Your Beverage Can Be Selling
And Still Quietly Losing You Money.As you scale, the parts of the business (formula, cost, co-packer, production) stop talking to each other, and it all ends up running through you. The gaps between them are where your margin and your control leak, and they are the hardest thing to see from the inside.
Does this sound like you?
These Are The Five Things Beverage Founders Say When The System Stops Holding.
“We have a lot going on (formulation, ops, supply chain), but none of it really feels connected, so everything takes longer than it should.”
“Costs keep creeping up, but we don’t really have a clear handle on where it’s coming from or how to fix it.”
“We keep iterating and making changes, but nothing ever really locks in. We just keep going in circles.”
“Most of our decisions are happening late and under pressure. We’re reacting instead of actually planning.”
“I feel like I’m the one holding everything together. If I step out, I’m not sure it actually works.”
The Gap Nobody Owns
Every Vendor Is Paid To Watch Their Own Piece. Nobody Watches The Space Between Them.
Your formulator watches the formula. Your co-packer watches their line. Your packaging vendor watches the fill. Each one does their job, and each one optimizes for their own piece.
But the space between them is where your margin and your surprises live. It is the hardest thing to see from the inside, because no one you have hired is paid to look at it.
The Same Thing Kept Happening.
I have spent years inside beverage projects. Developing products, vetting co-packers, building cost models, standing on production floors. And the same thing kept happening.
The visible job was never where the money was won or lost. It was in the decision just before it. The one no one owned, the assumption no one tested, the risk quietly concentrating while everyone stayed heads-down on their own piece.
These brands were not failing on taste, or on effort. They were failing in the space between the decisions.
So I built Rapid CPG to live in that space. To get the judgment right before the commitments make it expensive.
That work covers 100+ SKUs formulated across 10+ categories for 15+ brands. Matt is a member of the Research Chefs Association, and the work has earned BevNET Best New Product (2019) and BevNET Best New Packaging (2018).
Matt Carden, Founder, Rapid CPG
Independent Guidance Across the Full System
Most beverage consultants come with a built-in loyalty: a flavor house, a co-packer, a project shop with a next invoice. The recommendation you receive reflects what they need to sell, not just what your brand needs to scale.
We don’t carry inventory, take referral fees, or have a production line to fill. Every recommendation is built around your brand’s economics and operational reality. Nothing else.
And we don’t leave when the deliverable ships. We stay through the next production run, the next scale band, the next sourcing decision, because the cost of that handoff is what we’re built to prevent.
What We Do
Rapid CPG is a beverage product development and commercialization partner for CPG brands. Rapid CPG helps beverage founders, emerging brands, and growth-stage operators connect formulation, cost modeling, production specifications, co-packer readiness, and scale-up planning so products are built for real manufacturing conditions.
A beverage can taste right in the lab and still break the moment real production starts. These are the six places we keep that from happening.
Already know where it’s breaking? Go straight to it.
Product Development
Formulation, packaging, and cost modeling designed for how your product behaves at production volume. Every decision gets tested against the operational realities your beverage will face after it leaves the lab, so the product you launch performs the way it did when you approved it.
Co-Packer Services
Co-packer selection that matches your formulation, cost targets, and volume assumptions, not just the partner’s capacity calendar. We evaluate fit across every dimension that determines whether a production partner will hold up when your real volume hits their line.
Production Stewardship
Quality, consistency, and cost oversight across every production run. We stay close to the line so deviations surface in time to correct them, not after they’ve already shipped to retail.
Product Stewardship
Reformulation, cost optimization, and packaging decisions that protect margin as you scale. We bring strategic rigor to the recurring product reviews that determine whether your unit economics hold up at the next volume band.
Recall Readiness
Traceability, mock recalls, and audit-ready documentation. Built before the email arrives, not after, so the systems that protect your retail and regulatory relationships are already in place the day they get tested.
Beverage Consulting Services
Executive-level governance across product, production, and commercialization. A continuous decision-support layer that holds your strategy steady through every growth phase, without the cost of a full-time hire.
Not Sure If You’re Ready To Scale?
The Scale Readiness Checklist helps you evaluate where your brand actually stands before committing capital to your next production milestone.
It covers formulation, packaging, cost structure, co-packer alignment, and operational readiness, the areas where assumptions break down at volume.
