Food & beverage CFO services
A fractional CFO for founder-led food and beverage producers.
Saorsa embeds in your company on retainer and covers the strategy side of the numbers — margin after deductions, the capacity decision, the distributor terms, the lender — and works through them with you every week.
Tell us what you make and how it gets to the shelf. Duncan replies within one business day.
Prefer to talk? Call or text Duncan: (510) 626-0509.
What gets built in the first 90 days
Four problems every founder-led food and beverage producer knows by heart
You pay for the batch before you sell it, and four things pull at the cash while it waits.
Perishable inventory, patient distributors
Ingredients and packaging are paid for before a batch exists. Then the product ages on the pallet, and shelf life ticks down while it waits for an order. The distributor pays in 30 to 60 days and deducts after that. So the cash from this ingredient buy is still tied up when the next co-packer run needs funding, and the line of credit bridges the gap until it cannot.
Deductions eat the margin you quoted
Slotting, promotions, chargebacks, freight allowances, and spoilage credits all come out after the invoice is written. The margin on the price sheet is the one you quoted. The margin after trade is the one you keep. Most reports show only the first, so the biggest account can look like your best customer while its deductions push a SKU under water, and nobody names it.
The next tank, line, or co-packer run is a six-figure bet
A new tank, a second canning line, or a larger co-packer commitment adds fixed cost the day it lands. Volume shows up later, if it shows up. Utilization decides whether the step pays, and in the months between the step and the volume you carry the full cost on partial output. That stretch rarely gets modeled, so the decision rests on a hope about a full schedule.
The bank knows the category is stressed
Craft beverage closures and food-brand shakeouts have made lenders cautious about the whole category, and your renewal is read through that lens. It arrives with tighter covenants. A bank that expects trouble wants a downside case that holds. If you do not bring one, the bank supplies its own assumptions, and you negotiate against them instead of against your numbers.
Fit check
Who this is for. Who it isn't.
This work fits a producer that buys ingredients, makes a product, and sells it through a distributor or a retail buyer. If your business looks different, the lists below say so.
For
- Breweries, wineries, distilleries, cideries, coffee roasters
- Packaged food and snack brands
- Producers with their own facility or a co-packer
- Founder-led, roughly $2–20MM in revenue
Not for
- Restaurants, bars, and hospitality
- Farms and growers
- Distributors
- Software and services
If you grow or raise rather than make, see the agribusiness page.
If you move other producers' product, see the distributors page.
How the work runs
An embedded partner on retainer, not a report vendor
By day 90 you have a working model, a margin view by product and customer after trade, the capacity decision laid out in numbers, and a weekly session with us.
A long-term financial model you actually use
The model follows how cash moves through your business: ingredient buys and packaging out first, the production run next, then the distributor payment 30 to 60 days after the sale. It carries your seasonality. Before you add a SKU, open a new market, or raise a price, it shows what that does to cash and margin, month by month.
A product- and customer-level margin view
Your bookkeeper keeps the books. We read them and cost each product and each customer after slotting, promotions, chargebacks, and freight allowances. The SKU that loses money after deductions gets named. Pricing gets a floor, so the next promotion request or distributor negotiation is answered against a number instead of a guess.
An equipment or facility memo, or a bank package, when one is needed
When the tank, the line, or a lease-versus-buy question is live, we write the memo that lays out each option in cash terms. With a lender involved, the package we build is the one the lender underwrites against, made of the model, the downside case, and the collateral story. Whether to lend is the bank's call, since we are neither lender nor broker. We prepare you for that meeting and attend it with you.
A weekly working cadence with you
Each week you sit down with us on whichever call is next: the co-packer run, the distributor negotiation, the hire, the price. Bring whichever quote or terms sheet is bothering you, and the two of us test it against the model. The hour goes to the decision, not to catching up on the numbers.
Bank-side proof
We have not yet published a food and beverage case study. Here is the closest work.
Saorsa has not yet published a food and beverage case study, and we would rather say so than stretch another one. The nearest match is the science-led skincare brand, a consumer product brand with direct and professional channels. The mechanics match a shelf-and-distributor business: margin by product, margin by channel, and the inventory buy. Saorsa rebuilt margin visibility by product and channel, and the brand grew 50%+ year over year.
The second piece of evidence is Crosslinked Components, where Duncan is a minority partner. Supplier contracts were negotiated to scale, reinvestment was steered to the highest-return product lines, and revenue grew 3.7x and profit 7.8x over two years. That is the same discipline a lender wants to see behind a tank or a line.
Read the skincare brand case study50%+
Year-over-year growth
By product and channel
Margin visibility rebuilt
Fewer stockouts
Through disciplined inventory forecasting
Relevant reading
Read first, write later.
Three pieces from our Insights letter make useful background before the distributor call or the lender meeting, and you can read them without talking to anyone.
Start here
Tell us what you make and get a straight read from Duncan.
Duncan reads every submission himself and replies within one business day, so what you write about the tank, the terms, or the renewal reaches the person who answers it. If another page suits you better, he points you there.
- Your note goes to Duncan, and he writes back himself inside a business day.
- A plain take on what you raise: margin after trade, the capacity decision, distributor terms, or the lender.
- If another page fits you better, you hear that too, with a pointer to it.
Prefer to talk? Call or text Duncan: (510) 626-0509.
Start a conversation
FAQ
Questions food and beverage founders ask before the first call
Short answers on cost, compliance, distributor deductions, capacity, and fit, before you write to us.
What does this cost compared to a full-time CFO?
Hiring a CFO full time in this industry means a mid-six-figure salary with benefits on top. A producer at $2–20MM does not need forty hours a week of that person. It needs a few decisions covered: the ingredient buy, the price to a distributor, the equipment step, the renewal. We work on a monthly retainer priced well under a hire, scoped to the model, the margin view, the lender work, and the weekly working session.
We already have a bookkeeper and a CPA. Isn't this redundant?
Keep both. Your bookkeeper records the distributor payment, the chargeback, and the ingredient invoice. Your CPA keeps you compliant, and that includes excise and sales tax compliance, which the CPA handles and we do not. We are not accountants. Returns and filings stay with your CPA. We do not touch the books. Neither of them models the tank you are weighing or builds the package a lender underwrites against. We work alongside both.
Our distributor takes its margin and then deducts more. Is that normal?
Yes, and it can be modeled. Slotting, promotions, chargebacks, and spoilage credits are a cost of the channel, not a surprise. The job is to see margin after trade by customer, so you know which account earns its shelf space and which one costs you money. From that view we set a price floor, so the next negotiation starts from a number you can defend.
We need more capacity. Buy, lease, co-pack, or wait?
It comes down to utilization math. A new tank or line is a fixed-cost step: the cost lands at once and the volume arrives later. The model shows the months between the step and the volume, for each option, including waiting. The memo puts that math in front of your lender in a form it can underwrite against. We compare the options in cash terms, and the decision stays yours.
Is craft beverage a business you would take on right now?
Yes, with a straight read first. Craft beverage is a stressed category, and stressed categories reward operators who know their cash to the week: the excise bill, the distributor payment date, the keg float, the ingredient buy. If the numbers say the model does not work, we say so, before you commit to another tank or another line. If they say it works, you get a plan built on your own cash.
Ask for a straight read before the next run or the next renewal.
Send whichever is open on your desk: the co-packer quote, the distributor terms, or the bank's renewal letter.
Go to the formPrefer to talk? Call or text Duncan: (510) 626-0509.