Indianapolis company wins Walmart’s ‘Golden Ticket’
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Less than a year after beginning operations, an Indianapolis-based producer of plant-based corn dogs is making a big jump in its distribution.
Earth Life Foods LLC recently received a “Golden Ticket” at Walmart’s annual Open Call event, earning a deal to sell its products on the retailer’s shelves.
Vice President Phil Smith Jr. says the deal will allow the company to ramp up production and bring on more full-time staff.
Smith told Inside INdiana Business that receiving the Golden Ticket is fantastic for being such a young company.
“Starting a new company, you’re always nervous. You’ve got a lot of time put into this, a lot of money invested into the company,” Smith said. “So this is a big step to getting the volume we need, just to get the plant running efficiently and getting people more hours. It just helps everything out.”
Smith said while he and his father started the company in 2021, production didn’t get going until March of this year. The company currently has eight full-time and eight part-time employees, and he said the added business from getting into Walmart will hopefully allow the company to bring the part-time employees on full-time.
And the process to get to this point almost happened by accident. Smith said his brother-in-law, Frank, who is a partner in the company, signed them up for the Open Call even though Smith and his father didn’t know what it was.
“The two of us went down to Bentonville, [Arkansas] not really knowing we were getting into, but just kind of thinking, ‘Hey, at least we’ll meet some people and show them our product. We were just hoping that we’d at least make some contacts.”
The Walmart Open Call is a two-day event at the retailer’s headquarters, where businesses from throughout the country have the chance to pitch their products to be sold in Walmart stores.
Smith said they never considered that winning a Golden Ticket was possible for Earth Life Foods, and initially, they were told they wouldn’t get one because their product was being considered in a different category.
As he and his father were packing their things into their car, Smith said he received a text from one of Walmart’s representatives asking to come back. That person had given a sample of Earth Life’s corn dog to another representative from Walmart’s appetizer category.
“He was able to try an extra corn dog that we had and loved it, and said he had to have it. So there they were with a golden ticket,” Smith said.
A timeline for when Earth Life’s corn dogs will be available in Walmart stores has not yet been finalized, Smith said, but he’s hoping for early next year.
Right now, Earth Life is producing food a few days a month while also doing some co-manufacturing for other partners. Smith said once production for Walmart begins, they’ll be able to get one shift running on their first line five days a week.
Currently, the company sources its hot dogs from outside of Indiana, but Smith aims to start making them in-house as soon as possible. “That just brings more of it into our control and helps get some pricing down. We think quality and consistency would benefit from that.”
Long-term, Earth Life plans to start making different products, including a sausage link and pancake on a stick. Smith said the company also hopes to add more employees after transitioning its part-time workers to full-time status.