Brand Strategy Execution Is the Conversation Most Food Brands Skip

September 25, 2026

Small Brands Are Not Out-Strategizing You. They Are Out-Executing You.

Every strategy deck I have ever sat through has a slide with the brand pillars on it. Confident language, a clean palette, three or four words meant to sound distinct. Nobody in the room ever argues with that slide, because brand strategy execution happens somewhere else entirely. It happens two months later.

At the shelf. On a distributor call. Inside a trade spend negotiation nobody put on the deck. That is where the brand promise meets how the business actually runs, and that gap, not a weak positioning statement, is what is costing large food and beverage brands their growth right now.

 

The Category Is Growing. Big Brands Are Not.

McKinsey’s 2026 State of Food and Beverage report puts a number on what most of us in this business already feel without being able to prove it. Total shareholder return for the world’s largest F&B companies has fallen roughly 7 percent since 2023. The S&P 500 climbed about 9 percent over the same stretch. Volume growth across the sector is stuck under 1 percent a year.

The category has not stopped growing. Big brands have simply stopped capturing their share of it.

 

Small Brands Are Not Winning on Budget

Independent brands under 100 million dollars in sales made up only 13 percent of the US food and beverage market in 2021. By 2025, that same group of brands was generating 35 percent of all category growth.

They did not outspend the incumbents. Most of them could not. They won on brand strategy execution instead, keeping the same promise intact from the deck to the shelf, with fewer places for it to get lost along the way.

 

The Perception Gap Is Not About Price Anymore

For years the story was that private label wins on price and big brands win on trust. That story is out of date. McKinsey’s research finds consumers now rate private label as comparable to or better than branded products on quality, value, and variety. Price is no longer the deciding factor. Thirty four percent of US shoppers say they buy more private label than they did two years ago.

On functionality specifically, 37 percent of US and UK consumers point to small brands as the ones delivering it, against 18 percent for large brands. Big brands are not losing the price fight. They are losing the belief fight, on ground their own strategy decks claimed years ago.

 

What Brand Strategy Execution Actually Means

Brand strategy execution is not the deck. It is what stays true three steps removed from the person who wrote it: in the broker’s talking points, in the promotional calendar, and in how a regional sales rep answers a buyer’s objection with no one from marketing in the room.

Most of the strategy work I review holds up at the deck stage. Almost nobody checks whether it holds up after that. Nobody asks the operational question early enough. What does this promise sound like coming out of someone else’s mouth, three levels from the person who wrote it? This is the same gap we pointed to in Why B2B Food Brands Need to Think Like B2C Brands. That piece covered the emotional layer of the decision. This one covers whether the strategy survives contact with the people who actually have to deliver on it.

 

The Question We Ask Before We Touch a Single Design File

Before my team touches a single design file for a new client, we ask a version of that translation question directly. Who has to repeat this positioning without us in the room, and in what words will they actually say it?

If we cannot answer that in one sentence, the strategy is not finished. Someone just wrote it down. That single check has killed more slides in our process than any creative review, and saved more campaigns than any rebrand. It is the same discipline behind why we flag vague, overused language in food marketing before it ever reaches a deck. A claim that cannot survive being repeated by someone else was never a strategy to begin with.

 

Ask the Harder Question First

None of this means big brands need bigger ideas. Most of the strategy decks I review are already smart. What they are missing is a translation step: a deliberate check on whether the positioning holds up once people outside the room start repeating it in their own words. Small brands are not winning because they think harder about strategy. They are winning because brand strategy execution has less distance to travel between the thinking and the shelf.

If you have not pressure tested your brand strategy past the deck, that is the conversation worth having before your next planning cycle starts. Let us start the conversation.

 

Key Takeaways

• McKinsey’s 2026 State of Food and Beverage report found total shareholder return for the largest F&B companies down roughly 7 percent since 2023, while the S&P 500 rose about 9 percent, with sector volume growth stuck under 1 percent a year.
• Independent food and beverage brands under $100 million in sales held just 13 percent of the US market in 2021 but generated 35 percent of category growth by 2025.
• Consumers increasingly rate private label as comparable to or better than branded products on quality, value, and variety; 34 percent of US shoppers now buy more private label than they did two years ago.
• On functionality, 37 percent of US and UK consumers credit small brands versus 18 percent for large brands, showing the competitive gap has moved past price into belief.
• Brand strategy execution is what survives translation into a broker’s talking points, a promotional calendar, and a sales rep’s unscripted answer to a buyer’s objection, not what a strategy deck claims on its own.
• Testing whether a strategy can be repeated accurately by someone outside the room that wrote it is a faster diagnostic than a creative review.

FAQ

Q.  Why are large food and beverage brands losing market share despite category growth?

McKinsey’s 2026 State of Food and Beverage report found total shareholder return for the largest F&B companies down roughly 7 percent since 2023 while the S&P 500 rose about 9 percent. The category is still growing; large brands are simply capturing a shrinking share of that growth.

Q.  How much of category growth is coming from small, independent food brands?

Independent brands under $100 million in sales held 13 percent of the US food and beverage market in 2021 but generated 35 percent of all category growth by 2025, according to McKinsey. They are winning largely through execution consistency, not larger budgets.

Q.  Is private label still competing mainly on price?

No. McKinsey’s research shows consumers increasingly rate private label as comparable to or better than branded products on quality, value, and variety. Thirty four percent of US shoppers now say they buy more private label than they did two years ago.

Q.  What does brand strategy execution actually require?

It requires the strategy to hold up when someone outside the room repeats it: a broker, a regional sales rep, or a promotional calendar built months later. A strategy that only works on the deck never meets the real test, which is how the business actually operates once no one from marketing is in the room.

Q.  What question should brands ask before starting creative or design work?

Who has to repeat this positioning without us in the room, and in what words will they actually say it? If that cannot be answered in one sentence, the strategy is not finished. It needs more work before it is ready to guide creative decisions.