Brands Must Plan for Growth Before Complexity Takes Over — 10/8/26 Live Event Recap
Early-Stage Brands Must Plan for Growth Before Complexity Takes Over: Lessons from Olipop at Naturally Chicago/C.H. Robinson Event
At a Naturally Chicago event hosted by the C.H. Robinson logistics company on October 8, Tim Joseph — vice president of operations for the fast-growing Olipop prebiotic soda brand — shared strategies for managing rising costs, forecasting demand, building flexibility and developing the partnerships that help emerging brands scale.
For emerging food and beverage brands, rapid growth can be both the ultimate goal and a test of whether their businesses are built to handle it. Winning new retail accounts and expanding distribution can create opportunities for substantial sales gains, but those advances also introduce new demands on manufacturing, warehousing, transportation, inventory management and forecasting.
The challenge is to build a supply chain that can keep pace without allowing costs, operational breakdowns or missed sales opportunities to undermine the business.
That was the focus of “Cutting Supply Chains Costs for Rapid Growth,” an October 8 live event organized by Naturally Chicago in partnership with C.H. Robinson at the logistics provider’s Chicago headquarters.
The program featured a conversation between Adam Happ, C.H. Robinson’s commercial director for consolidation, and Tim Joseph, vice president of operations and procurement at Olipop, the fast-growing prebiotic soda brand.
Tim Joseph of Olipop (left) and Adam Happ of C.H. Robinson look on as Stephanie Holder of C.H. Robinson delivers introductory remarks at the October 8 event. Photo by Bob Benenson/Naturally Chicago
Drawing on experience with both emerging and established consumer packaged goods companies, Joseph offered a practical perspective on the operational challenges that accompany growth.
His central message was that companies need to plan for complexity before it arrives, distinguish realistic demand commitments from uncertain opportunities, and develop strong relationships with supply chain partners well before they need extra capacity.
“As you scale, complexity moves faster than you scale,” Tim said.
That observation captures a dilemma for entrepreneurs whose companies begin with relatively simple operations and then expand into more complicated organizations with multiple retail channels, manufacturing requirements and distribution networks.
The event opened with remarks from Jim Slama, founder and CEO of Naturally Chicago, and Stephanie Holder, director of sales at C.H. Robinson. Networking receptions before and after the discussion gave founders, investors, operators and service providers an opportunity to exchange experiences and explore potential partnerships.
Connecting Emerging Brands with Supply Chain Expertise
Slama described Naturally Chicago as a network of approximately 150 natural and organic food, personal care and health-product companies, ranging from established brands such as Chomps and Simple Mills to emerging businesses working to bring new products to market.
The organization also connects entrepreneurs in the better-for-people-and-the-planet space with Chicago Seed Co, a collaboration of more than 60 investors, including venture capital funds, family offices and angel investors, as well as service providers that support companies as they grow.
Logistics is a particularly important part of that support system. A brand may develop a successful product and attract retailer interest, but its ability to deliver consistently and economically can determine whether it can capitalize on that demand.
Holder said C.H. Robinson has maintained a relationship with the broader Naturally Network for about a decade, beginning with Naturally Boulder (now Naturally Colorado). That connection has given the company a view of how emerging brands progress from producing their first products to securing initial retail accounts and eventually distributing nationwide.
For C.H. Robinson, she said, helping companies navigate those transitions has been a rewarding part of the relationship.
C.H. Robinson describes itself as one of the world's largest logistics providers, connecting shippers with an extensive carrier network and combining that reach with technology, data and logistics expertise. Its services span truckload and less-than-truckload (LTL) transportation, air and ocean freight, warehousing and consolidation.
But Holder emphasized that the company's role extends beyond moving shipments. It also works with businesses to address operational problems and build supply chains that can accommodate growth.
The company has invested in solutions for small and midsize businesses, including LTL services, warehousing, retail consolidation and temperature-controlled consolidation. These capabilities are intended to help growing brands manage increasing distribution demands while controlling costs.
That support can be particularly valuable to entrepreneurs who need to concentrate on product development, brand building and winning retail accounts without allowing supply chain management to become a barrier to expansion.
