How Branding Iron Runs Foodservice Pipeline, Forecasting, and Brokers on First Bite

First Bite’s pre-loaded operator data and foodservice CRM provided Branding Iron with an accountability engine that transformed how it runs its business. 

About Branding Iron: Branding Iron Holdings is a leading provider of IQF and fresh hamburgers, steaks, and breaded beef and pork, serving foodservice operators and distributors across the country.

The Foodservice CRM Problem

When Ryan Ewald stepped into the role of Director of Foodservice at Branding Iron Holdings, he inherited the channel that delivers the majority of company revenue — and a CRM problem familiar to almost everyone selling into foodservice: the people who needed to use the system, didn’t. 

Branding Iron’s previous CRM had become outdated, and without active management, the data had become stale and unusable. Leadership couldn’t get a reliable view of the business without weeks of manual chasing. The team had defaulted to tracking their pipeline in Excel. Or as Ryan says, with hammer and chisel.

The root cause wasn’t the team. It was the tool. Foodservice is a relationship-first industry, and field sellers live on the road. Anything that taxes their time at the expense of selling gets ignored.

“The reality is the majority of your field reps don’t want to use the CRM. We travel all the time. We’re busy. If you’re a good salesperson, you’re also treating customers. CRMs in foodservice tend to be an afterthought because we’re still very relationship-oriented.” — Ryan Ewald, Director of Foodservice, Branding Iron Holdings

Ryan had seen the pattern before. Most CRMs in the industry suffer from the same failure mode: they’re over-engineered, manually intensive, and built for horizontal use cases that don’t reflect how foodservice actually sells.

“From a CRM perspective, stripping away all the nonsense and the noise is extremely important. What happens often with CRMs is you get garbage in and garbage out. The more complex the platform, the more you’re driving home and forcing everyone to use it, the worse information you’re going to get.” — Ryan Ewald, Director of Foodservice, Branding Iron Holdings

Why First Bite CRM Over Salesforce

When Branding Iron evaluated replacements, Salesforce was an obvious incumbent. But Ryan had a clear thesis that a foodservice sales team doesn’t need a rocket ship. They need a tool built for the way they actually work. One that improves accuracy, offers simplicity and removes the single biggest friction point in every seller’s day. Data entry.

First Bite’s pre-loaded database with 1.5M + operator contacts and menu data answered that directly. Instead of asking reps to build account records from scratch, the platform put a comprehensive, clean foodservice universe at their fingertips on day one. It eliminated duplicate records, overlapping opportunities, and the regional inconsistencies that erode trust in pipeline numbers.

“I picked First Bite because you solved for the biggest pain point in every salesperson’s life. Having the operators preloaded and being able to get in there and see the information cuts down on so much of our administrative time.” — Ryan Ewald, Director of Foodservice, Branding Iron Holdings

Driving 100% CRM Adoption Across 11 Regional Foodservice Managers

Most manufacturers celebrate 60–80% CRM adoption. Branding Iron wouldn’t accept that. With 11 regional managers, a broker network, and a company-wide goal of logging every impactful conversation in one place, anything less than full adoption would undermine the visibility the business needed.

What made it possible, according to Ryan, was the combination of a platform simple enough to use on the road and a support team that understands the unique demands of foodservice sellers.

“The onboarding process [with First Bite] has been fantastic. The help we’ve been given on the backend, especially when you’re dealing with people that aren’t accustomed to using a CRM, has been invaluable. The easier you make it, the more adoption you’re going to get in the field.” — Ryan Ewald, Director of Foodservice, Branding Iron Holdings

A Foodservice CRM That Actually Works for Forecasting, Deal Tracking and Broker Management

The shift from Excel to First Bite changed how Branding Iron runs. For Ryan, reporting up the chain is no longer a manual scramble. For ownership, the revenue forecast is predictable. And for operations, pipeline visibility means fewer surprises on the production floor.

“I’m not emailing and calling my team trying to gather information for reporting up the chain. Everybody who’s a shareholder wants to know where we’re at against their goals. It gives an easy, visible view — and it allows my team to get credit for what they’re doing.” — Ryan Ewald, Director of Foodservice, Branding Iron Holdings

Forecasting has become a standout. In testing First Bite’s location-level forecasts for volume potential they can now more effectively direct teams to the best targets. Ownership also gained a predictable revenue model and capital-planning confidence that had been missing.

That data flows downstream, too. At capacity-constrained facilities, production and supply chain teams now pull pipeline visibility directly from First Bite rather than chasing the sales team in email.

"If you're super into numbers, First Bite is going to give you the tools to satisfy the numbers people. On the other end, it gives visibility to our production team. Any plant that's running like it should is always going to struggle with capacity. We can give them better information and cut down on the workflow back and forth in email." — Ryan Ewald, Director of Foodservice, Branding Iron Holdings

First Bite has also become Branding Iron’s broker accountability system. With operator-level pipeline and market assignments, Ryan can push target accounts out to brokers, track follow-through, and make sure the broker network is spending its finite time on maximizing the right opportunities.

“From a broker management side, First Bite helps us hold them accountable. We can push accounts out to brokers and say, ‘Hey, are you calling on them?’ It makes sure we’re calling on the right customers that are going to deliver the ROI we want.” — Ryan Ewald, Director of Foodservice, Branding Iron Holdings

And losses, which used to disappear into individual email threads, are now captured systematically, creating a learning loop the company didn’t have before.

“When we don’t get the business or we lose business, we can document it and create a repository that’s going to allow us systematically to get better in the future — better decisions around pricing, isolate quality issues, and really improve the company holistically.” — Ryan Ewald, Director of Foodservice, Branding Iron Holdings

Delivering Accuracy and Simplicity in a Foodservice CRM 

Today, Branding Iron uses First Bite to manage $400–$600 million worth of active opportunity in the pipeline at any given time. A painless user experience, accurate forecasting capabilities and a pre-loaded operator database make it a CRM truly built to supercharge foodservice sales. 

“A CRM by itself has no value. None. What First Bite does is give a salesperson real information they can go out and use to grow more sales. It actually has a purpose — it’s not just big brother monitoring. I actually can use it to grow my business.” — Ryan Ewald, Director of Foodservice, Branding Iron Holdings

Where next? Ryan has clear ambitions to pull distributor data directly into First Bite and sharpen the ROI lens even further.

‍