When to Look for a Warehousing Partner: A Guide for Growing Food & Beverage Brands
As a food or beverage brand owner, you're wearing all the hats—formulator, marketer, fulfillment expert, and sometimes, chief box packer. But as orders grow and inventory multiplies, managing warehousing and logistics can start to feel less like an achievement and more like a bottleneck.
So how do you know when it’s time to look for a warehousing partner? Here’s a guide to help you evaluate when outsourcing your storage, fulfillment, and inventory management might be the game-changing move your brand needs.
1. You’re Out of Space
Your living room, garage, or first warehouse space was a great starting point. But now, it’s overflowing. If your inventory is starting to spill into every corner—or you’re hesitating to scale because you can’t handle more volume—it’s time to explore warehousing solutions.
A warehousing partner provides dedicated space for your products, ensuring your operations aren’t limited by square footage. Plus, they often provide flexible solutions that grow with your brand.
Pro Tip: Look for a partner who understands the storage needs of food and beverage products, including temperature control and compliance requirements.
2. You’re Spending Too Much Time on Fulfillment
Time spent packing boxes and shipping orders is time not spent on building your brand. As demand increases, your days can quickly get consumed by managing logistics instead of marketing, sales, and product development.
If you find yourself asking:
“How do I keep up with all these orders?”
“Is this the best use of my time?”
… then outsourcing warehousing and fulfillment could be your solution.
A good partner doesn’t just store your products; they help you streamline pick, pack, and ship workflows, freeing you to focus on growing the business.
3. Inventory Management Is Getting Messy
Inventory management is critical to keeping customers happy and avoiding costly mistakes like stockouts or over-ordering. But managing it manually? That’s a recipe for stress.
If you’re struggling to:
Track product counts
Manage expiration dates or lot codes
Balance multiple SKUs across channels
… it’s a clear sign you’re ready for a warehousing partner. Need a truck to get inventory from A to B? We can help you with that, too. (Just ask about our LTL Hauling service!)
4. You’re Expanding into Retail
Landing shelf space with a retailer is a major milestone—but it also means increased demand and stricter delivery requirements. Retail partners often have specific guidelines around delivery times, palletizing, and packaging, which can be tough to manage on your own.
A warehousing partner can help you meet these standards with confidence. They’ll provide the logistics expertise to ensure your products arrive on time and ready for shelves—so you can keep those retail relationships strong.
5. You’re Ready to Scale but Need Support
Scaling a food or beverage brand is exciting, but it also brings growing pains. A warehousing partner acts as an extension of your team, offering flexible solutions to help you scale sustainably:
More space as you grow
Streamlined logistics to manage higher volumes
Access to fulfillment experts who can problem-solve along the way
Think of it this way: you’re no longer doing it all alone.
At Founders Market & Co., we work alongside food and beverage entrepreneurs as a flexible, collaborative warehousing and logistics partner. And we’re growing every day. We’ve recently added 23,300 square feet of warehouse space with 3000 pallet locations. From tailored storage solutions to fulfillment support, we help growing brands thrive.
Ready to learn more about warehousing solutions for your brand? Let’s connect.