Meat & protein industry consulting Get on the shelf.
Back up the label.Sell more.

KP Consulting helps meat and protein companies get their products into national grocery chains, show buyers the product is exactly what the label says, and make the meat department earn its space. Kent Partida spent 37 years doing all three — buying for Kroger, selling to it, and verifying it.

Kent Partida, principal of KP Consulting
Kent Partida Food & Protein Industry Consultant
  • Get on the shelf Into national and regional grocery chains
  • Prove your claims Show the product is what the label says
  • Fix what is not selling What to stock, what to cut, what it earns

Experience built inside

  • Kroger
  • Meyer Natural Foods
  • Merck Animal Health
  • IdentiGen
  • Target
  • Safeway
  • Wegmans

Former employers and retail accounts from Kent’s career. Not clients of KP Consulting, and not endorsements.

What he fixes

Three problems, and what changes when they are solved

Most calls start with one of these. The engagement is judged on whether the second column actually happens.

  1. You cannot get in front of the buyer.

    A target list ranked by what you can actually service, a line review deck built the way merchandisers read them, and a warm introduction where one exists.

  2. A customer asked how you know, and the answer was a binder.

    A documented chain of custody and a verification program that holds up under audit — then positioned as a reason to buy rather than a cost line.

  3. The department is not earning its square footage.

    An assortment built on the shopper data the retailer already has, a service case with a program behind it, and a team who can build the next review themselves.

21 years buying meat. 6 years selling it. 9 years proving it.

The Kroger Company · Meyer Natural Foods · Merck Animal Health

How it works

No discovery phase you pay for twice

Kent has already run your category, sold into it, or audited it. Engagements start from that, not from a month of getting up to speed.

  1. 01

    Call

    Fifteen minutes on what you are trying to move. You will get an honest read on whether an engagement is worth it — including when the answer is no.

  2. 02

    Scope

    A written scope, timeline and fixed fee before any work starts. Fixed-scope project or monthly advisory, whichever fits the problem.

  3. 03

    Work

    Kent does the work himself. No account team, no junior associate, and one person to call when something changes.

  4. 04

    Hand over

    You keep the program and the reasoning behind it, so your team can run the next cycle without paying for it again.

Where to start

Four ways to put 37 years to work on your business

Pick the one that matches what is broken. Most engagements begin as one of these and turn into another once the real constraint shows up.

Who this is for

Built for companies that sell protein

  • Protein producers & processors — You have the product and the plant. What you are missing is the merchandiser relationship and proof of origin that survives a line review.
  • Food brands scaling into national retail — You win regional accounts and get ignored by national ones. Usually the deck is the problem — it is built around your brand instead of the buyer’s category gap.
  • Grocery retailers & category teams — The meat department is under-earning its square footage. Assortment, service case, private label, and an un-merchandised shopper are the usual four reasons.
  • Packers & further processors — Private label programs, primal rollouts and value-added lines — built and sold from the supplier side into Kroger divisions across the country.
  • Investors & boards in food — An operator’s read on whether a protein business can actually hold the shelf space its projections assume.
Schedule a free consultation

What this work has produced

+10%

Service case sales in the first year a selling program ran

Kroger, Indianapolis division

1.5M lbs

Year-over-year volume growth delivered two years running

Meyer Natural Foods, 2014–15

Record

Company profit margins — in a down cattle market

Meyer Natural Foods, 2013–14

4 chains

National accounts opened or grown from the supplier side

Kroger · Target · Safeway · Wegmans

See the full track record

Next step

Start with a conversation, not a proposal

Fifteen minutes to hear what you are trying to move — the case, the account, or the chain behind it. If it is not a fit, you will hear that on the call, along with who to talk to instead.