How to Manage the Logistics of a Consumer Packaged Goods Business
The unsexy stuff that separates brands that scale from brands that fail
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Let me tell you something nobody told me when I was launching my first CPG brand.
Everyone wants to talk about the product. The packaging. The influencer partnership. The TikTok strategy. The big retail meeting where the buyer says yes and you pop champagne.
Nobody wants to talk about the 3AM call when your distributor tells you that 2,000 units are sitting in a warehouse 200 miles from where they need to be. Nobody wants to talk about the spreadsheet reconciliation that will steal your weekend. Nobody wants to talk about the logistics.
I’ve learned building brands that have scaled to 2,500+ retail stores and scaling brands across locations in the UK, Africa and the Middle East: logistics isn’t the boring backend of your business. It is your business. Get it right and you scale. Get it wrong and the best product in the world won’t save you.
- Your Supply Chain Is Only as Strong as Your Weakest Relationship
When I started, I thought logistics was about systems. Software. Processes. And yes, those matter. But the game-changer? Relationships.
Your manufacturer isn’t just a vendor. Your distributor isn’t just a middleman. Your 3PL partner isn’t just a line item on your P&L. These people will either save your business or sink it when things go sideways. And things will go sideways.
I’ve seen founders treat their supply chain partners like they’re disposable. They squeeze every margin, negotiate every penny, and then wonder why their manufacturer deprioritises their order when demand spikes. They wonder why their distributor doesn’t pick up the phone at 10PM when there’s a crisis.
Here’s what I do differently. I treat my supply chain partners like co-founders. I share our vision with them. I bring them into launches early. I pay on time, every time, even when cash flow is tight. Because when you need a favour, and you will need a favour, the relationship you’ve built becomes the difference between surviving and going under.
The transactional founder treats logistics as a cost center to minimize. The founder who actually scales treats logistics as a competitive advantage to invest in. - Master Your Lead Times or They Will Master You
Every CPG founder learns this lesson. Some learn it early and prepare. Most learn it painfully and expensively.
Here’s the scenario: You get the call. Boots wants to launch your product in 150 stores. This is the moment you’ve been working toward. The buyer needs stock in six weeks. You do the math. Manufacturing takes eight weeks. Shipping takes two. Quality testing takes one. You’re already four weeks short before you’ve even started.
Now you’re scrambling. Air freighting inventory at triple the cost. Pulling from other commitments. Burning goodwill with existing retail partners. All because you didn’t have visibility into your own supply chain.
The solution isn’t complicated, but it requires discipline. Map every single stage of your supply chain from raw materials to retail shelf. Know your manufacturing lead time. Know your shipping windows. Know your buffer requirements. Then build a rolling 16-week forecast that you actually update, not one that sits in a spreadsheet gathering dust.
The founders who scale don’t wait for the big order to figure out their logistics. They’ve already stress-tested their supply chain before the opportunity arrives. When that buyer calls, they don’t flinch. They say “yes” with confidence because they’ve done the work. - Inventory Management Is Cashflow Management
I’ve watched promising brands die with full warehouses. Let that sink in.
They had demand. They had a retail presence. They had press coverage. But they had so much cash tied up in inventory that they couldn’t fund their marketing, couldn’t hire the team they needed, couldn’t survive the gap between shipping product and getting paid.
Inventory is seductive. More SKUs feel like growth. Bigger orders from manufacturers feel like progress. Having stock “just in case” feels like safety. But every unit sitting in a warehouse is cash you can’t deploy elsewhere.
The discipline I’ve developed: Know your sell-through rate by SKU, by retailer, by season. Not approximately. Precisely. Know how many weeks of stock you’re carrying. Know your cost of capital. Then make inventory decisions with your finance hat on, not your optimistic founder hat.
Yes, stockouts hurt. Lost sales are painful. But I’d rather lose a sale than lose the business. Working capital is oxygen. Treat it that way. - Your 3PL Choice Can Make or Break Your Retail Relationships
Retailers don’t give second chances. When Tesco or Sainsbury’s or Boots brings you in, they’re taking a risk on you. They’re giving you shelf space that could go to an established brand with a proven track record. The moment you disappoint them, through late deliveries, incorrect orders, or damaged goods, you’re training them to deprioritise you.
Your 3PL is the last line between your brand and that buyer’s disappointment.
I’ve learned to evaluate 3PL partners on three criteria that matter more than price. First, do they understand your category? A 3PL that handles electronics doesn’t know the temperature requirements for beverages or the compliance standards for baby products. Category expertise isn’t optional. Second, can they scale with you? Your needs at 500 units a week are different from 5,000 units a week. The partner who’s perfect at launch may become your bottleneck at scale. Ask about their capacity, their other clients, and their growth plans. Third, how do they communicate when things go wrong? Things will go wrong. The question is whether you’ll find out from them or from an angry buyer. I want partners who call me before I call them.
