Every policy looks clean on a slide. But when it meets the day-to-day reality of brand building, the results vary. These three stories highlight how SSA can support—or strain—a brand’s growth, depending on how it's managed.

The Scrappy Energy Bar Brand That Stayed Nimble
A small energy bar company launched into UNFI under the SSA structure, grateful they didn’t have to pay thousands upfront in activation and data access fees. The founders were used to watching every penny, so they immediately took advantage of the included POS and DC inventory data. Within a few weeks, they noticed that their bars were overstocked in two regions, leading to unnecessary spoilage risk. Rather than letting the problem spiral, they called their UNFI rep, paused shipments to those DCs, and focused on higher-performing zones. The data also helped them identify the best flavors for sell-through, leading to a smarter SKU strategy. While their margins were tight, the founders said the SSA model worked for them—because they worked it. They treated the relationship like a two-way street, used the tools included, and built feedback loops to adjust production and sales. The transparency of SSA gave them just enough footing to grow without drowning in complexity.

The Mid-Sized Granola Brand That Took Control
Another brand—this one producing high-end granola in resealable pouches—was already doing $4M a year in revenue when they were auto-enrolled in SSA. They hadn’t been paying much in line-item fees previously and were initially caught off guard by the sudden 2.5% fee applied across the board. Instead of reacting emotionally, they sat down and ran the numbers. After modeling the change across their SKUs, they realized the new fee was costing them an extra $6,000 a month—enough to squeeze their profit margins dangerously thin. Rather than panic, they reconfigured their wholesale pricing with a modest 4% increase and communicated it transparently to retail buyers. They also trimmed one underperforming SKU and used SSA’s data access to justify shifting focus to a better-selling product in the same line. The outcome? Profitability returned within one quarter, and they actually grew net margin by optimizing mix and price at the same time. SSA wasn’t ideal, but it didn’t break them—because they chose to engage with it head-on.

The Tea Company That Didn’t Pay Attention
Then there was the tea brand. Beautiful packaging, great founder story, passionate customers. But their leadership team never read their SSA onboarding packet in detail. They assumed the 2.5% fee covered all promotions, marketing programs, and data access—and stopped tracking deductions entirely. For nearly a year, they let the invoices pile up, confident the new simplified system would handle itself. It didn’t. What they didn’t realize was that they were still being billed separately for multiple promotions they had opted into—spring resets, digital campaigns, and a buyer-facing event that sounded like it was “included.” On top of that, compliance fines from improperly labeled cases quietly accumulated. By the time they realized what was happening, they were nearly $100,000 in the hole, their cash flow crippled, and their line of credit maxed out. The founder later admitted that they had assumed UNFI’s SSA was like a subscription—simple, predictable, clean. But it wasn’t. It was a new structure, still full of nuance and obligations. Within 18 months of launching into distribution, the brand filed for bankruptcy. A combination of poor oversight, blind trust, and wishful thinking had turned what could have been a growth opportunity into a fatal mistake.

Key Lesson: SSA isn’t a fee—it’s a framework. If you treat it passively, it can quietly bleed your business. If you engage with it strategically, it can become a source of insight, control, and competitive edge.