GrowDACH+ and Clever Clover have started a partnership with one goal: to give consumer goods companies from Central and Eastern Europe a realistic route onto Austrian shelves.

Who Clever Clover is

Clever Clover connects consumer brands with the Austrian retail trade. They work directly with the large chains and act as the filter between a brand and a buyer. A category manager at a retailer like REWE cannot look at hundreds of brands at once, so Clever Clover pre-selects, prepares and places the products that genuinely fit. For a brand coming from abroad, that is the difference between a cold email and a listing.

Why consumer goods are harder than tech

A software company can win its first Austrian customers from Sofia or Bucharest. A food or consumer brand cannot. It needs a distribution partner on the ground, it needs to meet the requirements of the chain, and it needs someone who knows which buyer to talk to and when. Most CEE consumer brands never get past that first step. Not because the product is wrong, but because the route is closed.

How we split the work

Clever Clover opens the retail route. GrowDACH+ is the connector. We find the companies, we prepare them for what Austrian retail expects, and we stay with them after the first meeting.

The pilot starts with Bulgaria and Romania

We are scouting companies in both markets right now. The selected ones will be invited to Vienna for a hands-on workshop on 1 December, hosted by the Vienna Business Agency.

If you are a consumer brand from Bulgaria or Romania and Austria is on your list, get in touch or look at the workshop.