Most CPG founders can tell you how many cases they have on hand. Almost none can tell you how many days that actually buys them. In this episode, Connor and Luke sit down with Mac McAvoy, founder of DeepWorks CPG and one of the sharpest operators in consumer goods, to unpack the unglamorous backend work that quietly decides whether a brand scales or stalls.Mac has done it in the deep end. He packed two duffel bags, moved from Florida to LA to run operations for Dirty Lemon, took a cold-chain, HPP beverage all the way to shelf-stable so it could land in Walmart, and did it partly living out of an Escalade during COVID. From there he ran operations for one of California's top cannabis brands with 125 people and over 200 SKUs across three shifts a day, helped build Barcode's hydration story, and now runs DeepWorks, a fractional operations firm for CPG brands, with clients including Stiller's Soda, HY.Q, Buffs, Sauz, and Habiza Hummus.Inside the conversation: How to track inventory in days on hand instead of cases, and the weighted velocity burn formula Mac builds first for every client (25% last 14 days, 25% quarter to date, 50% year to date). Why the 75% shelf life rule forces you to clear your floor every 90 days. The build, fix, or enhance framework for knowing exactly where a brand needs help. How to actually manage a co-packer relationship, why "you'll be back" is a threat you should never make true, and the break-room trick that gets a facility to care about your product. Where COGS reduction really comes from, and why Mac reviews it quarter by quarter, not week by week. Why taste has to come first and function second, plus the wild story of a brand filling its packaging with water because the product tasted so bad. And the cross-functional truth that operations is a thankless, zero-sum game, so the real win is giving founders their sleep back.If you are a founder running and gunning with nothing on the backend, or scaling faster than your systems can handle, this one is a masterclass in the work nobody claps for but every brand needs.Connect with Mac McAvoy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mac-mcavoy-2a230365/Work with DeepWorks CPG: https://www.deepworkscpg.com/Connect with Connor Macpherson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connor-retail/Connect with Luke Anthony: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-anthony-🍵-394052131/Powered by Plus Forty: http://plusforty.co/Book a call with Plus Forty: https://calendly.com/d/cr89-stz-hcy/shared-booking-link#CPG #ConsumerPackagedGoods #CPGoperations #SupplyChain #InventoryManagement #DTCtoRetail #BeverageIndustry #FractionalCOO #RetailStrategy #COGS #Walmart #FoundersJourney #OperationsLeadership #ShelfSpacePodcast #DirtyLemon #DeepWorks

Most founders build online first and pray retail works later. Renee Lee did the opposite.

Renee co-founded MOXX Brands with Grant Taylor and went straight for the shelf. Five years later, MOXX is one of New Zealand's fastest growing FMCG company with six brands across Walmart, Target, Coles, Woolworths, Sprouts, and Whole Foods. All with a team of just 13.

In this episode, Renee breaks down the retail-first playbook: how a reverse brief from a Woolworths buyer created their biggest brand, why they pulled out of a Target pitch on purpose, and how strong Sprouts numbers convinced Whole Foods to skip the standard 10-store trial and hand them a 500-store nationwide launch out of the gate.

She also shares the pitch advice most founders need to hear: buyers don't need 20 slides on your brand story. They need to know how you bring new customers to their store, grow their category, and improve their margins.

What we cover:

• Building a multi-brand house instead of betting on one brand
• Reverse briefs: when the retailer tells you what to build
• The full MOXX portfolio: Everblue Naturals, Maison & Muse, Restor, Atomic, Kinsey Kids, and Dose Theory
• Why a failed product still unlocked a $7 million laundry business
• Landing Whole Foods nationwide off the back of Sprouts velocity
• Channel strategy: mainstream mass vs naturals, and knowing when to say no
• Why New Zealand test results don't predict Australia or the US
• Hiring for grit over resumes in a lean startup team
• Advice for D2C brands moving into brick and mortar: price, packaging, and the three-second shelf test

Whether you're pitching your first retailer or scaling across markets, this one is a masterclass in commercializing brands for mass retail.

Connect with Renee Lee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reneelee2/
 Shop MOXX Brands: https://www.moxxbrands.com/
Connect with Connor Macpherson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connor-retail/
Connect with Luke Anthony: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-anthony-🍵-394052131/
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Zelka Ridjosic stumbled into CPG after a career that spanned advertising, consulting, finance, pharma, and building medical animation for the Dr. Oz Show, HBO, and CNN. Then a neighbor said seven words that changed everything: "Come work with me, you'll figure it out." Today she is Co-Founder and President of Joyburst, a self-funded Canadian hydration and energy brand projecting nine figures in sales, sold in Costco, Walmart, Target, Aldi, and beyond.

