Legacy brands are racing to meet consumer demand for better ingredients, bold flavors, and sustainable values. But as M&A activity heats up, how can acquired brands stay true to their roots? After years of guiding brands to scale without losing their edge, our founder, Jen Maxwell-Muir, has some recommendations. Agree? Disagree? We’d love to hear your take.
All signals point to more M&A activity in the CPG industry leading up to Expo West. Consumers want cleaner ingredients, healthier products, flavor innovation and sustainable values -- and legacy brands are working hard to keep up. I've been reflecting on my experience helping brands like Kettle Brand Potato Chips, Pacific Foods and Dave’s Killer Bread through huge stages of growth and expansion, and thought I'd share some insights that could be helpful. What'd I miss? Keep Up the Good Vibes: A lot of what makes independent brands successful is energetic: the founder’s personality, the marketing voice, the genuine customer service. The worst is when, overnight, copy and marketing initiatives are approved by committee and stripped of character by legal. What used to be fast and culturally relevant becomes slow, stale and stagnant. Take care to keep the voice that attracted you to the brand in the first place. Slow Your Roll: It’s one thing to ramp up distribution so fans find you, but another to quickly dive into brand ubiquity and extensions right after a sale. Showing restraint out of the gate to avoid over commercialization helps avoid a mass exodus of your loyalist without hampering your growth trajectory. Intensify the Fire: Instead of rushing in with an established playbook, actively listen to what existing brand and innovation teams have to say. Building on what’s already working is likely exactly the ammunition to help catapult growth. On the flip side, this is not a time for acquired brands to be bashful. Coming in hot with your strategic recommendations can help your new parent company move faster and realize latent goals. Don’t Change the Recipe: Consumers are not only onto you, they’re on alert, anticipating change. The urge to tinker is so prevalent there’s a term for it: skimpflation, the reduction of quality for the same price. Before you sell, work to bolt your ingredient values to the floor with governance standards so core to the brand that change is difficult. Before you buy, consider how you can dial in efficiency and quality controls with better sourcing and production, and how you can scale without cutting corners. If you can’t stick with the original formula, plans for explosive growth could backfire. Stay True to Brand Commitments: This feels so obvious I saved it for last. When there’s a transaction, it’s not just a loyal fan base, leadership in a new category or a younger customer based being acquired, you’re also buying brand values. Don’t waste it. I’ve seen it go both ways: a parent company that doubles down on commitments that in reality were more aspirational than anticipated, and I’ve seen long-standing principles get watered down to the point of greenwashing. When you’re doing due diligence, don’t overlook purpose. Check on the real commitments that back it up. Consider how you can not only sustain but strengthen meaningful efforts to make a positive impact. ? #naturalexpowest #expowest #cpg?