03-04-2015, 10:05 PM
in large supermarkets, you "buy" the space on the shelves. I believe this takes different forms depending on your product, but they often do not purchase from you directly, you are leased space to sell on their shelves. from what I understand, Whole Foods operates a little differently, in that they do purchase your product directly. we have a friend who began producing chocolates in her kitchen (all town approved and regulated (not as hard as one would think)) and sold them to Whole Foods. the margins and volume, however, were too low to sustain.