Distribution Reimagined: Insights from Torah Torres of Adventure CPG
How an emerging distributor wants to put small brands back in control.
Level of Care Beats Pure Scale
Big distributors measure success in truckloads and case volumes; emerging brands measure it in attention and survival. When the phone stops ringing after onboarding, founders lose critical feedback loops on spoilage, charge-backs, and evolving shelf requirements. Adventure CPG’s first promise is to restore that feedback; every member receives account support, real-time metrics on velocity, and proactive alerts.
That “care delta” does more than feel good; it lowers risk. Brands catch soft declines early, tweak trade plans before they balloon, and preserve runway for innovation rather than emergency audits. Adventure CPG Co-Founder Torah Torres started off our discussion:
“I’ve been thinking about this for a while because there are obvious wins—lower prices, shared warehousing—but it really comes down to care….That’s what we’re bringing back to distribution. Brands feel they don’t have a voice; no matter what they say, it doesn’t matter, and it’s heartbreaking. Level-of-Care for us means listening to members, giving them the metrics they need, and never letting another good brand just disappear from the shelf.”
Collective Volume; Collective Savings
Freight dictates whether a $4.99 snack can ever break-even. Adventure CPG tackles the problem at the pallet level: shared inbound schedules, cross-docking into regional hubs, and pooled outbound lanes. As containers consolidate, members begin paying what mainstream brands pay—without surrendering ownership.
Lower landed cost ripples outward. It gives brands room to run price-elasticity tests, fund demos, and still keep margin for working capital. If you’ve used our Interactive Pricing Calculator so you can understand the difference freight can have.
“Our obvious advantage is the price point—working together in a warehouse to build volume so we can grab the same carrier discounts giant distributors have.” - Torah Torres
Data Without Extra Fees
Brad @ CPG Guy - “Manufacturers, CPG folks, at a minimum need to understand category data. I think to be able to position themselves in the right spot, to be able to do their shelf analysis, to be able to know where they should be targeting, what their price points they should be targeting. Some of that can be done by walking the store, but some of it has to be done with some better aggregated data. Where do you source that and how do you find it’s the best way to give it to your members?”
Category data, lot traceability, and promotional deduction tracking often sit behind distributor paywalls; founders pay twice—first in charge-backs, then in dashboards explaining them.
Torres responded: “Stop paying for everything….You’re going to know exactly where your product is, you’re going to know how much you sold, what it took to make it, and what the cost is to get it to the store. I wanted it that simple and accessible.”
Safer Scaling and PO Financing
Landing a five-figure purchase order feels like winning the lottery; until production deposits come due. Adventure CPG intends to underwrite those POs, using its aggregated collateral and banking relationships to front cash quickly and guard against retailer non-payment. If a truckload goes missing or a buyer suddenly cancels, the distributor and the brand work together to mitigate the damage.
For founders, that removes the “bet the house” moment. Growth orders can flow without mortgaging personal assets, and finance teams can model expansion scenarios with real safety nets. When asked about large POs and Adventure CPG members, Torah said:
“We want to create a system that makes it easier for you to apply [for a short term loan]. We can see through our data what you need the money for. It shouldn't be hard to [see]…you got a PO from [them]. And we validated that Joe ordered that volume, right? So we're going to make it easy for you to get the money to be able to even go into production for that order. I want to see you on the store shelf. That's my mission. I'm going to make it as easy as possible for that to happen.”
Flexible Warehousing and Direct Ship
The network will combine regional stock points with point-to-point transfers, moving product closer to demand as velocity proves out. We wanted to understand the network design; Brad from CPG Guy asked:
“Let's back up the order of the supply chain a little bit here. Let me ask you, the model that you're working with right now in theory or maybe people have committed to, are you going to consolidate inventory in a location and then ship to retailers? Are you going to try and move point to point as much as you can so supplier to retailer very rarely cross-stocking or holding inventory?”