Here’s How We’ve Helped Brands Like Yours
Three recent engagements. Three different problems. What we did, and what it returned.
Co-Packer Services
Reduction in per-unit co-packing tolling fee
A brand at $3M+ revenue was still paying co-packing rates set at startup scale. When their co-packer declined to renegotiate, we matched them to a production partner priced for their actual volume band. Tolling fee only. Ingredient, container, and packaging costs weren’t in scope.
Product Development
Reduction in formulation cost, single SKU
A multi-SKU brand had been losing margin to rising ingredient costs. We rebuilt one SKU’s spec using open-market sourcing, selecting for what the formula actually needed, not what existing suppliers offered. The reduction came from better ingredient selection, not vendor negotiation.
Production Stewardship
Reduction in production-quality errors
A brand was generating recurring off-spec output with no reliable way to identify the cause. We added run-level oversight directly at their co-packer: QC checkpoints built into the production sequence before problems could reach final inspection. Quality errors dropped without a formula change or a facility switch.
Who This Is For
This Is For You If…
We work best with founders who are past the question of whether to scale and into the decisions about how. If you recognize yourself here, you’re in territory we know.
You’re past the idea stage and into real production decisions
You’re navigating formulation, co-packer selection, or scale-up
You’re preparing for a major commercialization milestone
You’re managing multiple vendors (formula, co-packer, production) and the gaps between them are starting to cost you.
You want strategic guidance, not task execution
A Few Honest Caveats
When We’re Not the Right Fit
A few honest notes on where the fit usually breaks down. If any of these describe where you are right now, we’re probably not the right call.
You’re pre-commercialization and still deciding whether to move forward
You’re looking for one-off advice rather than ongoing strategic engagement
You need reassurance more than honest diagnosis
The priority is getting to shelf at minimum cost, not building durable commercial infrastructure
You’re not yet ready to engage directly with production constraints
The Offer
The Formula-to-Margin Diagnostic
One call across everything between your recipe and your margin: formula, sourcing, co-packer, production, and cash. The diagnosis happens in the call, before any contract or fee.
Two recent founders. Both got real diagnostic value from their first conversation with Matt, before either signed anything.
The Cost Find
He Found $97,000 In Our Formulas Before We Signed Anything
Situation: A multi-SKU craft beverage brand with ~$400K annual ingredient spend had been trying to reduce formulation cost for months, focused on their extract systems.
What changed: Before any contract, we sent a structured cost assessment identifying where the real cost concentration lived, not in the extracts, but in the juice architecture. We also flagged the one SKU that was already efficient and shouldn’t be touched.
What the founder preserved: Months of misdirected optimization effort, and ~$100K in annual liquid cost carried in the wrong part of the portfolio.
“He identified nearly $100,000 in annual cost we were carrying in the wrong part of our formulas — before we signed anything.”
— Founder, Multi-SKU Craft Beverage Brand
The Compliance Catch
He Was The Only Person In The Room Who’d Read The Compliance Rules
Situation: An early-stage beverage brand was being pressured by their co-packer to adopt a new manufacturing process. It seemed reasonable. The brand was a week away from saying yes.
What changed: We reviewed the compliance implications, held the position under pressure from both the founder and the co-packer, and worked with both parties until a compliant path was reached.
What the founder avoided: A regulatory exposure that would have surfaced after commitment, with a co-packer relationship already locked in around the wrong process.
“We were a week from saying yes to something that would have created a serious regulatory problem. Matt was the only one who’d actually read the compliance rules.”
— Founder, Early-Stage Beverage Brand
What You Walk Away With
A live read of where your risk actually sits (formula, cost, co-packer, production, cash), not just the problem you came in describing.
The one thing most likely to be quietly costing you money, named specifically enough to act on.
Your next decision made clear, and which decisions can wait.
An honest fit answer. If we are not the right call, we will say so and point you elsewhere.
Pre-Launch
Getting ready to produce? Leave knowing whether the product can sell, scale, and hold margin before you commit to a run, sign a co-packer, or lock a formula.
Already In Market
Leave knowing where your margin and control are leaking now (recoverable cost, an uncontrolled run, co-packer terms working against you) and what to fix first.
No fee. No contract. No obligation to work together after. The value is yours whether we ever do.
FAQ
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