🎙️ Shelf Help Podcast: Chris Wendling - Transforming Carbone’s Restaurant Lore Into a Top CPG Brand

On this episode, we’re joined by Chris Wendling, Executive Vice President of Marketing at Carbone Fine Food, the fast-growing brand translating the iconic Carbone restaurant experience into the grocery aisle. Since launching in 2021, Carbone has quickly become one of the top-selling premium pasta sauce brands in America, expanding into club, mass, and specialty retailers.

Chris shares how his sales leadership background helped build marketing structure around a rapidly scaling business. We talked about the journey of implementing a formal marketing strategy, refining brand storytelling, and aligning the team around north start metrics.

We dive into how Carbone leverages restaurant expertise to inform innovation, the thinking behind its new Italian Simmer Sauces line and the philosophy that guided the recent label refresh.

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Episode Highlights:

🍝 The story behind Carbone Fine Food’s rapid rise
📈 Building a scalable marketing structure from scratch
🤝 Lessons from leading marketing after years in sales
📊 Using restaurant data to guide retail innovation
🔥 Launching the new Italian Simmer Sauces
🎨 The strategy behind Carbone’s packaging refresh
📍 Defining and tracking true north-star metrics
👀 Emerging brand and consumer trends Chris is watching

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Table of Contents:

00:00 - Intro
00:48 - Carbone Fine Food origin story
04:11 - Implement a formal marketing strategy / structure
12:16 - Leading marketing after years in sales leadership
20:51 - Leveraging restaurant data to drive product strategy
24:42 - The Simmer Sauces lines
29:33 - Label refresh
33:30 - North star metrics
37:04 - Brand and trends Chris is watching

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Links:

Carbone Fine Food – https://www.carbonefinefood.com/
Follow Chris on LinkedIn –   / christopherwendling  
Follow me on LinkedIn –   / adam-martin-steinberg  

For help with CPG production design - packaging and label design, product renders, POS assets, retail media assets, quick-turn sales and marketing assets and all the other work that bogs down creative teams - check out https://www.kitprint.co/