In this episode, Zelka pulls back the curtain on the unconventional playbook behind Joyburst's rise. From convincing a Costco buyer to grant a 50-store test by promising a Super Bowl commercial (and pulling it off for a fraction of the usual cost), to the Disney partnership they nearly deleted as spam, to launching a creatine soda the entire industry swore couldn't exist. She is equally candid about the failures: the protein drink that turned into Jello, the frappe that shipped without coffee, and the two years Costco refused to take a meeting.

If you care about building a CPG brand without venture capital, winning retail before DTC, and turning "no" into "yes" on repeat, this one is packed.
In this episode:

• The eclectic path from advertising and pharma to founding a beverage brand
• Why partner dynamics (the dreamer vs the operator) make or break a company
• The Super Bowl commercial gambit that unlocked the first Costco order
• The retail-first, demo-driven strategy that beats burning cash on ads
• How a "spam" email from Disney became three summer movie partnerships
• The creatine soda world-first and the science everyone said was impossible
• Brutal failure stories and how to build a solution-first mindset
• Why fiber is the next big thing, and building a brand people actually follow

Whether you are a founder, an operator, or just love a great origin story, Zelka's blend of corporate discipline and entrepreneurial nerve is a masterclass in modern brand building.

Connect with Zelka Ridjosic: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zelka-ridjosic-traikos-8bbaa226/
Shop Joyburst: https://joyburst.com/

Connect with Connor Macpherson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connor-retail/
Connect with Luke Anthony: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-anthony-🍵-394052131/

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Jordan Iglesias has sold beverages at nearly every altitude the industry has. Thirteen and a half years at PepsiCo, a stint at Red Bull he thought would last forever, and a front-row seat at Congo Brands as it launched some of the fastest-growing CPG names on the planet in Prime Hydration, Alani Nu, and Lunchly. But his real edge started on the other side of the desk, running stores and buying center-store product for a grocery chain in Colorado. Today he is Chief Sales Officer at Dry Water, a better-for-you hydration powder made from real fruit, and he is chasing one very clear number: a billion dollars in retail sales.
In this episode, Jordan breaks down the sales philosophy that has followed him from a Fortune 40 machine to a startup incubator to an early-stage rocket ship. His core message is simple but rarely practiced: stop pitching and start listening. He explains why he never tries to sell anything in a first buyer meeting, the blunt questions he actually asks to uncover what a buyer is measured on, and how to turn "no" into "not now." He also compares the inner workings of PepsiCo, Red Bull, and Congo Brands, and what each environment taught him about getting things done.
If you are building a brand and trying to crack retail, this is a masterclass in buyer psychology, partnership, and the unglamorous work that actually wins shelf space.
In this episode:

• The path from grocery buyer to selling for Pepsi, Red Bull, and Congo Brands

• Why the first buyer meeting should never be a sales pitch
• The blunt questions that reveal a buyer's real KPIs, margin targets, and priorities
• Partner vs vendor, and how transparency lets you deliver bad news and still win
• Turning a no into a not now, and why timing beats persistence
• PepsiCo vs Red Bull vs Congo Brands, three very different ways to get things done
• Inside Dry Water's omnichannel rollout across Walmart, Target, Kroger, and more
• Using DTC as a testing ground before earning a retail shelf
• The mission to build Dry Water into a billion dollar brand

Whether you are a founder, a sales leader, or just love the craft of the deal, Jordan's blend of big-company training and startup hustle is packed with takeaways.
Connect with Jordan Iglesias: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-iglesias-21598850/
 Shop Dry Water: https://drywater.com/
Connect with Connor Macpherson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connor-retail/
 Connect with Luke Anthony: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-anthony-🍵-394052131/
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 Book a call with Plus Forty: https://calendly.com/d/cr89-stz-hcy/shared-booking-link

Jia Liao is the founder of Hapa Queen, a Sichuan hot pot brand built to honor her mother, the original "Queen of Hapa" in China who invented the split broth pot that let spicy and non spicy eaters share the same table. In this episode, Jia opens up about walking away from her first venture (a tea lounge that raised eight million dollars) after learning hard lessons about outside capital, why she chose to bootstrap Hapa Queen instead, and how a failed Kickstarter forced her into a last minute Expo West launch that became the turning point for the brand.