Growth Changes the Operating Equation
Tim Joseph and Adam Happ engaged in a fireside chat style discussion of CPG business logistics, challenges and resilience. Photo by Bob Benenson/Naturally Chicago
Joseph brought experience across more than 15 years in consumer packaged goods, including positions at Nestlé, Coca-Cola and BodyArmor before beginning his Olipop tenure two years ago. His career has included helping companies move products from concept to retail shelves, as well as managing the operational demands of businesses experiencing significant growth (as is the case with Olipop).
He began by acknowledging the unusual pressures facing consumer brands in recent years, from the pandemic and inflation to fuel-price volatility and geopolitical disruptions.
Companies in the natural products sector face an additional imperative, he suggested: They are trying to build viable businesses while delivering products intended to improve consumers' health and well-being. For those companies, operational discipline is essential. Yet the systems and assumptions that work for a small startup may not hold up as the business expands.
In the early stages, employees often have broad responsibilities and share information informally. As a company adds people and departments, responsibilities become more specialized, communication can become fragmented, and decisions that once happened quickly may require coordination across multiple functions.
The result is a growing organization whose operational complexity can outpace its sales growth.
Joseph said companies must recognize that every new stage of expansion can create a different set of problems. At BodyArmor, he recalled, the team frequently found that each year of growth brought new challenges.
The first things to break are not necessarily particular departments or pieces of equipment. More often, he said, it is the operating assumptions on which the business has been built.
Can the warehouse handle a sharp increase in shipments? Can manufacturing produce enough product units? Are marketing forecasts aligned with actual consumer demand? Does the company have the information technology and staffing required to support its new scale?
Those questions become increasingly consequential when a company moves from one level of sales to another. Joseph's advice was to examine the assumptions underlying the business before deciding which new capabilities to build.
Happ reinforced the importance of planning, recommending that brands maintain an operating plan covering the next 12 to 18 months. Such a plan gives management a baseline against which to measure actual performance, identify deviations and determine what corrective action is necessary.
Without that baseline, companies have little basis for understanding why something went wrong or which changes might solve the problem. The plan need not predict the future perfectly — its value lies in giving management a framework for responding when reality differs from expectations.
Forecasting Must Evolve with Retail Expansion
As brands move beyond their initial retail channels, forecasting becomes more complicated. A company that establishes itself in natural and specialty grocery stores may discover that its customers behave differently from shoppers at conventional supermarkets, convenience stores or mass-market retailers. Club stores introduce another set of purchasing patterns and order requirements.
A forecast based on one channel's performance cannot automatically be applied to another.
Joseph illustrated the distinction by comparing purchasing an iPhone with buying a beverage or snack at a convenience store. If a customer cannot find a particular phone at a retail store, that customer may be willing to order it and wait several days for delivery. A convenience-store shopper looking for a drink, by contrast, generally wants it immediately.
If the desired product is unavailable, the customer may simply choose a competing brand. So for a beverage company, an out-of-stock product can therefore mean more than a delayed sale. It can mean losing the opportunity to establish a purchasing habit or allowing a competitor to win a customer.
“If you don't have it on a shelf today,” Tim explained, the customer is almost certainly not going to compensate by buying twice as much of the product tomorrow.
That makes accurate, channel-specific forecasting critical. Companies must understand how demand behaves in each retail environment and incorporate those differences into manufacturing, inventory and distribution plans. At the same time, carrying enough inventory to prevent stockouts can tie up cash that a young company needs for other purposes.
Joseph said the solution begins with distinguishing between optionality and commitment.
A retailer's interest, preliminary forecast or potential order may signal an opportunity, but it does not necessarily represent a firm commitment to purchase. Treating every optimistic demand signal as guaranteed business can leave a brand with excess inventory and working capital tied up in products it cannot sell as quickly as expected.
On the other hand, planning too conservatively can leave the company unable to meet demand when a promising opportunity becomes real.
The objective is to understand which demand signals justify firm operating commitments and which should be treated as potential upside. That distinction allows companies to prepare for growth without assuming all projected sales will materialize.
The stakes are especially high for emerging brands, because excess inventory can strain cash flow just as surely as missed sales can limit revenue.
As Transportation Costs Rise, Control What You Can
Fuel-price volatility was another major topic in the discussion.
Rising diesel costs can put pressure on transportation budgets, but Joseph cautioned that companies cannot control every external factor affecting their supply chains. They can, however, influence how effectively their businesses respond.
