Tara Cross

TCross Branding + Consulting specializes in supporting CPG business owners through critical decision-making processes and provides tailored guidance to help businesses and teams achieve growth in revenue, profitability, and efficiency in order to thrive in the competitive natural and organic food and beverage industry. Specific areas of proficiency include operational leadership, sales and marketing team development, brand innovation, and sales channel strategy. With extensive experience spanning categories such as coffee, tea, spice, chocolate, and bottled water, we cater to wholesale, retail, ingredient, private label, and direct-to-consumer segments.

Since 1995, Wolf & Associates has been helping clients navigate what feels like a tangled, confusing maze of organic rules. Whether you’re looking for advice on certification, building an organic & sustainable work culture, regulatory compliance, farming practices, or ongoing support with strategic direction, we make complex rules easy to navigate, find the narrow path, and harness knowledge to work for you.

We see where coffee companies flourish and where they struggle. We’ve run coffee operations large and small, launched hundreds of products in retail and food service, and have implemented countless sales and marketing campaigns that delight and engage customers. We know firsthand the challenges of running a successful coffee business. Whether your B2B, B2C or DTC we’re here to help.

Dirty Hands LLC is a boutique brokerage and merchandising service provider that specializes in the natural and organic retail channel. With a portfolio of more than 200 established and emerging brands, Dirty Hands assists with headquarter approval, trade spend management, shopper marketing programs, and full-service, high-frequency field merchandising support. As the Director of Partnerships, my role was to drive top-line revenue growth and profitability, brand retention, and customer lifetime value. I developed and mentored a six-person sales acquisition and a 13-person brand management team to prioritize revenue and profitability, as well as grow the lifetime value of each customer. I also developed sales analytics, including forecasting tools, and weekly KPI reports to define and track sales and retention goals to share with our leadership team. Additionally, I led the analysis of competitor trends and a SWOT analysis to identify and execute on opportunities to provide relevant services to our customers. I worked with my incredible team to build case studies and sales enablement roadmaps for sales and brand management teams to ensure consistent messaging about our features and benefits, and to ensure a cohesive customer experience across our suite of services.

As the director of marketing, I played an integral role in Allegro's executive leadership team. I contributed to the company's strategic direction across various aspects, including category management, key account management, marketing, sustainability, community engagement, and team member development. Lead agency partnerships, partner contracts, and packaging compliance. I oversaw brand architecture, product differentiation, and segmentation to ensure segments resonated with diverse consumer audiences. Additionally, I was responsible for category, brand and product strategy, resulting in double-digit growth and market share in Whole Foods Market. Leveraging data and market insights, I developed six-figure annual product development and marketing plans to grow top line category sales within Whole Foods and for the Allegro Coffee brand. I built a 13-person in-house marketing team to design and support programs to drive growth and excellence. I led our digital marketing campaigns and optimized omni-channel programs via Google (search and Shopping), Facebook, Instagram, and Programmatic RTB. The team achieved a 3x industry average click-through rate for Google. As the leader of a cross-functional work team comprising multiple departments, I led new product commercialization, product ideation and business analysis, and private label sales initiatives. I also led the Allegro Coffee Roasters retail concept, including overseeing several 1MM+ café-roastery construction projects in various locations. I developed Allegro's quarterly promotional programs, including seasonal product features and promotions. I leveraged project management and tracking tools to enable visibility and collaboration within the organization on project status and results. I delivered social impact measurement for Allegro's Making Coffee Matter program and maintained strong partnerships with social impact partners in the coffee sourcing and retail operations parts of the organization.