From Farmers Market to Supermarket: Scaling Your CPG Brand the Smart Way
You’ve tested, refined, and sold your product at farmers markets and local events. You’ve got repeat customers, a rhythm to your production, and proof that your product works in the real world. But the leap to retail is more than just selling more; it’s about reengineering your business. This is the phase where most brands either level up or stall out. Here’s what you need to know to grow with control, confidence, and margin intact.
Scale Deliberately, Not Just Broadly
The fastest way to lose momentum in CPG is by scaling too soon, in too many directions. Industry leaders like Caroline Grace and Amber Caro have built entire frameworks around one core idea: growth should be deliberate, not reactionary. That means resisting the pressure to chase mass retail before your business is operationally and financially ready. It means knowing your story, your customer, and your limits—before a buyer tests them for you.
A slow, smart rollout gives you the chance to refine your packaging, dial in pricing, and build a ‘retail resume’ that proves to brokers and buyers you’re not just another brand with a good-looking label—you’re a brand built to last.
You're Outgrowing Commercial Kitchen Rentals on the Weekend—Now What?
Renting time in a shared commercial kitchen works when you're testing the waters or building early traction. But at some point, your volume exceeds what a shared space can handle, or the inefficiencies start eating your margins. That’s when you face a major fork in the road: do you invest in your own production facility, or do you hand off production to a co-manufacturer?
Building your own facility offers control, but comes with capital expenditures, hiring responsibilities, and the burden of managing food safety systems internally. Going with a co-man can remove a lot of complexity, but it requires trust, clear documentation, and strong margins. Either way, you need to prepare for this transition before you hit a wall. That means documenting your processes, understanding your throughput, and getting familiar with the requirements a serious production partner will expect.
Start preparing now with our guide: choose your path and get ready to hand off production or build the systems to support it yourself.
3PLs? Co-Mans? Vendors? Partners?
3PLs! Co-Mans! Vendors! Partners!
3PLs? Co-Mans? Vendors? Partners? 3PLs! Co-Mans! Vendors! Partners!
Choosing the Right Partners
Your brand’s success depends on the people and businesses you tie yourself to. At this stage, you’re choosing more than vendors—you’re choosing partners. Co-manufacturers (or co-mans) will produce your product at scale, but not all are created equal.
Some are full-service, managing procurement, production, and even compliance; others won’t. You’ll need to understand the difference, know your role in the process, and negotiate terms that protect your product and your brand.
The same goes for 3PLs, partners that can warehouse and fulfill your orders. Some specialize in cold storage, others in direct-to-consumer shipping. You need to assess cost structures, capabilities, and software integrations before you sign anything. Suppliers also get more complex here. Ingredient MOQs, lead times, freight coordination, and shelf life all start to matter in a way they didn’t before.
Dive deeper into partner strategy and get clarity before you commit—visit our full Partner & 3PL Strategy Page.
Your First Real Supply Chain: What It Actually Looks Like
When you were just starting your brand, your supply chain probably fit in your car or a couple of storage racks. Now, it spans ingredient purchasing, packaging vendors, production scheduling, logistics, and finished goods inventory. Each of these nodes introduces potential failure points and new costs. You may need to coordinate ingredient shipments to your co-manufacturer, ensure your packaging arrives on time, and have your finished goods sent to a warehouse before going to retailers.
Cold chain, cross-docking, and production planning all show up here. If you don't control these details, they’ll control you. This section isn’t about theory—it’s about showing you how a functioning CPG supply chain operates day-to-day and how to avoid common breakdowns when you’re just starting to scale.
Reworking Your Pricing Strategy
What you charged at the farmers market won’t work on a retail shelf. You’re no longer pocketing the full price. Now, distributors, retailers, freight costs, packaging upgrades, and potential spoilage all take a cut. This is the moment where founders realize their margins weren’t real; they were temporary. To stay profitable at scale, you need to rebuild your pricing from the ground up.
That means starting with your actual cost to serve, not just your cost of goods. We break this down in detail on our pricing page; How Do I Price my CPG Item?
We also have a free Pricing Calculator to help you get the hang of it!
Building Operating Procedures You Can Actually Scale
When it’s just you or a small team, you can rely on memory and workarounds. But if you’re handing off production to a co-man, or shipping through a 3PL, you need documentation. Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) help you protect your brand, communicate clearly, and train new partners without starting from scratch every time. Almost every industry player will expect them, and in the absence of an SOP might make mistakes that cost everyone money; however, this doesn’t have to be corporate overkill. A clear process for batching, packaging, labeling, or QC can save thousands of dollars and hours of confusion.
Download our SOP template and lock in the consistency your partners and customers expect.
Are You Retail Ready?
Before you send that email to a buyer or book that trade show booth, make sure you’re ready to fulfill what you’re selling. Buyers expect a sell sheet, consistent supply, professional presentation, and properly positioned pricing. Distributors want to know that you can ship on time, that your packaging is ready for retail, and that you’ve accounted for their cut. If you’re not there yet, don’t be discouraged! The best way to understand your gaps is to go through the process and set those buyer meetings. We’ve laid out exactly what distributors like UNFI and KeHE are looking for.
Head to the UNFI & KeHE Guide to know what you're walking into before you pitch.