While stores such as Pop Up Grocer and Big Night also cater to up-and-coming DTC brands, they’re no Foxtrot—Pop Up Grocer only has one storefront, and Big Night has two. However, they have growth potential: Pop Up Grocer briefly debuted pop-ups in a few Nordstrom locations across the U.S. last summer.
‘The main reason our brand exists’
DTC baked goods brand Lexington Bakes’ Founder and CEO Lex Evan said his brand would not be what it is without Foxtrot.
Lexington Bakes products first entered Foxtrot stores in June 2022, only a few short months after the brand’s launch. By August of that year, there was an email from Erewhon, the ritzy California grocery store, in Evan’s inbox—he thinks the brand awareness Foxtrot drove by promoting Lexington Bakes on its website had a little something to do with that.
“I make sure to credit Foxtrot as the main reason our brand exists. Without Foxtrot, Lexington Bakes would not be what it is today,” Evan said in an interview. He added that because of the brand’s early Foxtrot distribution, Lexington Bakes hasn’t had to raise any venture capital—which would have been difficult in today’s VC environment for DTCs.
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Lexington Bakes was part of Foxtrot’s coveted “up and comers” program that was designed specifically to help new brands garner awareness via end caps and more at Foxtrot stores.
DTC olive oil brand Graza also made its chain retail debut at Foxtrot, where it gained distribution in April 2022. By that summer it had launched in Whole Foods, and by October 2023, it was in Target stores.
“Once you have really strong retail data, doors open,” Graza Co-Founder and CEO Andrew Benin told Ad Age earlier this year.
Graza used Foxtrot’s “merchandising photos, the examples, [and] the velocities to communicate with other retailers that we had a physical retail success story that was Foxtrot,” Benin said in an interview this week. That Foxtrot success was in Graza’s early retail sales pitch decks, too, he added.
Plus, Foxtrot helped boost Graza’s brand awareness with posts on the Foxtrot social media account—something it did for many other brands in-store as well, Benin said. For Graza’s new products, including its recent olive oil chips launch, Foxtrot would not only debut the product in its stores but would also “celebrate it on digital platforms.” That added digital touchpoint was “really beneficial” for driving brand awareness around those new products, Benin said.