From independent sodas and craft beers to wellness drinks and street food-inspired snacks, today’s food and beverage scene is thriving with flavor and creativity. And a lot of the fire behind these brands is coming from young, Black, and culture-driven entrepreneurs turning bold ideas into must-have products.
But here’s the real: making a great product is only half the game. If you’re trying to grow your food or drink brand beyond the farmers’ market, pop-ups, or your local bodega, you need to get smart about supply, packaging, and production. Scaling takes more than hustle—it takes strategy, systems, and partners you can trust.
Here’s how to take your brand from local favorite to national contender—without losing what made it special in the first place.
1. Start With the Ingredients
Your flavor is your fingerprint. Whether you’re making CBD seltzers, plant-based sauces, or cold-brew in a can, what goes inside matters. As you grow, you’ll need to find consistent, scalable suppliers for the ingredients that make your product pop.
Don’t wait until you get your first big order to figure this out. Start sourcing like a pro from day one—get samples, test for consistency, and build relationships with suppliers who understand your vibe and your volume goals.
2. Secure That Packaging Game
If the product is the star, the packaging is the billboard. People eat with their eyes first, and your label, can, or bottle tells the story before they even taste what’s inside. When scaling up, you need to think beyond good design—you need packaging that’s affordable, available, and production-ready.
Get samples. Think about shelf presence. Test how your packaging performs in transit. And above all, make sure you can order at the volume you need without crushing your profit margin.
3. Use Tech to Simplify the Grind
Let’s be real—sourcing everything yourself, managing quotes, and emailing back and forth with random suppliers can get chaotic fast. When it’s just you or a small team, your time is money.
That’s where tools like Keychain come in. It’s a digital platform that connects food and beverage brands with vetted ingredient and packaging suppliers, so you can skip the middleman and scale smarter. Big CPG companies use platforms like this to move fast and stay ready—now indie brands can too.
4. Stay True to the Brand
It’s easy to lose focus when your brand starts growing. Suddenly you’re thinking about shelf space, distributor demands, co-packing schedules—and you forget why you started in the first place.
But culture sells. Realness sells. Whether you’re all about sustainability, street food, or classic hometown flavors, don’t water down your brand. Keep the same energy from the first batch to your 50th. Let your mission shine through the product, the packaging, and the way you market it.
5. Don’t Just Grow—Scale With Intention
Scaling isn’t about going viral. It’s about building something that lasts. That means:
- Creating systems you can grow with
- Building relationships, not just transactions
- Staying flexible but staying focused
It’s not always sexy, but the behind-the-scenes work is what turns passion projects into profitable empires.
Final Word
There’s room at the table—and in the fridge—for more dope, culture-led food and drink brands. But getting there means playing smart. Learn the business. Leverage tech. Build community. And scale in a way that keeps your story intact.
If your product is fire, don’t let a broken supply chain be the reason the world never tastes it.
The next big brand? It could be yours. Just make sure you build it right.