The Doing Business in Bentonville Podcast

Innovation Happens in Bentonville: Embark Retail Innovation Summit

• Doing Business in Bentonville

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This episode recaps the Embark Retail Innovation Summit, a part of Retail Innovation Week, a gathering that highlights the energy, collaboration, and authenticity driving the future of retail.

Northwest Arkansas emerges as more than Walmart’s backyard—it is a thriving hub of retail innovation. “There is no better place to talk retail than Bentonville,” says Kristen Rodgers of Plug and Play, whose role as a “corporate matchmaker” embodies the event’s collaborative spirit. At the Embark Retail Innovation Summit, executives from companies like L’Oreal and Accenture connected with founders of breakthrough brands such as Lifeway Foods, Black Paper Party, and Trash Ice Cream, creating meaningful opportunities for conversation.

What set the event apart was its intimacy. “You’re getting to actually spend time with people,” notes RetailWire CEO Chase Binnie, contrasting it with larger conferences. That closeness allowed for deeper discussions about retail’s challenges, opportunities, and values. The transformation of Bentonville itself mirrors these themes: innovative, sustainable, and increasingly diverse.

A recurring message throughout the Embark Retail Innovation Summit was authenticity. From speakers to founders, many emphasized that growth only matters if relationships remain genuine. As a Black Paper Party founder Jasmine Hudson reflected, “None of this matters if you’re void of just being nice and kind and genuine.” The University of Arkansas also contributed by bridging academia and industry, helping students bring fresh ideas into the marketplace.

From established CPG leaders to agile startups, this recap of the Embark Retail Innovation Summit captures the collaborative energy reshaping the retail landscape. Subscribe to hear more insider perspectives and join the conversation about how authenticity and community are defining the next wave of retail transformation.

SPEAKER_00:

Hello everyone, I'm Andy Wilson. We're back at the Retail Innovation Summit. We're just having a blast here today. This place is packed.

SPEAKER_06:

I'm Kristen Rogers. I'm director for brand retail media ad and sports tech for plug and play out of Silicon Valley. Plug and play, just a fancy way of saying that we do uh the ultimate innovation, whether it's early stage VC, corporate innovation, um, or working with accelerator programs as well too. First of all, why I'm here, Retail Innovation Summit, um, also because there is no better place to talk retail than Betonville, right? Um, this is the the foundation for all things retail, whether you're looking at it from the the CPG side, the internal retailer side. I mean, it it truly is the the the bed for all things innovation on the retail perspective. Um plug and play, um, as I mentioned, I oversee uh things on our brand and retail side. Um so my favorite part is being the kind of corporate matchmaker, if you will, right? So meeting with startups that are looking to solve a problem because a lot of the corporates that we work with know that it's more economical and more efficient to work with a startup than try to build something in-house at that point. Um as you mentioned, Josh is here in Bentonville. We have 66 offices across uh five continents at this point. So we really do just like to be that global through line, in this case on the brand and retail perspective. So whether it is uh sourcing startups out here in Bettonville or New York or Seattle or Shanghai or Tokyo or London and Paris, we just love to be that connector. But again, there's no better place for that retail innovation than here. We we do. Um we we do work with uh you know with 600 of the largest Fortune 500 retailers as well. Um but we like to say that we get our information from the the market, right? So whether it is working with um QSRs or luxury retailers, big box stores, grocery stores, right? We sit down with them each and every week, and what we do is we just ask them what problems they're facing. Um and you'd be surprised whether it is a big box store sitting next to a luxury retailer sitting next to a QSR, a lot of times they face the same problems. Um whether it is converting sales and you know make pushing for the brick and mortar, or it's the the e-com side as well too. So um when we get to really sit down and understand what the market is asking for, we can then tap into the second half of plug and play, which is the 100,000 startups that are within our ecosystem.

SPEAKER_02:

So name's Chris Brantley, uh, I'm the director of CX at L'Oreal.