The cheapest 3PL is rarely the right 3PL. The right 3PL is the one who protects your retail relationships like they’re their own. - Think in Systems, Not Fires
Most early-stage CPG founders spend their days putting out fires. A delivery goes missing. A purchase order doesn’t match. A retailer complains about fill rates. You fix one problem and three more appear.
This is exhausting. It’s also a symptom of a deeper problem: you’re reacting instead of building.
The shift that changed everything for me was moving from “how do I solve this problem” to “how do I build a system that prevents this category of problems.” Instead of fixing one delivery mistake, I built a dispatch checklist that catches errors before they happen. Instead of manually tracking inventory, I invested in software that gives me real-time visibility. Instead of chasing down payment reconciliation, I implemented processes that flag discrepancies automatically.
Yes, building systems takes time upfront. But every system you build is time you get back forever. The founders who scale aren’t necessarily smarter or harder working. They’ve just built better systems. They’re playing chess while everyone else is playing whack-a-mole. - Regional Focus Before National Ambition
I know this isn’t what you want to hear. You want the big national deal. You want your product in every store, coast to coast, all at once. The ego loves scale.
But here’s what I’ve seen destroy brands: they get the national listing they dreamed of, and then they can’t support it. They can’t afford the field marketing in every region. They can’t manage the logistics complexity. They can’t respond to regional demand variations. The product sits on shelves, doesn’t sell, and they get discontinued.
The better play is regional dominance first. Pick your strongest market. Understand it deeply. Build logistics infrastructure that actually works. Prove your sell-through rates. Develop the playbook for success. Then expand to the next region with a proven model, not a prayer.
When we scaled Nala’s Baby, we didn’t try to be everywhere at once. We concentrated our efforts, learned what worked, and then expanded from a position of strength. It takes longer. It feels slower. But you actually arrive at scale instead of collapsing under the weight of premature expansion.
The Bottom Line
Logistics isn’t glamorous. It won’t get you press coverage. It won’t make your LinkedIn posts go viral. But it’s the foundation that everything else sits on.
The brands that actually scale, not just launch but sustain and grow, are the ones that master the unsexy stuff. Supply chain relationships. Lead time discipline. Inventory intelligence. 3PL partnerships. Systems thinking. Regional focus.
You can have the best product in the world. You can have the most compelling brand story. You can have celebrity partnerships and viral moments. But if you can’t get the right product to the right place at the right time at the right cost? None of it matters.
So yes, work on your brand. Work on your marketing. Work on your product. But please, for the love of your business, work on your logistics. It’s not the exciting part of building a CPG company. It’s just the part that determines whether you survive.
Let me tell you something nobody told me when I was launching my first CPG brand.
Everyone wants to talk about the product. The packaging. The influencer partnership. The TikTok strategy. The big retail meeting where the buyer says yes and you pop champagne.
Nobody wants to talk about the 3AM call when your distributor tells you that 2,000 units are sitting in a warehouse 200 miles from where they need to be. Nobody wants to talk about the spreadsheet reconciliation that will steal your weekend. Nobody wants to talk about the logistics.
I’ve learned building brands that have scaled to 2,500+ retail stores and scaling brands across locations in the UK, Africa and the Middle East: logistics isn’t the boring backend of your business. It is your business. Get it right and you scale. Get it wrong and the best product in the world won’t save you.
- Your Supply Chain Is Only as Strong as Your Weakest Relationship
When I started, I thought logistics was about systems. Software. Processes. And yes, those matter. But the game-changer? Relationships.
Your manufacturer isn’t just a vendor. Your distributor isn’t just a middleman. Your 3PL partner isn’t just a line item on your P&L. These people will either save your business or sink it when things go sideways. And things will go sideways.
I’ve seen founders treat their supply chain partners like they’re disposable. They squeeze every margin, negotiate every penny, and then wonder why their manufacturer deprioritises their order when demand spikes. They wonder why their distributor doesn’t pick up the phone at 10PM when there’s a crisis.
Here’s what I do differently. I treat my supply chain partners like co-founders. I share our vision with them. I bring them into launches early. I pay on time, every time, even when cash flow is tight. Because when you need a favour, and you will need a favour, the relationship you’ve built becomes the difference between surviving and going under.
The transactional founder treats logistics as a cost center to minimize. The founder who actually scales treats logistics as a competitive advantage to invest in. - Master Your Lead Times or They Will Master You
Every CPG founder learns this lesson. Some learn it early and prepare. Most learn it painfully and expensively.
Here’s the scenario: You get the call. Boots wants to launch your product in 150 stores. This is the moment you’ve been working toward. The buyer needs stock in six weeks. You do the math. Manufacturing takes eight weeks. Shipping takes two. Quality testing takes one. You’re already four weeks short before you’ve even started.
Now you’re scrambling. Air freighting inventory at triple the cost. Pulling from other commitments. Burning goodwill with existing retail partners. All because you didn’t have visibility into your own supply chain.