Jia and Connor get into the real numbers behind building a CPG brand from scratch: going from 100 cold emails and 7 replies to over 1,084 stores in the US and 215 in Australia, signing two distributors before landing a single retailer, the Whole Foods "golden ticket" that didn't convert, and the packaging mistake an eye tracking study exposed that changed her entire product line. She also talks candidly about why she shares her failures on LinkedIn instead of just her wins, and what it means to build a business at her own pace instead of someone else's.

Topics covered:

• Why she turned down outside funding after her first startup
• The Kickstarter that failed days before launch
• Betting everything on an Expo West debut
• Reading buyers on the trade show floor
• The packaging fix that changed her growth trajectory
• Building a community on LinkedIn through honesty, not highlight reels

Connect with Jia Liao: / weijia-liao

Connect with Hotpot Queen: / hotpotqueen

Visit Hotpot Queen Website: https://hotpotqueen.com/

Connect with Connor Macpherson: / connor-retail

Connect with Luke Anthony: / luke-anthony-🍵-394052131

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Book a call with Plus Forty: https://calendly.com/d/cr89-stz-hcy/shared-booking-link

What happens when you mix Red Bull DNA, PRIME Hydration hustle, and a father-son duo with nothing to lose?
You get NoCap Soda Pop - a brand which is on track to hit 10,000 stores nationwide in under two years with a team of just six.
Vinny Wilson was the 32nd hire at Congo Brands during the PRIME and Alani Nu explosion, ranking as the number one sales rep in the country for six months straight. His dad spent nearly three decades in beverage, including 10 years at Red Bull and scaling Bang Energy's sales machine. In August 2024, they bet on themselves and launched NoCap, the next-gen soda pop built for the action sports generation.
In this episode, Vinny breaks down how NoCap is out-hustling competitors that raised $30 to $50 million, the content engine that has driven their growth, how a sassy 10-year-old at a BMX race changed their entire formulation and more.
We cover:

• Scaling to Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons, and C-stores nationwide in 18 months
• Landing the first-ever confectionery licensing deal in modern soda (Albanese Gummies, then ICEE)
• The cult following playbook: 2,500 tagged posts, 13.9M impressions, and $985K in earned media value in one quarter, all unpaid
• Why "the loudest brand with no sales" became the loudest brand on the shelf
• The value play strategy: 16oz cans priced against the share leaders' 12oz
• Sampling 300,000 cans as real-time R&D
• No Cap Fridays, expired competitor products, and why you should inspect what you expect
• The friendly five: NoCap's $5M seed round and the road to a $100 million brand

If you're building a CPG brand, this is a masterclass in speed, scrappiness, and betting on yourself.
Connect with Vinny Wilson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinnywilson/
Shop NoCap Soda Pop: https://drinknocapsoda.com/
Connect with Connor Macpherson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connor-retail/
Connect with Luke Anthony: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-anthony-🍵-394052131/
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Book a call with Plus Forty: https://calendly.com/d/cr89-stz-hcy/shared-booking-link

• Landing in the wine and spirits industry by accident
• Learning premium mixers from Fever Tree USA’s former CEO
• Why the company almost got named Blue Bonnet, Yellow Rose, or Atlas Mixer Co
• The case mix-up that had distributors shipping the wrong Lady Bird SKUs to retailers
• Discovering the soda opportunity by watching how customers actually used the product
• Raising a seed round from friends, family, and skin in the game
• Landing Walmart and HEB, and setting up shop next to Poppy at Expo West
• Getting secretly acquired and what a five year, $200 million goal looks like from here

She was employee #10 at Vital Proteins. When she left, the brand was closing in on $400M in sales and had just landed Jennifer Aniston as a spokesperson.
In this episode, Shannon Race takes us behind the scenes of one of the most remarkable brand stories in the supplement industry. From the early days when collagen was too taboo for media to touch, to a nine-figure acquisition by Nestle Health Sciences. Then she unpacks what came next: working inside CAVU's venture fund, advising the brands that would go on to define the next era of CPG, and ultimately making the leap to founder herself with Bio.me - a fiber supplement brand built on the premise that one of the most essential nutrients in the human diet has been catastrophically misunderstood.
Shannon breaks down:

• How Vital Proteins cracked mainstream media in a category nobody wanted to cover
• The Jennifer Aniston story - from a pin-drop moment on Day 1 to a landmark brand deal
• What she saw inside CAVU's portfolio (including early Poppi) that shaped her approach to brand building
• Why fiber is the next category ripe for disruption and what Metamucil got wrong for 100 years
• How Bio.me landed in Sprouts, Whole Foods, Walmart, and Target within three years
• Her honest take on AI, Claude, and where founders should draw the line

