How one channel ambassador turned a plantain problem into a huge opportunity

It started with a question, quite out of the blue. A prospective customer called Ambassador Foods looking for a good brand of plantains and asked what we'd recommend.

Should be easy, right? Plantains are everywhere in South Florida. Between the Cuban restaurants, the Caribbean cafés, and the Latin American grocers, Miami practically runs on them. So we’re well versed in those flavors and ingredients.

We know what a good plantain is supposed to taste like in a pot of mofongo, or a plate of tostones. We know how Maduros plantains behave in the fryer, and how they are supposed to turn out, with that wonderful, carmelized flavor and velvety texture that chefs love.

So we were happy to help. We began scouring the market for the right brand at the right price, in the right quantities.

Our team went deep — vetting suppliers, testing product, checking consistency across shipments, and searching for the quality our customers expect. But what we found was a market of dramatic inconsistency.

Suppliers couldn't guarantee the same product from one shipment to the next. So Plantain quality varied wildly from pallet to pallet. There were plenty of brands that were fine for a bodega shelf, but we could not find one in the volume and the quality that we wanted to recommend.

Bottom line: There wasn't a brand out there we were willing to stake our reputation on. And what started as a simple problem to fix started looking like a significant market opportunity.

This is when Channel Ambassadors go further. And farther.

At that point, most brokers or a traditional distributors would pull up a catalog, quote a price on whatever's sitting in the warehouse, and call it a day. Or they’d just throw their hands in the air.

That's not how Channel Ambassadors operate. We packed our bags and headed to Colombia to find and explore new partnerships.

Our team leveraged their extensive network of connections throughout Latin America to find our own, reliable source of plantains. We had to choose a producer who could deliver exactly what a real foodservice supply chain demands… Exceptional quality. Reliable quantities. Reasonable prices. And partners we could trust for the long haul.

It was a tall order, but eventually we found a processor that shared our vision and our eye for quality. Not only that, they worked with many growers, so they could guarantee the quantities we needed.

Once that was settled, we decided to take the deal one step further… Instead of importing generic plantains we decided to introduce a whole new brand of plantains to the American market.

Finca Feliz Plantains are proof of how far Channel Ambassadors will go to solve a problem. Our Colombian partnership demonstrates the reach of our worldwide network and the commitment we have to long-lasting, win-win-win propositions.

It’s another example of how the right channel partner can help you shift from transactional thinking to a long-term, brand building mindset.

“Finca Feliz isn't a plantain we picked off a shelf,” said Opher Yunger, COO at Ambassador Foods. “It's a supply chain solution we built from the farm up… a long-term investment we made so that every pallet meets the same high standard, every time.”

“We wanted a brand that would allow us to control the quality, so we created one of our own,” Opher said. “We knew that we’d have distribution throughout Florida, and all the way up to New York. We went from ‘there's no good option’ to ‘here's our own brand’ without missing a beat.”

Opher says that plantains are just the beginning for the Finca Feliz line. “It really goes back to our roots of international trade, so we’re looking at an entire line of Latin American products with a long list of partners.”

In the food service business quality, consistency, and cost management are all mission-critical at the same time. So working with a Channel Ambassador rather than a patchwork of brokers, distributors, and logistics vendors can be the difference between scaling successfully and hitting a wall.

Ambassador Foods is a Hollywood-Florida based specialty food company with a category-busting, Channel Ambassador business model. The company’s contrarian approach combines the network of a broadline distributor with the marketing savvy of the best brokers, the smarts of a consultancy and the buy-in of a wholesaler. For more information, visit ambassadorfoods.net. Email Contact: Opher@ambassadorfoods.net

To learn more about how a Channel Ambassador can help your food production business scale, contact us here.