SPEAKER_09:

Great company. Yeah, great company. Yeah. Uh Tom Bryden, so I lead retail media and commerce for Accenture. Yeah, so Accenture is a massive company of 800,000 people globally. Uh, they started off in more traditional consultancy services, um, but I would say that now we are much more in the kind of tech and media spaces, more so than people realize. So we do everything where I spend a lot of my time is focusing on retail media, digital shelf, measurement, and then the back-end technology platforms and solutions that help power both brands and retailers. Yeah, um, I can kick us off. I think one thing is the amount of talent and opportunity that there is in Northwest Arkansas. Um, we are the home of retail in my mind, um, being so close to Walmart. I think there's a there's a lot to be said for cultivating local talent in retail and enabling startups and young fledgling businesses to succeed in the space. So I know that's something that we we talked about, and um I think you know, I'm not from Northwest Arkansas, I'm from the UK, but I think I've been here 10 years now, so I consider myself a local. Yeah um and it's something that I'm very proud of for this area. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I'm not from the UK, if you can tell from the accent. I'm near my bit of a local, right? Yeah. But with that said, I mean, I thought the session was fantastic. I mean, I really enjoy getting different perspectives about where we think retail is going to go from a technological standpoint, right? And consumer engagement is super important. I mean, I know um that I'm constantly looking at trends in different ways to figure out how we speak better to the consumer at the end of the day, and and learning from you know, someone that is has a startup mindset is is is great, right? With Eric and and and Tom here with with things around um ads and and and and media. And so ultimately I think the conversation back and forth is super productive and and great to learn from those folks.

SPEAKER_05:

Uh my name is Julie Smolansky, and I'm the president and CEO of Lifely Foods, your favorite kefir company. Uh Kefir Kiefer. Um many people pronounce it differently. It's a probiotic, gut-healthy, yogurt-like drink. Um my dad founded it uh over almost 40 years ago, and I've been the CEO for 23 years now. The first time I was in Bentonville was over 23 years ago.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Um, I was the first one to do the first call to Walmart before we had a sales team. So it's just me. I had no idea what I was doing. I was super intimidated and scared. Uh but boy, I gotta tell you how far we've come, how far this town community has come. It is really transformative. It's very, very cool to see all of the sustainability, the bike paths, the the buildings that you can bike on. Uh just such a cool place. Yeah, it is. It is how resilient and how um how strong our community of entrepreneurs are. I'm really impressed with like Gail Becker was talking about Polly Power and you know how she persevered and really disrupted the marketplace and you know, out of a need, out of, I think so many of us um enter into the food space or just innovation from solving a problem, solving a real need that that we have, that we see with our families, with our children, with our parents, etc. etc. And um, yeah, just seeing I think story after story, it just goes to show like how resilient entrepreneurs are. And even when we fail, they're not real failures, they're opportunities to learn from. They're you know, that's what I see. The I I'm so just impressed with um that that can-do mindset.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh so my role is I I run what's called the Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Arkansas. Basically, what OEI is is we are an entrepreneurship support organization for anybody looking to build anything at the university, right? And we stretch a little further than that. We help with some community programs, we do some other work as well, but that is our main focus is that that community of individuals at the University of Arkansas that are looking to build and create something new, and and we're trying to figure it out for them. Uh so we're we're here to do for a couple reasons, right? We we have some interest in continuing to stretch. So obviously, retail and kind of the retail value chain are super important to our reach and to our area. And so we at the university, especially on the entrepreneurship side, are trying to figure out like how can we continue to support students interested in this space, students are gonna go work in this space and get them exposure while they're still at the university to these worlds. So, you know, you know I come from retail, so I I know this space well, but coming into the events like this, bringing some of our students with us to get them exposure, that's been pretty important, pretty practical for them as they're thinking about you know what their next career is or even what they're building and how it applies to retail. There's a couple students that came, I was just meeting with them uh briefly, but uh they are they're working on that over, I can't even say what it is yet, but over-the-counter product. Right? Um, and it's a really interesting technology that's gonna solve a problem for a lot of parents and a lot of nurses in the world. Right? So it's super exciting. They have they have no clue where to start. Like they know the tech, they know the science behind it, we got the IP going, like all that stuff's great. But like how they go from there to actually building a product that could go on the shelf, they could that's the steps we need to take them through. So bringing them to events like this, getting the exposure to just the retail world as a whole, it's impactful for them.

SPEAKER_10:

My name is Chase Spinney, CEO of RetailWire. We've uh we are a publication for the retail industry. Uh, we cover any kind of trends, technology, issues, and challenges that retail leaders are facing, and we host daily discussions with panelists who who talk all about that. Um, I love it. I love I love the kind of smaller atmosphere. Yeah, it feels like at bigger events there's people running around. You can see their eyes, they've been like downing like three coffees in the morning just to get to the next quick appointment. And here it's like you're you're getting to just actually spend some time with people. There's great speakers. Um I saw Jesse Itzler this morning. Very mo very motivational. Yes. Um and then the side stage outside, yeah, uh main stage and showcase. So um I got to hear from the founder of Midday Squares, building a chocolate company, yeah. Which, you know, who would think you'd start a chocolate company now, fight against the big guys? But you know, he told all about his story as an entrepreneur, and I had so many notes because for hearing that, it wasn't just about building a chocolate brand, it was about the mindset that he had facing the different challenges, going from zero to one million to where they're at now. So I like the mix of established players and always having like the right mindset that uh you need to get through challenges, whether you are a smaller brand or an established brand.

