Field note · September 2026

Buyer Interest Doesn't Cross the Border — an Importer of Record Does

Thousands of foreign brands walk the floor at a show like Summer Fancy Food expecting the hard part to be the pitch — getting a US buyer to taste the product, believe in it, want to carry it. For a lot of them, that part actually goes well. A buyer says yes. And then nothing happens, for months, because saying yes to a product isn't the same as being legally able to receive it.

A shipment can't clear US customs, and FDA won't grant it entry, without a US importer of record who takes on the legal obligations that come with the role — FSVP liability, customs filings, FDA prior notice on every shipment. A foreign brand with enthusiastic retail interest and no importer lined up isn't close to shelf. It's stuck exactly where it started, just with a buyer now waiting on a timeline the brand can't control.

This is the gap that swallows a lot of otherwise promising launches. The brand did the hard creative and commercial work — built a product people want, found a buyer who agrees. Then it discovers, late, that the missing piece isn't demand. It's the legal and logistical infrastructure to actually deliver against that demand, and that infrastructure takes real vetting to put in place, not a single email.

A buyer's interest is not a border crossing. Only an importer of record is.

What outsiders miss is that the brands who move fastest from trade-show buzz to shelf aren't the ones with the best product story — they're the ones who lined up a capable, compliant importer before they needed one, so the moment a buyer said yes, the shipment could actually move.

That's the sequencing I try to fix: get the importer relationship in place before the buyer interest peaks, not after, so a strong pitch doesn't stall out on paperwork no one budgeted time for. It's a smaller, less visible piece of the launch than the product itself. It's also the piece that decides whether the launch happens on schedule.

— Kumari Sikha Singh, on where I route between foreign brand and US importer