Raley's Get Curious section — a dedicated in-store discovery shelf across Raley's, Nob Hill Foods, and Bel Air Markets — is now carrying all three SKUs from marrō, the Atlanta-based sparkling bone broth brand, across approximately 50 Northern California locations. The placement runs through November 3, and sales velocity during that window will directly inform whether marrō earns a permanent position in the set. For emerging better-for-you beverage brands, that structure makes Get Curious less of a soft launch and more of a live performance review.
What's on Shelf
marrō's core format is a 12 oz can retailing at $5.99 MSRP, delivering 12 grams of non-dairy protein from grass-fed bone broth alongside collagen, essential amino acids, electrolytes, and B12 — all at zero sugar and 60 calories. The three flavors entering Raley's banners are Blueberry Lemonade, Peach Mango, and Blackberry Lime. The positioning targets the same wellness-forward shopper driving growth in functional hydration: someone already spending on better-for-you but not necessarily willing to drink a warm, savory broth cup. The sparkling, fruit-forward format is a deliberate category bridge — bone broth nutrition in a cold-aisle, RTD package that competes visually and experientially with sparkling waters and functional sodas.
The Retail Stakes
Get Curious is structurally different from a standard slotted placement. Raley's has designed the section as a buyer-facing signal as much as a shopper-facing one: products that move get kept, products that don't get rotated out. For a brand at marrō's stage, that dynamic cuts both ways. The program provides immediate access to a wellness-oriented, higher-income Northern California shopper base without requiring a full chain-wide commitment from the buyer. But it also compresses the timeline for proving velocity — brands get weeks, not quarters, to generate the scan data that justifies a permanent listing.
Operators and retail buyers evaluating emerging functional beverage brands should watch Get Curious-style programs as a useful procurement filter. Rather than relying on broker pitches or trade-show samples, retailers running structured discovery sets are generating real velocity data under real shelf conditions. That data is increasingly what category managers want before committing to a planogram slot — particularly in the functional beverage aisle, where the number of entrants has made trial-based curation a practical necessity.
For brands looking at similar regional grocery entry points, the Raley's network — which skews toward health-conscious Northern California shoppers — represents a meaningful proving ground. The product is also available through raleys.com and the Raley's app for pickup and delivery, which adds an e-commerce data layer to the in-store trial period.
Brands navigating retail entry in the functional beverage space should also consider how discovery programs interact with their broader brand launch infrastructure, including sampling, digital support, and in-store activation during the trial window. A strong shelf placement without coordinated pull-through marketing leaves velocity entirely to the product itself — which, for a novel format like sparkling bone broth, may not be enough time to build the repeat purchase rate buyers look for.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