Most emerging brands agonize over whether they should pay to stage pallets in a 3PL or try to ship case-by-case to every account. Torah explains Adventure CPG’s hybrid solution: shared regional warehouses for speed and scale, plus true “point-to-point” moves when that’s cheaper or fresher. For founders, the takeaway is simple: you don’t have to pick a single lane—your distributor should flex with your growth curve.
“We're going to do both. Our job is to support the brands and the retailers and bring efficiency and transparency to the mix. …What we're first going to do is put them into our system. We're going to bring them into our shared warehousing, and from there they're able to ship wherever they need. If they're on the East Coast and they need to get to the West Coast, we are going to move that product to the [West] Coast to be able to more efficiently and timely get it to the store.”
E-Commerce Plug-and-Play Fulfillment
Brad’s question:
“And do you have any plans to support e-commerce fulfillment for these brands as well? A lot of emerging brands need DTC help. They just don't know how to get to consumers effectively with fulfillment times being very unpredictable and with shipping costs being unpredictable.”
Direct-to-consumer can chew up cash when your tech stack is a patchwork of Shopify plugins and manual labels. Torah notes that Adventure CPG’s platform pipes orders in from “almost all e-commerce sites,” flags expensive lanes automatically, and keeps inventory in one view—letting founders add DTC without juggling another 3PL or spreadsheet. She also highlights the advantages of a tech stack that doesn’t live in 1999; customers move at different speeds and brands need to move with them.
“Absolutely, actually e-commerce is the easiest to hit. So our technology is integrated with almost all e-commerce sites. You can literally from our platform be able to put out information or bring in information and see all your e-commerce from one site. It is also smart enough to be able to show where the inefficiencies are within it. We'll also create continuity across all of them. It's a real game changer…they’ve just connected all the dots and made it one hub to anywhere you want to sell.”
A Unified Natural-Products Platform
We asked:
“Do you [have]…a nationwide footprint of a logistics network? Are you focusing in one area right now or are you going to be coast-to-coast without an issue?”
Founders often think “national” means signing with the biggest broad-liner and swallowing high fees. Torah sketches a different vision: one digital catalog where every natural brand—big or small—can ride the same truck and the same data rails, unlocking volume discounts that finally close the cost gap with conventional food.
“I want this to be a collective of all the brands in the natural products industry. That's my vision. My vision is that all the brands are in this one platform, and you can deliver from that platform anywhere to…Faire, to the mom and pops, to natural grocers, everywhere. And the volume discount will allow us to compete with conventional foods.”
Where CPG Distribution Stands and Where It’s Headed
Legacy distribution still runs on stacked fees, opaque data flows, and risk that lands squarely on the smallest brands. As Brad noted early in the interview, “manufacturers, CPG folks, they at a minimum need to understand category data.” Yet that data often sits behind paywalls or arrives too late to guide pricing or promotion.
The fee problem is just as corrosive; Torah’s blunt assessment—“Stop paying for everything.”—captures a sector where every optional service (dashboards, deductions help, PO financing) becomes another invoice. Behind the charges sits a deeper cultural gap. Brands need advocates who will flag trouble before it turns into lost shelf space; Torah’s answer is simple care: “It really comes down to care.”
Where, then, is the industry moving? Torah’s long-play is scale through collaboration: “My vision is that all the brands are in this one platform.” A pooled network of shared freight, shared data, and shared credit protections could shrink logistics costs from today’s 20-plus percent to numbers that look more like mainstream food.
Until that vision arrives, emerging brands must stay alert to hidden dangers of the current model. Brad summed it up: “A brand … would have no idea [of that] reality they could have faced if they don’t have people watching out for them.”
The path forward is clear: demand transparent costs, insist on usable data, and partner with distributors whose incentives are tied to your survival, not your spend.
If you want to learn more or explore a membership with Adventure CPG, you can contact them here: https://adventurecpg.com/