Growth strategy and commercialization for CPG
A boutique growth partner for food and beverage brands, and the funds behind them. We’ve built brands from the inside, so we know where strategy actually meets manufacturing, margin, and retail.
Operators with range
That range is the whole point. What a brand needs while fighting for its first thousand doors is not what a $1B portfolio needs, and we have worked both. So we spend our time where it moves your business most, and we tell you when that isn’t us.
What we believe
The cliché happens to be true: the simplest ideas are usually the best ones. Not because shortcuts work; they don’t. Most businesses are simply carrying more complexity than their strategy can hold.
Our job is to take the full complexity of a business, and everything happening inside it, and distill it down to the small number of things that actually win with consumers. Then help you go do them.
Who we work with
Velocity, margin and manufacturing all break at once, usually right after the win that was supposed to fix everything. We help you pick the two or three moves that matter and get them executed.
The next phase is won on product architecture, margin structure, and a pipeline that survives cost targets and retail scrutiny. That’s the work we do from the inside.
Diagnostics, value-creation plans and embedded leadership for portfolio companies, delivered by an operator who has scaled brands through acquisition rather than a firm that has read about it.
What we do
End-to-end support from product brief through launch: formulation, packaging, sourcing, costing, co-manufacturer selection, scale-up and execution.
Category and whitespace analysis, product architecture, innovation roadmaps, concept development, and pipeline prioritization grounded in commercial viability.
Positioning, growth priorities, channel strategy, business planning, and focused roadmaps for brands at critical inflection points.
Channel sequencing, customer prioritization, pricing, distribution strategy, retailer storytelling, launch planning and retail expansion.
SKU rationalization, pricing and pack architecture, margin improvement, product renovation, resource allocation and portfolio-level growth planning.
Focused diagnostics, value-creation plans, special projects, organizational alignment, and embedded senior leadership for founders, management teams and investors.
How we work
Growth strategy grounded in commercial reality. We help leadership teams align around the right priorities, not just more activity.
Innovation designed for real-world execution. Products and platforms that survive manufacturing, cost targets and retail scrutiny.
Turning strategy into measurable velocity, without breaking margin or the team that has to deliver it.
Engagement shapes
Two to four weeks. Where to play, what’s actually broken, and what to do first.
Eight to sixteen weeks. Innovation roadmap, commercialization, go-to-market or portfolio work, scoped to a defined outcome.
Ongoing, monthly. Embedded senior leadership for teams who need the seat filled before they can afford to fill it.
Hourly or retained. Standing access for founders and investors who need a sounding board with operating scars.
Deal-timeline or post-close. Commercial diligence, 100-day plans and portfolio-company support for funds.
Most engagements begin with a diagnostic; it’s the fastest way for both of us to find out whether the work is worth doing. We take on a small number of clients at a time.
Operating track record
Two challenger snack brands competing against category giants on a fraction of the resources. Full P&L through aggressive expansion: innovation, rebrands, pricing, a move to internal manufacturing, and sponsorship alliances with more than thirty professional and minor-league teams to buy trial we couldn’t afford any other way.
900% growth over six years, and an exit to a Fortune 500 CPG.
A packaged-meals division and a set of heritage grocery brands, several older than the modern supermarket. Multi-year innovation pipelines, rebrand strategy, portfolio renovation and end-to-end commercialization across R&D, operations, supply chain, finance and sales.
Day-to-day P&L on a $450M+ brand, and innovation pipelines representing $22M+ in annual revenue.
A high-growth, innovative refrigerated food brand, joined the week its first commercially viable production line was commissioned. Built the company’s first structured line-extension strategy and multi-year innovation pipeline inside a technically complex, IP-protected manufacturing environment, plus retailer sell-in across multiple national accounts.
Three new platforms, and growth to nearly $50M in annual retail revenue.
Engagements described reflect work in prior and current operating roles. Companies are not named; no affiliation or endorsement is implied.
Logan Soraci, Founder
It started on a college friend’s family farm in rural Nebraska: ten thousand acres of wheat, corn and pinto beans, plus a garden that fed the town. I went out for a summer and stayed for two seasons after I graduated. What I took from it was a respect for food systems and supply chains, and for the responsibility that comes with feeding people. It’s also where I learned the kind of leadership that holds up: practical, grounded, resilient, and measured by what actually got done.
My CPG career started at Thanasi Foods, building BIGS Seeds® and Duke’s Smoked Meats® from under $10M to roughly $90M before Conagra acquired them. I stayed through the integration and moved into legacy brands: Chef Boyardee®, Libby’s®, Wolf Chili®, Duncan Hines®, and a frozen seafood portfolio older than my grandparents. There I led rebrands, innovation strategy and commercialization.
In 2021 I joined egglife® foods just as its first production line was commissioned. Five years later I lead innovation there as part of the senior leadership team, building platforms in a highly technical, IP-protected manufacturing environment, using eggs to disrupt categories that had always been built on flour.
Fourteen years in, the pattern is hard to miss: start with real product truth, execute with discipline, and you build brands that scale and create lasting enterprise value. That’s what Catalyst is for.
Above all
We are good people. We work in a fun industry.
We want to work with like-minded people who share a passion for amazing products, just like us. And above all, we have to enjoy ourselves working together. Life is too short not to.
Contact
No brief required. Send us the actual problem, and we’ll tell you straight whether we’re the right people for it.
Prefer email? hello@catalyst-cpg.com