How Spoonful Overnight Oats is Using Vanik to 2x wholesale reorder speed and save 20+ hours a month

Find out how Vanik has helped Spoonful Overnight Oats achieve profitable gross margins, double reorder speed, and save the team 20 hours a month managing wholesale retention.

When Bradley Gifford, a former college basketball player with a background in marketing and strategy, started Spoonful Overnight Oats, he wasn’t just creating another “better-for-you” brand, he was solving a personal problem. After a significant weight loss transformation, he became increasingly frustrated by the lack of clean, high-quality food options that fit the lifestyle of active, on-the-go individuals like himself.

Bradley noticed that many products branded as “performance” foods were highly processed and full of trade-offs. He believed that it didn’t have to be that way. With that mission in mind, he founded Spoonful Overnight Oats, a company focused on clean, delicious, and convenient grab-and-go meals made for people who care about what they eat, even when they’re short on time.

Finding Their Footing

Now in its third year, Spoonful has come a long way in a short period of time. Bradley described the first year being “all hustle,” from working in a commissary kitchen, hand-making every product, and even delivering orders himself in his car.

Year two marked a turning point: Spoonful dialed in their product formulation and began finding early traction in wholesale. But with that growth came new challenges. “We started seeing holes in our back-end processes, especially when it came to managing our wholesale accounts,” Bradley recalls. “We needed to find a more sustainable solution that helped us scale wholesale, but also let us have a direct relationship with our customers .”

Growth by Grit

To date, Spoonful’s growth has been powered almost entirely by word of mouth and sheer hustle. “Our growth has been hand-to-hand combat, literally walking into shops with samples and talking to buyers to tell them about the product and why it’s different from some of the competitors,” Bradley explains. That scrappy approach paid off. Today, Spoonful products can be found in over 50 high-end grab-and-go locations across the Tri-State area (New York, New Jersey and Connecticut), including premium coffee shops and boutique foodservice spots where quality trumps price, and convenience is king.

But the very thing that made Spoonful successful, Bradley’s hands-on approach, also became a bottleneck. The process for managing wholesale accounts remained manual and reactive. “We were missing tons of reorders because we didn’t have a system,” Bradley says. “I just didn’t have time to check in consistently. That lack of follow-up was leading accounts to churn and miss reorders.”

Enter Vanik: Wholesale Retention on Autopilot

That’s when Bradley turned to Vanik. “Vanik plugged right into our Shopify store and the set-up process was seamless, we were literally live and ready to start using the platform in less than 30 minutes.” 

“We started seeing results almost instantly. Vanik has created a systemized and personalized way for us to follow up with accounts,” he says.

“It’s (Vanik) saving me at least 5 hours a week, or easily over 20 hours a month.”

Instead of Bradley randomly checking-in with accounts whenever he had time, Vanik keeps Spoonful’s wholesale buyers engaged and ordering regularly, without requiring Bradley’s constant attention. 

“Retailers are ordering at least 2x faster now. Our buyers are always running around, and Vanik makes reordering incredibly easy for them. A few of them have told me how much they appreciate how seamless it (Vanik) is.”

But it’s not just about saving time. Vanik has helped Spoonful build a more profitable wholesale operation.

“Before Vanik, we were struggling to make money on every order, especially when going through marketplaces or distributors,” Bradley says.

“With Vanik, every order is margin-positive. That’s been a game-changer for us.”

A Focus on Growth, Not Churn

Perhaps most importantly, Vanik has allowed Bradley to refocus his energy on what matters most: growing the business.

“I don’t need to worry about wholesale retention anymore, Vanik does that for me,” he says. “Now I can spend my time opening new accounts and fundraising. And as we continue to scale, I can’t wait to add more accounts to Vanik. It’s been a huge unlock for our team.”

If you’re interested in learning more about how Vanik can help you grow your wholesale business, set-up time to chat with us!