This is a masterclass in category creation, brand education, and knowing when to bet on yourself.
Connect with Shannon Race: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannon-race-66138351/
Connect with Bio.me: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bio-me-llc
Visit Bio.me Website: https://bio.me
Connect with Connor Macpherson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connor-retail/
Connect with Luke Anthony: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-anthony-%F0%9F%8D%B5-394052131/
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Book a call with Plus Forty: https://calendly.com/d/cr89-stz-hcy/shared-booking-link

Day 47. $3 million in sales. A product backed by Kylie Jenner and Kris Jenner. And a CEO who's only just getting started.
Jay Hunter spent seven years scaling MaryRuth's from a scrappy Amazon-first brand into one of the biggest names in wellness supplements - going from Amazon director to CRO overseeing a team of 50 across ecom, marketing, paid media, influencers, and analytics. Then Kylie Jenner's team came calling.

In this episode, Jay pulls back the curtain on what it's really like to join a celebrity-founded brand, build a team from scratch, and launch K2O - Sprinter's functional beauty hydration extension - in real time. He's sharing the exact numbers, the exact strategy, and the exact management frameworks that are driving results at a speed most brands never see.

This one is loaded with frameworks, fire, and zero filter. If you're building a CPG brand, managing a team, or just trying to figure out how to win faster - Jay's your guy.
What we get into:

•  Seven years at MaryRuth's - from Amazon director to CRO and what that journey looked like
•  How the Kylie Jenner opportunity came about and why he said yes
•  K2O in 47 days - $3M in sales, a new team, and a brand built from scratch
•  The PPP framework - how Jay runs weekly reporting across his entire team
•  TikTok Shop and Amazon first, retail second - the go-to-market philosophy behind K2O
•  How Jay identifies A players - the only two things he actually looks for in interviews
•  Why he prefers in-house hires over agencies every single time
•  Managing a board that includes Kris Jenner, Reed and some of the biggest names in the space
•  Going fully remote and building a global team including Filipino talent
•  The $250M three-year goal and what it takes to get there

Connect with Jay Hunter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jay-m-hunter/
Connect with Sprinter / K2O: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sprinter-spirits
Visit K2O Website: https://drinksprinter.com
Connect with Connor Macpherson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connor-retail/
Connect with Luke Anthony: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-anthony-%F0%9F%8D%B5-394052131/
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Book a call with Plus Forty: https://calendly.com/d/cr89-stz-hcy/shared-booking-link

She sold her last company to Kind Snacks. Then Mars bought Kind. Then she quit, had no insurance, was a single mom of two, and started all over again.
Lindsay Hancock is the founder of My Better Batch, a premium clean-ingredient cookie mix brand now landing in major US national retailers - and she's just getting started. But the backstory is what makes this one unmissable.
From Employee #1 at Creative Snacks, to selling to Kind Snacks. Then Mars bought Kind. Then she quit, had no insurance, was a single mom of two, and started all over again.
In this episode, she breaks down how she spotted the gap nobody else was filling in the baking aisle, why she cold-pitched co-manufacturers the same way she pitched retailers, and the wild story of how a national retailer buyer emailed her out of nowhere because her boyfriend made the cookies and thought he was a genius chef.
If you're building in CPG, thinking about retail, or just need a reminder that starting over isn't the end of the story - this episode is for you.
What we get into:

• Growing Creative Snacks from zero to $60M and selling to Kind Snacks
• Navigating two acquisitions and why big company life wasn't for her
• The personal reset at 40 that led to My Better Batch
• Why the baking aisle is the most under-innovated shelf in the grocery store
• Finding a co-manufacturer willing to take a bet on an emerging brand
• The Target Takeoff program and what it actually means for a brand relationship
• How she pitches retailers with a category lens, not just a product story
• The buyer who got emailed cookies made by her boyfriend - and how that landed a national listing
• What the rest of 2026 looks like and where My Better Batch is headed

Connect with Lindsay Hancock: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsay-hancock-baa26793/
Connect with My Better Batch: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mybetterbatch
Visit My Better Batch Website: https://mybetterbatch.com
Connect with Connor Macpherson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connor-retail/
Connect with Luke Anthony: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-anthony-%F0%9F%8D%B5-394052131/
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Book a call with Plus Forty: https://calendly.com/d/cr89-stz-hcy/shared-booking-link