Healthy Almond snack

Healthy snacking is a large and growing market. Challenge the status quo and replace unhealthy, processed snacks full of additives and sugar. Nuts in general, but almonds in particular, are shown to have substantial health effects. They’re hailed as a ‘superfood’ with an incredibly low environmental footprint. The European market is of course fragmented but this category seems generally ripe for disruption. Most nuts are sold in plain, bulk packaging without much branding and emphasizing benefits. Market entry would have to be done in one (smaller) EU country. Key decisions:

Sourcing: co-packer
Almonds are grown in Italy, Spain and Portugal. Besides a supplier, finding the right co-packer would be key, considering also the health claims and regulations around food. There is a scenario where the supplier (almond farm/ orchard) can also be the co-packer.

Branding/ marketing
Essential and would have to be done by someone in the founding team or a (freelance) partner.

Sales channel
B2B to retailers is the obvious choice. Can bring volume early, but downsides are the lower margin and payment terms. You also miss some direct interaction with your customers. Food wholesalers who supply HoReCa would be somewhat similar but perhaps a little easier to get into. Lastly, E-commerce (platforms and own website) would be very different. Perhaps harder to grow serious volume but with better margins. Storing the product at Amazon also makes own warehousing unnecessary.