partners and retailers. Secondly, they also have started developing new açai-based products locally, such as their new cold-pressed juices range with HPP technology, to be launched in January 2020 starting with retailers in Spain, Portugal, UK, France, Germany and Holland.
How Wabel helped
B.You Açaí came to Wabel to meet and sign deals with their ideal retailers. Wabel offers a wide range of sales and marketing solutions to help suppliers partner with qualified retailers.
At the Drinks, Wine & Spirits Summit, Wabel organized B.You 12 different private B2B meetings with their targeted buyers. These meetings were highly effective for B.You Açaí since Wabel selected buyers had already expressed a need for B.You’s product lines.
Wabel continues to bring opportunities to B.You all throughout the year with the Wabel Online Platform. Over 1,629 buying offices, use the platform each year to find suppliers and future partners.
“We came to close deals with 4 of the 12 meetings we had at the show, which is a success rate hard to find anywhere else. The Wabel follow-up support helped give us an extra boost in our sales process.”
Mauricio Matos, B .You Açaì COO
Learn More
Wabel allows suppliers to identify qualified buyers, connect with them through the Wabel platform, and meet them in private at the Wabel Summits. Among other events, the Wabel Drinks B2B meetings is coming up in Paris on November 5th – 6th, 2020.
