In today’s CPG landscape, hot brands are easy to spot. Viral moments, strong community, and standout packaging have helped brands like OLIPOP, Liquid Death, and Alani Nu break through crowded categories.
What’s harder to see, and far more important for long-term success, is what happens next.
Growth brings opportunity, but it also introduces pressure. More retailers, more orders, and more complexity quickly follow. For many emerging brands, this is where strain begins to show.
The brands that continue to be top performers generate demand, but most importantly, are building the operational capability required to support it.
Momentum Is a Win, but Adds Pressure
Landing a major retail account feels like a breakthrough moment. Operationally, it signals the start of a more demanding phase where consistency matters more than speed.
Selling products in more stores leads to:
More purchase orders flowing in at the same time
More routing guides and retailer-specific requirements
More fulfillment scenarios across warehouses, distributors, and stores
More risk of delays, chargebacks, or compliance issues
What looks like seamless growth externally doesn't tell the full story. For suppliers, this internal strain behind the scenes is the reality of scaling in retail. Momentum tends to reveal weak processes very quickly.
Related Reading: Finding the Right Purchase Order: EDI 850 vs. EDI 875
Expanding and Ideating on Route-To-Market
One of the clearest lessons from high-growth brands is that route-to-market decisions directly shape how far and how fast a brand can scale.
Take OLIPOP. As the brand expanded beyond early direct-to-consumer traction, it leaned into a warehouse-direct model to scale retail distribution efficiently. That decision supported broader reach while maintaining more control over margins and operations.
At the same time, it introduced new layers of coordination, including shipments to retailer distribution centers, higher order volumes, and stricter retailer expectations.
For suppliers, the takeaway is straightforward. Route-to-market decisions influence both growth potential and operational complexity. The structure put in place early can either support expansion or slow it down.
How Real Brands Leveled Up Their Operations To Meet Demand
Scaling operations in the beverage industry means moving away from marketing-driven growth and focusing on execution. The brands leading this shift made very specific operational changes:
Rapid Distribution Integration: Alani Nu & PepsiCo
Celsius Holdings owns Alani Nu as part of its portfolio following its April 2025 acquisition of the brand. As a major Celsius partner, PepsiCo serves as the exclusive distributor for the portfolio in the U.S. and Canada and holds an approximately 11% ownership stake in Celsius.
Alani Nu’s rapid shift into PepsiCo’s distribution network shows how scaling a beverage brand often depends on infrastructure as much as demand. By investing heavily to consolidate distribution, the company quickly expanded retailreach and unlocked measurable growth.
Changing how products reach stores: To scale nationally, Alani Nu moved 80% of its U.S. business into PepsiCo’s distribution network by December 2025.
Paying for growth: This required real investment. Celsius Holdings recorded $327.5 million in buyout costs to exit legacy distributor agreements and enable the transition.
Results: The shift increased all-commodity volume (ACV, a measure of retail availability) from 87% to 94.2% in just a few months, showing how distribution infrastructure directly impacts growth.
Related Reading: 5 Common Problems Distributors Face
Strategic Leadership Hires: Liquid Death
Liquid Death demonstrates how scaling demands experienced leadership. By bringing in seasoned operators, the company is building the systems and partnerships needed for long-term, global growth.
Hiring for operational scale: As growth accelerated, Liquid Death brought in experienced operators, including a former Fiji Water supply chain leader to oversee global operations.
Building retail capability: The company also added senior retail leadership to support expansion into more than 100,000 stores.
Shifting the operating model: This moved the business from short-term execution to long-term planning, with stronger partnerships across suppliers and logistics providers.
Cost-Effective Channel Strategy Changes: OLIPOP
OLIPOP’s evolution highlights the importance of channel strategy in scaling efficiently. By shifting focus from DTC to retail while using DTC for testing, the brand improved margins and streamlined operations.
Rethinking fulfillment: As OLIPOP scaled, it leaned further into retail distribution, where shipping full pallets to stores is far more cost effective than delivering individual orders through DTC.
Using DTC differently: Instead of relying on it for volume, DTC became a way to test products before rolling them out through wholesale channels.
Operational impact: Channel decisions like this directly affect margins, fulfillment complexity, and how efficiently a brand can scale.
