Retail media for CPG operators
Practical frameworks built on real account work — covering Instacart ROAS, Amazon Ads, and retail media waste diagnostics for CPG operators who run their own programs.
7 posts for “Amazon” — clear
Bachan's: The One-Bottle Brand That Sold for $400 Million
Bachan's is the Sebastopol, California condiment brand Justin Gill founded in 2019 around his grandmother Judy Yokoyama's Japanese barbecue sauce recipe. A single hero SKU sequenced from Amazon into Whole Foods, Target, Kroger, Costco, and Walmart to roughly 35,000 doors. $17M raised across two rounds, then a $400M sale to The Marzetti Company in May 2026 on roughly $87M in TTM net sales. The one-bottle playbook explained.
Cha's Organics: How a Montreal Couple Built a Sri Lankan Pantry Line Around Small-Farm Fair Trade Sourcing (Maple Made #024)
Cha's Organics is the Montreal organic pantry brand co-founded in 2006 by Chanaka Kurera and Marise May. Coconut milk, curry pastes, sauces, and spices from biodiverse Sri Lankan small farms, certified organic and fair trade. The Tokyo-meeting founding story, the corporate entity Sahana Ayurvedic Products Inc, the BPA-free polyester resin can lining, Chanaka's role as Honorary Consul of Sri Lanka for Montreal, and where to buy it. Sold at Costco Canada, Amazon.ca, Well.ca, Goodness Me!, Natura Market, and Satau.
Näak: How Two Montreal Triathletes Built UTMB's Endurance Nutrition Brand From a Kitchen Bet on Cricket Protein (Maple Made #023)
Näak is the Montreal endurance nutrition brand founded in 2016 by triathletes William Walcker and Minh-Anh Pham, who went vegetarian for their training, started making cricket protein bars in a Montreal kitchen, and built a B Corp now stocking aid stations at UTMB World Series races through 2029. Ultra Energy bars, waffles, gels, hydration, and recovery, in both plant-based and cricket-protein formulations. Sold on naak.com, The Feed, Running Warehouse, and Amazon.
SmartSweets: How a 22-Year-Old Built a $360M Low-Sugar Candy Brand From a Vancouver Kitchen (Maple Made #022)
SmartSweets is the Vancouver low-sugar candy brand Tara Bosch launched in 2016 from her kitchen with an Amazon gummy-bear mould. The UBC-dropout origin, the $105K debt bet, the first yes from Bed Bath & Beyond Canada, the climb to roughly $125M in annual sales, and the $360M sale to TPG Growth in 2020. Reformulated gummies, fish, peach rings, and sour chews with up to 92% less sugar, made in Canada and sold on smartsweets.ca and at retailers nationwide.
Kicking Horse Coffee: How Two Founders Built Canada's #1 Organic Fair Trade Coffee From a Rocky Mountain Garage (Maple Made #017)
Kicking Horse Coffee is the Invermere, BC roaster founded in 1996 by Elana Rosenfeld and Leo Johnson in a garage. The mountain-town origin, the bold blends like Kick Ass, the climb to Canada's #1 organic Fairtrade roaster, the $215M Lavazza deal, and where to buy it. Sold at Loblaws, Sobeys, Costco, and on Amazon.ca.
Retail Media Reporting Template for CPG Founders
A weekly retail media reporting template for founder-led CPG brands spending on Instacart, Amazon, Walmart Connect, or Loblaw Advance. Track spend, revenue, ROAS, NTB percent, and CPC in one view.
Instacart vs Amazon Ads for Emerging CPG Brands
If your CPG brand is already stocked in grocery, Instacart usually gives a cleaner demand signal than Amazon. A framework for deciding where to put your first paid media budget.
From the community
Curated weekly from r/InstacartAds, r/Google_Ads, and r/DigitalMarketing.
CPG digital ad recommendations
Marketers sharing channel recommendations for CPG brands — where to spend, what benchmarks to target, and which platforms deliver real retail lift.
Open thread →r/Google_AdsHow is CPC 10x less on Google-generated ads?
Discussion on why AI-generated Google ads can show dramatically lower CPCs and whether the quality of traffic actually holds up for conversion campaigns.
Open thread →r/InstacartAdsI tested Instacart Acquire (New-to-Brand) with optimized bidding
Real-world test results from running Instacart's Acquire NTB campaign type with optimized bidding — including ROAS, NTB rate, and spend efficiency findings.
Open thread →r/InstacartAdsDoes optimized or autobidding on Instacart actually work?
Operators comparing manual bidding vs. autobid on Instacart campaigns — sharing spend data and whether ceding bid control improves or hurts efficiency.
Open thread →