The solution isn’t complicated, but it requires discipline. Map every single stage of your supply chain from raw materials to retail shelf. Know your manufacturing lead time. Know your shipping windows. Know your buffer requirements. Then build a rolling 16-week forecast that you actually update, not one that sits in a spreadsheet gathering dust.
The founders who scale don’t wait for the big order to figure out their logistics. They’ve already stress-tested their supply chain before the opportunity arrives. When that buyer calls, they don’t flinch. They say “yes” with confidence because they’ve done the work. - Inventory Management Is Cashflow Management
I’ve watched promising brands die with full warehouses. Let that sink in.
They had demand. They had a retail presence. They had press coverage. But they had so much cash tied up in inventory that they couldn’t fund their marketing, couldn’t hire the team they needed, couldn’t survive the gap between shipping product and getting paid.
Inventory is seductive. More SKUs feel like growth. Bigger orders from manufacturers feel like progress. Having stock “just in case” feels like safety. But every unit sitting in a warehouse is cash you can’t deploy elsewhere.
The discipline I’ve developed: Know your sell-through rate by SKU, by retailer, by season. Not approximately. Precisely. Know how many weeks of stock you’re carrying. Know your cost of capital. Then make inventory decisions with your finance hat on, not your optimistic founder hat.
Yes, stockouts hurt. Lost sales are painful. But I’d rather lose a sale than lose the business. Working capital is oxygen. Treat it that way. - Your 3PL Choice Can Make or Break Your Retail Relationships
Retailers don’t give second chances. When Tesco or Sainsbury’s or Boots brings you in, they’re taking a risk on you. They’re giving you shelf space that could go to an established brand with a proven track record. The moment you disappoint them, through late deliveries, incorrect orders, or damaged goods, you’re training them to deprioritise you.
Your 3PL is the last line between your brand and that buyer’s disappointment.
I’ve learned to evaluate 3PL partners on three criteria that matter more than price. First, do they understand your category? A 3PL that handles electronics doesn’t know the temperature requirements for beverages or the compliance standards for baby products. Category expertise isn’t optional. Second, can they scale with you? Your needs at 500 units a week are different from 5,000 units a week. The partner who’s perfect at launch may become your bottleneck at scale. Ask about their capacity, their other clients, and their growth plans. Third, how do they communicate when things go wrong? Things will go wrong. The question is whether you’ll find out from them or from an angry buyer. I want partners who call me before I call them.
The cheapest 3PL is rarely the right 3PL. The right 3PL is the one who protects your retail relationships like they’re their own. - Think in Systems, Not Fires
Most early-stage CPG founders spend their days putting out fires. A delivery goes missing. A purchase order doesn’t match. A retailer complains about fill rates. You fix one problem and three more appear.
This is exhausting. It’s also a symptom of a deeper problem: you’re reacting instead of building.
The shift that changed everything for me was moving from “how do I solve this problem” to “how do I build a system that prevents this category of problems.” Instead of fixing one delivery mistake, I built a dispatch checklist that catches errors before they happen. Instead of manually tracking inventory, I invested in software that gives me real-time visibility. Instead of chasing down payment reconciliation, I implemented processes that flag discrepancies automatically.
Yes, building systems takes time upfront. But every system you build is time you get back forever. The founders who scale aren’t necessarily smarter or harder working. They’ve just built better systems. They’re playing chess while everyone else is playing whack-a-mole. - Regional Focus Before National Ambition
I know this isn’t what you want to hear. You want the big national deal. You want your product in every store, coast to coast, all at once. The ego loves scale.
But here’s what I’ve seen destroy brands: they get the national listing they dreamed of, and then they can’t support it. They can’t afford the field marketing in every region. They can’t manage the logistics complexity. They can’t respond to regional demand variations. The product sits on shelves, doesn’t sell, and they get discontinued.
The better play is regional dominance first. Pick your strongest market. Understand it deeply. Build logistics infrastructure that actually works. Prove your sell-through rates. Develop the playbook for success. Then expand to the next region with a proven model, not a prayer.
When we scaled Nala’s Baby, we didn’t try to be everywhere at once. We concentrated our efforts, learned what worked, and then expanded from a position of strength. It takes longer. It feels slower. But you actually arrive at scale instead of collapsing under the weight of premature expansion.
The Bottom Line
Logistics isn’t glamorous. It won’t get you press coverage. It won’t make your LinkedIn posts go viral. But it’s the foundation that everything else sits on.
The brands that actually scale, not just launch but sustain and grow, are the ones that master the unsexy stuff. Supply chain relationships. Lead time discipline. Inventory intelligence. 3PL partnerships. Systems thinking. Regional focus.
You can have the best product in the world. You can have the most compelling brand story. You can have celebrity partnerships and viral moments. But if you can’t get the right product to the right place at the right time at the right cost? None of it matters.
So yes, work on your brand. Work on your marketing. Work on your product. But please, for the love of your business, work on your logistics. It’s not the exciting part of building a CPG company. It’s just the part that determines whether you survive.