Related Reading; 6 Tips for Launching and Scaling Your Amazon DTC Business
Adapting To Retail Scale: Poppi at Walmart
Poppi’s expansion into Walmart illustrates how growth at mass retail requires operational discipline. As distribution widened, the brand had to strengthen its supply chain and adapt to the consistency and cost demands of large-scale retail.
Expanding presence: Poppi grew to over 4,300 Walmart locations and significantly increased its SKU count on shelf.
Upgrading the supply chain: To support Walmart’s Every Day Low Price (EDLP)model, the brand added new co-packers and built a more structured supply chain.
Operating differently at scale: Retailers like Walmart require consistency without heavy promotional cycles, which forces brands to improve cost control and execution.
Overview of Leading Brands' Growth Milestones and How They Adapted
Feature | Alani Nu | Liquid Death | OLIPOP |
Growth Milestone | Surpassed $1 billionin retail sales (52-week period ending April 2025). | Reached a $1.4 billionvaluation (2024) and $263 million in 2023 retail sales. | Achieved a $1.85 billion valuation(2025) with $400M estimated 2024 revenue. |
Route-to-Market (RTM) Strategy | Transitioned to a direct-store-delivery(DSD) model via the PepsiCo distribution system. | Utilizes a mix of regional distribution partners (e.g., Sunset Distributing, Odom Corp) to scale West Coast presence. | Primarily uses a warehouse direct (WD) model to ship to major retailers like Target and Walmart. |
Operational Infrastructure | Integrated into the Celsius Holdings portfolio; incurred $327.5M in distributor termination fees to align with PepsiCo. | Hired industry veterans, including a COO from Fiji Water and a chief retail officer from BodyArmor, to professionalize thesupply chain. | Appointed a new president withBodyArmor and Coca-Cola experience to lead market advancement and diversification. |
Retail Execution | Increased All-Commodity Volume (ACV) from 87% to 94.2% through its DSD transition. | Expanded into over 113,000 retail doorsacross the U.S. and U.K. as of 2023. | Expanded to over 30,000 retail stores using a lean staff model to drive profitability. |
Core Growth Lever | Focused on the rapidly growing female energy drink segment and health-conscious innovation. | Leverages an "entertainment-first" and comedy-driven marketing strategy to build massive social media awareness. | Differentiates through functional gut healthscience, using a blend of prebiotics and botanicals. |
Portfolio Expansion | Expanded from core energy drinks into snacks and daily essentials. | Diversified from water into iced teas, flavored sparkling waters, and energy drinks. | Continues to addnovel flavor innovations while maintaining a low-sugar, high-fiber profile. |
What These Brands Got Right Operationally
Across Alani Nu, Liquid Death, OLIPOP, and Poppi, a few clear patterns emerge:
1. Distribution unlocks growth
Expanding into larger networks increases reach, but also requires coordination across more partners and higher order volume.
2. Operations become a leadership priority
These brands invested in experienced operators to manage supply chain, retail, and logistics as complexity increased.
3. Channel strategy shapes margins and complexity
Decisions around DTC vs. retail are about growth and how they directly impact cost structure and execution.
4. Retail scale forces supply chain maturity
Larger retailers introduce stricter requirements, making consistency and efficiency critical.
Turning Momentum into Repeatable Execution
The common thread is simple: growth didn’t slow these brands down, but it forced them to rebuild how they operate.
As order volume increases and retail relationships expand, manual processes become harder to sustain. Execution across orders, inventory, and partners needs to become consistent and repeatable.
This is where operational infrastructure becomes critical. Many growing suppliers adopt systems that standardize order workflows, improve accuracy, and reduce manual coordination across retailers and partners.
This efficiency allows brands to scale without introducing delays, errors, or disruption.
Brand Heat Starts Growth, and Operations Sustain It
Breakout demand creates opportunity, but it also raises expectations.
The brands that continue to grow are the ones that:
Treat route-to-market as a strategic decision
Invest in distribution and supply chain infrastructure
Build repeatable retail execution processes
Transition away from manual operations as complexity increases
For fast-growing CPG brands, the shift is clear. Generating demand gets you into retail, but operational readiness is what keeps you there.
Level Up With SPS Commerce
As your SKU count and retailer complexity grow, manual processes break. SPS Commerce helps you scale with connected EDI and fulfillment workflows that keep orders moving accurately and on time.
