independent-retailers
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INFRA (Independent Natural Food Retailers Association)
How a Saint Paul cooperative quietly stitched 400 independent grocers into a buying bloc big enough to bargain with the giants - without asking any of them to give up their name.
Arnold Engel
Arnold Engel is the co-founder and CEO of Tundra, a zero-commission wholesale marketplace he started in 2017 with his wife Katie Engel after years running a global supply chain company. A Dartmouth economics graduate and former McKinsey consultant, Engel built Tundra to hand independent retailers the same buying power as big-box giants - no transaction fees, no markups, free shipping. The platform grew to more than two million ready-to-ship products and over 30,000 retailers, raising about $42 million across rounds including a $26M Series B led by Emergence Capital in 2021.
Faire
Faire is an online wholesale marketplace that connects independent retailers with the makers and brands that supply them. It replaces the trade-show-and-cold-email model of buying inventory with a personalized, machine-learning-driven storefront, layering on retailer-friendly financing - net 60 payment terms and free returns on first orders - so that mom-and-pop shops can stock their shelves the way big-box chains do, without the cash-flow risk.