SPEAKER_07:

My name is April Sagerbrook, and one of the founders of Trash Ice Cream, located in downtown Betonville, that's the origin of it. Um it was created by a lot of locals that love to have fun and really love ice cream, to be candid. Um, and I'm here at the conference today having a great time, meeting a lot of people talking about brands. Phenomenal. The type of individuals that have been pulled together from day one startups to successful brands selling and scaling in retail is phenomenal. My gosh, there's been so many amazing speakers. Um from brand managers to those in sports and media. Uh, but I have to say, because it hit me pretty special uh this morning with Jesse Itzer. Yeah. And his speech, uh his talk, I should say, just around having soul with what you're doing and and really building relationships. Yeah. Genuine, authentic relationships was phenomenal. So, I mean, he went for 33 minutes with a DJ.

SPEAKER_11:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07:

Sequenced and timed uh DJ. So it was pretty special.

SPEAKER_11:

Well, hello, I'm Gregory. I'm uh half of Party Dave's. We are a coffee-based beverage company out of Dallas, Texas, and we're so excited to be at the expo to introduce our brand new flagship energy drink, the uh pink can, as we like to call it. We are in Bentonville, Arkansas, because we believe in being a good neighbor. Um we love this region and we really love being in Northwest Arkansas as people. Um I'm a very active outdoorsy kind of person, and um I visited this region frequently for, you know, a concert or hiking or getting on the trails to bike. And when we learned that um that this exhibit was happening and this congregation of thought leadership was happening, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to introduce our product and to be in a room full of like-minded and very intelligent people.

SPEAKER_08:

So I'm Jasmine Hudson, I'm Jeremy Merchant, and we're the co-founders of Black Paper Party and Black on NWA. So Black Paper Party is a seasonal celebrations brand focused on representation during holidays and special occasions. What does that mean? Black Santa, angels, gnomes, we have wrapping paper, gift bags, ornaments. We turned five years old yesterday, September 15th, and we're super, super excited about it, and we've grown so fast in the past five years. So we've been in retailers like Walmart, Target, CBS, Macy's, Dollar General, Family Dollar, over 1,200 points, 1200, 12,000 points of distribution, and 300 SKUs. We've been on Shark Tank, we've been on Kelly Clarkson's show, today's show, all the things. So, but yes, that's us um from a black paper writing perspective. One of the things that really inspired me was Jesse Itzler. Yeah. The opening keynote, and it was really about soul. And it's so funny because we actually have a trend in our in our creative called soul, but none of this matters if you're void of just being nice and kind and genuine and authentic. So keeping that in mind as we grow and scale our business that it's not always about the top line or the bottom line, but who you are really stood out. And not forgetting, not leaving behind what you have, chasing what you want.

SPEAKER_04:

You know what I mean? You still want to have that family, those connections, those people that helped you get along the way because you're not doing it on your own. So Heather Nichols, CRO of New Engine, we're a digital marketing platform company, headquartered out of Seattle, but also locally here, because acquired Acorn, which was a local company, influencer marketing company. Right. I myself am a towny. We were just talking about this, born and raised in Northwest Arkansas. Um, I'm leading the organization specifically around creator, studio UGC, affiliate, so everything influencer that supports brands and retailers to drive commerce. It's the people on top of everything. So it's the networking, the connections, second to none here. And then right before I walked up to you, I saw someone I went to grade school with, and she's working in the manufacturing world here, and then I'm seeing co-workers that I worked with 12 years ago. And we're all connecting the dots on how we can work on behalf of brands to make this whole these holistic strategies together or help brands in their endeavor to get on shelf or get online and do what they need to do, drive purchase.

SPEAKER_01:

Thanks. So I'm Kira Heiser. I work for Eisner Amper. Eisner Amper is a mid-sized CPA firm, and most of my colleagues do tax and audit. But I'm in the outsource group. So I'm a fractional CFO, and we provide finance and accounting to smaller firms who can't afford a full-time CFO but still need a little finance and accounting help. I love all things entrepreneurs, and my specialty is retail. My specialty is consumer goods, consumer packaged goods. So I like to come and hear about the trends that are happening, innovations that are happening, and meet some people that are interested in CPG brands like I am.