Jody’s Pops Into International Markets

Norfolk snack food manufacturer Jody’s Popcorn has been a labor of love from the start. Founder Jody Wagner had the idea for the business when she realized the Hampton Roads area was missing the delicious caramel corn she had fallen in love with when living in Chicago. Over 50 rounds of recipe-related trial and error later, she and her husband, Alan, founded Jody’s Popcorn retail store on the Virginia Beach oceanfront in 2005. The store has since closed and grown into a full mass production facility in Norfolk, where it produces over 25,000 bags of delicious gourmet popcorn every day.

Today, Jody’s sells its popcorn varieties — both sweet and savory, with flavor combinations including strawberry, Funfetti, and cheesy jalapeño, as well as its signature Recipe 53 Caramel, on a wholesale basis to many retailers up and down the east coast of the USA. There are over 20 flavors in Jody’s core product line as well as many seasonal favorites like maple, Christmas candy corn, and chocolate drizzle caramel.

The problem: Jody’s had never sold internationally before and needed insights into several key questions before taking the plunge.

With a strong domestic customer base established, Jody’s decided to move into international markets for the first time. Wagner and her team identified several challenges to overcome, ranging from the best flavors to sell in various markets, to which bag sizes to sell in specific markets to the way shipping costs, duties, and tariffs would affect pricing. This prompted the company to engage into VEDP’s international trade services to help gain clarity on these important questions.

The solution: Jody’s capitalized on VEDP’s international trade services, trade shows, and trade missions to gather more information before making major decisions.

VEDP’s market research helped Jody’s hone in on its international goals, but it was VEDP’s help with trade shows and missions that made the biggest difference. These events helped the company understand its competition and the way snack food is sold abroad. Jody’s connected with numerous distributors, wholesalers, retailers, sales agencies, and even raw material suppliers that would be important to future international sales. The company met with many distributors and wholesalers on a trade mission to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as well as attended major food trade shows in Dubai, London, Cologne, Paris, and Tokyo. This helped tremendously in gaining insights into business costs, market trends, competition, duties, taxes, cost, and retail price points, as well as other key findings necessary to establish business in the countries.

The result: Armed with key insights, Jody’s has entered the international marketplace and shipped its popcorn to several countries.

Following the trade mission and numerous international trade shows, Jody’s has now opened international sales in several countries. The company has shipped popcorn to Iceland, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, England, and South Africa. To further their success, the company has now enrolled into VEDP’s Virginia Leaders in Export Trade (VALET) program, a two-year international business acceleration program that provides participating companies with international sales plan development services, assistance from experienced international service providers, monetary support and more. Participating in VALET program will further enhance Wagner’s ambition to share her delicious gourmet popcorn with people from across the world.