CPG Company Culture: Why It Compounds Like Capital (and How to Build It Before You Need It)
Culture compounds quietly — but its returns become real money. Jeff Church on building CPG company culture that survives the scaling phase.
The morning I spilled beet juice all over the Whole Foods receiving dock, I wasn't thinking about culture.
I was thinking about how to operate a forklift.
We'd just gotten a major DC delivery order. A real milestone. I was so excited I decided to drive the truck and unload it myself. Picture this: a tiny 28-footer navigating a sea of 53-foot semis driven by people who actually knew what they were doing. I maneuvered our little truck into position, grabbed the forklift controls like I'd done this a thousand times, sliced straight into a pallet, and watched dark red beet juice spread across that dock floor like a Jackson Pollock painting.
The receiving guys were staring. I wanted to disappear.
But something interesting happened when I got back to the team and told the story on myself. Laughed about it. Didn't hide it, didn't spin it. Just told the truth. And I noticed something shift over the next few weeks. People started taking more risks. Tried things that might not work. Raised ideas they'd been holding back.
That beet juice moment taught me more about building company culture than any business school lecture ever did.
Culture is not a values poster on the wall.
It's the answer to one question: "What happens around here when things go wrong?"
Culture Compounds Quietly
I've built eight companies. Led over 350 people at Suja during our peak years -- 400 families, really, when you count the ones depending on that paycheck. And the thing I wish someone had told me earlier is this:
Culture compounds just like capital. The difference is that it compounds quietly.
You don't feel it in month one. You barely notice it in year two. But somewhere around year three or four, when you're scaling fast and the pressure is real, you discover whether you built something or just assembled a team of individuals who happen to share an address.
The ones who built something survive the growth phase. The others... don't.
Where Culture Actually Comes From
Let me tell you about a night at Suja that I still think about.
Our production facility was running a full shift at 2:00 a.m. -- orders to fill, no slack in the system. Power goes out. The transformer is on the roof. The landlord is asleep at home, the only one with a key. There was no playbook for this situation.
So the crew climbed a tree next to the building, jumped from a branch onto the roof, and reconnected the circuit at the transformer. Then they climbed back down and kept running.
Orders shipped on time. Our customers never knew what it took.
I didn't ask anyone to do that. I didn't need to. They did it because they understood the mission -- and they knew at a deep gut level that trying something and failing would not get them in trouble. That permission to try is a cultural artifact. It doesn't come from a meeting. It comes from a thousand small moments where leadership either punished risk or celebrated it.
Our culture came from countless hours printing pitch decks at Kinko's. From hauling heavy refrigerated juice cases down darkly lit city streets before the hustle of the day begins. Nobody builds camaraderie on the days when the growth curve is going straight up. They build it in the dark, tired, doing whatever it takes.
That camaraderie, born from shared struggle, is culture.
The Fear Problem
Here's what most founders get wrong: they think culture is about morale. Happy people, good vibes, maybe a beer fridge.
That's not it.
Culture is about what's safe to do. What's safe to say. What's safe to try.
Leaders who are under pressure start micromanaging. They want control because they're scared. And that fear travels. From the top of the org straight to the front line, faster than any memo ever could.
Micromanagement is fear disguised as leadership.
And the moment your team starts operating from fear, creativity stops. I believe this deeply: where there is fear, there is no creativity. The person closest to the problem usually knows the solution. But if they're afraid to surface it, the problem just stays underground until it's too expensive to fix.
The antidote is permission. Permission to try. Permission to fail. And -- critically -- a leader who goes first. Who models the vulnerability. Who tells the beet juice story on themselves.
When I drive a forklift poorly in front of the whole team and laugh about it, I'm not showing weakness. I'm making a deposit into the cultural account. Telling the team: we're allowed to be human here.
That account earns compound interest.
The Talent Multiplier
A question I ask founders when we're reviewing their team: "Show me your org chart."
What I'm actually looking for is something deeper. Because I believe this:
Show me your team, and I'll show you what your company is about.
Strong cultures attract strong people. Weak cultures attract people who can't get jobs elsewhere. Simple and brutal.
The best people -- the ones with real options -- are choosing between opportunities. They're sniffing for culture before they ever accept an offer. They want to know: Do people who work here get to do great work? Are they challenged? Are they trusted? Is there someone in leadership worth learning from?
A great product gets you the first interview with a talented candidate. Culture gets you the yes.
There's a line I've held onto for a long time: "Anyone can copy your product, but no one can copy your people and how you bring them together."
In CPG this matters more than most founders realize. Your competitors have access to the same contract manufacturers, the same distributors, the same brokers, the same retailers. Your formulas can be reverse-engineered. Your packaging can be knocked off. The one thing they cannot replicate is the 30 people who have been running toward a shared mission for three years and would climb a tree at 2:00 a.m. to make sure an order ships.
That's not a soft benefit. That's a competitive moat.
What to Actually Do
So how do you build it? Not by accident. Not by letting it happen.
Intentionally. Starting now.
Name your values with specificity. "Integrity" is not a value. It's a word. What does integrity look like at your company when a retailer asks you to stretch the truth on a velocity report? Write that down. Values without behaviors attached are decoration.
Model it from day one. Every time you show vulnerability, admit a mistake, laugh at yourself... you're making a cultural deposit. The beet juice moment wasn't a PR crisis. It was exactly that kind of deposit.
Hire for culture before you hire for credentials. The most talented candidate in the world becomes a net negative if they introduce ego, politics, or fear into your team. I've said this before and I'll keep saying it: Hire slow, fire fast. This is doubly true in the early stage. One wrong hire at a small company has an outsized blast radius. A rushed hire creates more work than an empty seat.
Protect culture at the growth stage. This is where most founders blow it. They get to 50 people and realize the culture has drifted. New hires don't feel the energy the founding team carries. Silos form. Communication breaks down. The antidote is deliberate: hold culture conversations explicitly, not just business reviews. Ask your team: "What's working about how we work together? What's getting in the way?" Push decisions to the person nearest the problem. If information has to cycle up two or three levels before anyone can act, the system is broken.
Don't confuse culture with perks. Nobody builds something legendary by adding a ping-pong table. Culture is accountability, trust, ownership, and shared mission. Those don't require budget. They require consistency.
The Multiplier You Can't Put on a Cap Table
When Suja sold to Paine Schwartz in 2019 for approximately $300 million, I think about what made that outcome possible. The margins were better. The product had evolved. The operations were tighter. But underneath all of that was 350 people who had been hauling refrigerated juice cases and climbing trees and printing pitch decks and choosing -- every single day -- to stay.
A few years after the sale, a mid-level employee from Presence Marketing found me at a trade show. Presence had allowed employees to invest a portion of their retirement allocations in Suja. She told me the payout had put both of her kids through college.
That hit harder than any valuation milestone ever did.
Culture has compounding returns. And eventually those returns become real money.
You won't feel it in the first year. You'll barely see it in the second. But give it three or four years of genuine investment -- real values, real vulnerability, real permission to try -- and you'll have something your best-funded competitor cannot replicate.
Culture compounds just like capital. The difference is that it compounds quietly.
Start building it now. Before you need it. Because by the time you feel the pressure to have it... the compounding has already either happened or it hasn't.
Want to go deeper on the people, systems, and strategy that actually get a CPG brand to scale? Explore the MBA for CPG program or join the 90-Day Breakthrough cohort. Both are built for founders who are serious about building something that lasts.
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