Find a local, independent store like a coffee shop or co-op, even a small grocery store that's been in the neighborhood would be great, walk in, ask to speak to the owner or buyer, introduce yourself, talk about your brand a little bit, and ask if it's ok that you leave samples with them. When I was starting out, I was afraid to do this so I called around to 2-3 co-ops in my city before doing walk-ins. On the first call I asked for the buyer, introduced myself, told him about my product and that I was local, starting out, and would love the opportunity - he said yes to me bringing samples and picked up my product the next week.
Once you're in 2-3 stores it gets easier to convince other stores to pick your product up because you've got a little bit of a track record. You can use data from the previous store to convince the next. Practice talking to the buyers makes you better. Always a good idea to go in and walk through the store, read up on it, and figure out where they may be lacking too so you can include that in your pitch. The more you do it the better you'll get at it. You'll be an expert in no time! Good luck! 🙂
