Opening markets on intuition is expensive. These are the criteria we use in the Explore phase to decide where the real business is.
Your first international market should not be the hardest one. And yet many food companies open the wrong market simply because it came along first: a contact at a trade fair, a one-off order, a recommendation. None of those reasons is a criterion.
Prioritising means reducing
The Explore phase of the RED System starts with the opposite of what you might expect: instead of widening the options, we narrow them down. We analyse potential profitability, value proposition fit, real entry barriers and access to distribution.
The four filters
We test every candidate market against four filters: product and price fit, an accessible distribution channel, profitability after logistics and tariffs, and access to the decision-makers. A market that fails any of the four stops being the first one.
Deciding with sound judgement
The deliverable of this phase is a clear decision: where the business is, how to enter and what to avoid. From there, activating stops being a leap of faith and becomes execution on familiar ground.