His recommendation was to establish the right logistics network and build relationships with partners that understand the brand, its business model and its growth prospects. Those relationships can become especially important when a company encounters an unexpected cost increase or needs help managing a temporary disruption.
A logistics partner that understands the business may be better positioned to work with the company on possible solutions, including ways to address fuel-related or tariff-related pressures. Happ agreed, emphasizing the importance of concentrating on factors a business can actually influence.
One example is network design. A company manufacturing in the Midwest but expanding distribution on the West Coast should examine whether its production and distribution locations make economic sense as its geographic footprint changes.
Pallet configuration is another consideration. If a transportation provider charges based on pallet space, inefficient pallet loading can increase costs across a growing number of shipments. Reviewing how products are packed and consolidated can improve transportation efficiency.
Order quantities also matter. Establishing appropriate minimum order quantities with customers can help ensure that the cost of fulfilling an order is proportionate to the revenue it generates.
Individually, these decisions may seem small. Across a rapidly expanding distribution network, however, they can have a substantial cumulative effect.
The broader lesson is that companies should not assume the logistics arrangements that worked during their early growth will remain cost effective as they enter new markets and serve more retailers. Network design, shipment configuration, order requirements and the location of inventory all deserve regular review as the business changes.
How Relationships Build Flexibility
Asked what lessons had been most important across the businesses he had helped scale, Joseph returned to two themes: network flexibility and relationships.
Flexibility allows a company to respond when demand differs from its forecast. Sometimes a business will underestimate demand and need additional capacity. In other circumstances, it may have to acknowledge that it cannot deliver everything it had anticipated.
Either situation requires the ability to adjust plans in coordination with suppliers, manufacturers, logistics providers and other business partners. But flexibility is not simply a matter of finding someone willing to accommodate a last-minute request.
Joseph stressed that the willingness of a partner to help often depends on the trust developed over time. A partner who understands the business and believes in its prospects may be more willing to work through a difficult situation than one that sees the relationship as purely transactional.
That trust also makes it easier to have candid conversations about changing expectations, capacity constraints and the steps needed to get operations back on track. His advice was to cultivate those relationships before a crisis occurs, rather than waiting until additional capacity or an exception becomes urgently needed.
The same principle applies to building operational flexibility into the business itself. A company that waits until it needs additional manufacturing capacity, warehouse space or transportation options may find that the resources are unavailable or that existing agreements restrict its choices. Planning ahead creates more room to respond when opportunities arise.
For founders managing limited capital, that does not necessarily mean paying for large amounts of unused capacity. It means understanding available options, anticipating future needs and avoiding arrangements that unnecessarily limit the company's ability to adapt.
Process, Not Bureaucracy
Joseph closed with three recommendations for companies preparing to scale.
First, build optionality into the business early. Securing the ability to accommodate future growth is easier when capacity and relationships are considered before they become urgent requirements.
Second, focus on process rather than bureaucracy. As organizations expand, they naturally add employees, management layers and internal coordination. Without effective processes, those additions can slow decisions and delay getting products to market.
Well-designed processes, by contrast, help people understand their responsibilities and execute consistently without requiring every decision to move through additional layers of approval.
Third, invest in relationships before they are needed.
Joseph compared the process to a bank account: Companies should make deposits into their business relationships in advance, building the trust that can be drawn upon when circumstances become difficult.
Together, the three principles offer a framework for managing growth without allowing the supply chain to become an obstacle to it.
The discussion underscored a point relevant to the entrepreneurs, investors and service providers gathered at C.H. Robinson's headquarters: Scaling a successful consumer brand requires more than producing a desirable product and persuading retailers to carry it.
Companies also need the forecasting discipline to anticipate demand, the financial judgment to distinguish firm commitments from uncertain opportunities, the operational processes to manage increasing complexity, and the relationships that provide flexibility when plans change.
For emerging brands, those capabilities are best developed before growth puts them to the test. As Joseph's experience suggests, the goal is not to eliminate uncertainty from a rapidly changing business environment. It is to build an organization and a supply chain capable of responding to it.
Group photo at the end of the program. From left, Lars Juhl, C.H. Robinson senior business development executive; Tim Joseph, Olipop vice president of operations; Jim Slama, Naturally Chicago founder/CEO; Adam Happ, C.H. Robinson commercial director for consolidation; and Stephanie Holder, C.H. Robinson director of sales. Photo by Bob Benenson/Naturally Chicago