The challenge
The distributor already imported a limited Greek assortment. Growing it meant either taking many small direct-supplier positions, each with its own minimums and paperwork, or accepting the narrow selection a generic exporter would offer. Neither option was attractive.
They needed a partner who could operate as a single counterparty while giving them access to a genuinely diverse producer base: PDO olive oil, table olives, feta, yoghurt, antipasti, jams, chutneys, vinegars, pasta and premium delicacies, all under one contract, one shipment and one payment.
Our approach
We started from the shelf and worked backwards. Which SKUs did they actually need to build the Greek section they wanted, and which producers were credible for each? That produced a working list of about sixty candidate SKUs from twenty producers, which we then filtered by shelf-life, sea-freight suitability and audit status.
Each producer received a coordinated purchase plan aligned to the container date. We handled the paperwork centrally: single export declaration, single health certificate set where possible, one CMR, one invoice. The distributor's customs team dealt with one file rather than twenty.
Cold-chain sensitive lines were excluded from the ambient container and put on a separate reefer plan later, once volumes justified it. That kept the first shipment simple and gave the distributor a clean base to grow from.
The outcome
The first consolidated container arrived on schedule. Because the assortment was designed around real shelf gaps rather than what any single producer happened to sell, the sell-through in the first two months was materially healthier than their previous Greek range.
The programme now runs on a steady quarterly cadence. New SKUs are added by conversation, not by opening new supplier accounts, which materially reduces the internal cost of expanding the Greek section.
