Consumer Products
Insurgent brands keep taking share from companies with bigger budgets and more resources. The difference isn’t strategy — it’s an organization built to execute fast, not just plan well.
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The consumer products industry is coming out of inflation distortion into a sharper competitive reality. Global retail sales for consumer products reached $7.5 trillion in 2024, rising 7.5% year over year.[1] Insurgent brands captured roughly 40% of overall U.S. growth in 2024 despite holding a fraction of total market share.[1] Nearly two-thirds of consumer products executives plan to increase innovation investment in response.[2]
What those numbers don’t clearly show:
- Most large CPG companies saw volume growth stall in 2024, even as insurgent brands kept gaining ground on a fraction of their market share.[1]
- Forty-seven percent of consumers globally now prioritize buying from locally owned companies — a preference that’s rising, not falling.[3]
- Social media now drives product research for 32% of consumers, up from 27% in 2023, while preferences keep fragmenting by generation, geography, and channel.[3]
Why Consumer Products Organizations Buckle Under Pressure
Informal coordination breaks under restructuring and integration
Consumer products execution runs on informal coordination that doesn’t appear in any org chart. The brand manager who maintains the key retailer relationship. The R&D scientist everyone consults when a formulation is at risk. The supply chain specialist who makes impossible launch timelines happen. These networks are how things get done — and they’re exactly what restructures, acquisitions, and channel shifts disrupt without anyone realizing it until something breaks.
Consumer fragmentation outpaces the organizations built to serve it
Companies structured for mass-market retail are now trying to serve dozens of distinct segments profitably, across multiple channels, at the speed insurgent brands move. Sustainability matters to broad audiences, but willingness to pay a premium varies sharply by segment. Gen Z treats purchases as identity signals and responds to authenticity over scale. The organizational machinery for that doesn’t exist at most mid-market CPG companies — and strategy work alone doesn’t create it.
Technology and AI investment arrives before the organization is ready
Consumer companies have invested heavily in digital platforms, data analytics, automation, and now generative AI. The technology works. But implementations fail because organizations weren’t prepared for the change — cross-functional workflows weren’t redesigned to match new capabilities, so teams quietly revert to spreadsheets. Six months after launch, the technology delivers a fraction of promised value, and leadership blames “resistance to change” when the real issue was organizational readiness.
How Rooted can help
When growth is steady and channels are simple, consumer products companies can run on informal coordination for years without feeling the cost. When an acquisition, a channel expansion, or a sustainability commitment arrives — and insurgent competitors are already moving — the organizational debt comes due fast.
Organizational Network Analysis (ONA)
Consumer products companies move fast across channels, markets, and product lines — and coordination gaps show up as missed launches, inconsistent quality, and supply chain failures. ONA maps the informal networks behind product development and channel coordination before those gaps cost revenue.
- Cross-channel coordination pattern mapping
- Product development team network analysis
- Brand and operations communication gap identification
- Key knowledge holder identification before transitions
Business Process Engineering (BPE)
Consumer products organizations carry process complexity across product development, supply chain, retail, and marketing. BPE maps where existing processes slow time-to-market or create inconsistency — and redesigns them for the pace that consumer markets require.
- Product launch process optimization
- Supply chain workflow analysis and redesign
- Retail and channel coordination improvement
- Quality and compliance process standardization
Organizational Change Management (OCM)
Consumer products organizations manage constant change — new channels, new markets, new supply partners, new technologies. OCM ensures those transitions don’t disrupt the operational consistency and brand standards that consumer-facing businesses depend on.
- Channel expansion change management
- Omnichannel operational adoption strategies
- Supply chain transition communication
- Brand standard implementation across new markets
Organizational Development & Effectiveness (OD&E)
Consumer products growth requires organizational structures that support simultaneous brand management, supply chain coordination, and channel expansion. OD&E designs the team architectures and governance models that let consumer products organizations grow without losing speed or brand coherence.
- Growth-oriented organizational design
- Cross-functional brand and operations alignment
- Channel expansion structure development
- Workforce capability building for scaling markets
Industry-Tailored Approaches
Consumer Products Sectors we Serve
Rooted works across the full range of consumer products — from food and beverage manufacturers to apparel brands, electronics companies, and the household names in between.
Food & Beverage
Apparel & Footwear
Consumer Electronics
Personal Care & Household Products
Sporting Goods & Outdoor Equipment
Rooted vs. Big 5 Corp.
Why Consumer Products Leaders Call On Rooted
Large consulting firms aren’t built for environments where insurgent brands are taking share by the week and consumer preferences shift faster than a transformation program can complete.
| Big 5 Approach | Rooted Approach | |
|---|---|---|
| Who they serve |
Fortune 500 consumer brands and retail conglomerates | Mid-market consumer products companies managing growth, distribution complexity, and shifting demand |
| Delivery model |
18–36 month transformation programs | Measurable results in months, not years |
| Operational Reality | Assumes you can slow go-to-market and supply chain activity for organizational change | Works inside active product and distribution cycles — no pausing the market |
| Industry experience | Consultants who have studied consumer products from the outside | People who’ve worked inside consumer organizations and understand the pace of retail and brand decisions |
| Engagement size |
Minimum retainers sized for enterprise budgets | Scoped for mid-market resource constraints |
| Post-engagement | Ongoing dependency on the consulting firm | Builds your internal capability to keep improving after we leave |
The Big 5 Problem In Consumer Products
Large consulting firms show up in consumer products in two specific patterns — and they underperform in both.
Enterprise playbook mismatch
The large consulting firms in consumer products built their practices to serve large consumer products companies. Their playbooks are designed for P&G, Unilever, and Nestlé — companies competing on scale, distribution reach, and portfolio management across dozens of categories. That’s not the problem a mid-market CPG company is trying to solve.
Acquisition integration that optimizes for the wrong metric
When large advisory firms manage CPG acquisitions, they optimize for financial synergy realization — the metric their client’s board will measure. What gets processed out in that optimization is usually the brand equity, cultural distinctiveness, and informal networks that made the acquired brand worth buying. Key talent leaves. The brand loses what made it resonate. The acquirer ends up with the customer list but not the capability they paid for.
Rooted doesn’t optimize for synergy metrics. We work as the independent organizational partner, accountable to the client — not to a financial model of what the acquisition was supposed to deliver.
Trends move fast. Your brand needs to endure.
At Rooted, we help consumer brands scale without losing their identity. As markets shift and competition heats up, we guide teams through transformation using strategies that protect what makes you different. We get your story, then we help you grow it.
No sales pitch. No commitment required.
[1] Bain & Company. “Consumer Products Report 2025: Reclaiming Relevance in the Gen AI Era.” 2024. https://www.bain.com/insights/consumer-products-report-2025-reclaiming-relevance-in-the-gen-ai-era/
[2] Deloitte Insights. “2025 Consumer Products Industry Outlook.” June 2025. https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/consumer-products/consumer-products-industry-outlook.html
[3] McKinsey & Company. “State of the Consumer Trends Report 2025.” June 2025. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/consumer-packaged-goods/our-insights/state-of-consumer