I was on the BC Ferries crossing from Victoria to Vancouver to my first in-person meeting with the Bucha Brew team when BC announced it was asking everyone to stay home. We had that meeting, and then I turned around and drove home instead of going to my sister’s for the weekend I had planned, and spent the next ten months working harder and longer than any of us anticipated.

Bucha Brew is a Vancouver-based live culture kombucha brand founded by Kara Sam. When I joined in the spring of 2020, the brand was well-loved, had real market presence in BC, and was facing the kind of compounding challenges that could sink small companies.

Sales were down 49% year over year. A distributor had just been released for failing to deliver on their commitments and for missing orders. The sales team had a leader who was willing and capable, but hadn’t led before and hadn’t worked in field sales in this capacity. Two part-time sales and merchandising reps in Alberta were on payroll, along with two other reps in BC, for a total of five sales reps.

The company was navigating the financial complexities of owning its factory building, managing inventory and raw materials for a refrigerated live-culture product, and figuring out how to grow in a world where nobody could go to a grocery store without a mask. It was a lot.

It was also a great time to focus on strategy.

The First Few Weeks Are Always About Listening.

Understanding the team, the numbers, the relationships, and the gaps between what people say is happening and what the data says is happening.

At Bucha Brew, the picture came together quickly. Two part-time reps in Alberta were a cost the business couldn’t justify, given where the sales were and where they needed to focus. Within the first couple of weeks, I recommended a layoff for two team members. It was the right call, made by a company with the kind of decisive leadership that makes a turnaround possible.

We divided the work between the existing reps, got them focused on accounts they could serve, and started building the structure the team had been missing. Weekly sales meetings. Weekly reviews with Kara. Clear targets for each rep. Sales reporting. Training on how to serve accounts when no one was doing store visits, and everything had moved to phone and email.

The team was working from home, like everyone else. We had to find a different way to stay connected to customers, build relationships, and keep the brand visible without being able to physically show up. What they learned is that consistent communication, genuine service, and follow-through on every single commitment stood out even more in that environment.

The Operations Overhaul

A good sales strategy is inseparable from operations. A sales rep who promises a delivery that doesn’t come, or quotes a price that doesn’t match the invoice, or can’t get an answer on a credit issue—that rep is working against the brand, not for it. No matter how good they are in the field.

Bucha Brew needed its operations cleaned up for the sales work to stick. I worked with the controller and Kara to reorganize how they used QuickBooks—how invoices were created, how expenses were tracked, and how customers were managed in the system. We interviewed fractional CFOs and made a hire. I led an overhaul of how accounts receivable were managed, improving cash flow while maintaining strong customer relationships. For a company managing the tight cash flow demands of the pandemic, this mattered enormously.

I also wrote job descriptions, training guides, a brand standards guide, brand photography guide, and operational manuals for the sales team, and put team contracts in place with clearly defined quotas and expectations. These weren’t bureaucratic documents for the sake of having them. They were the foundation of accountability. If the team doesn't know what’s expected of them, you can’t hold them to it. And if you can’t hold them to it, you’re managing by hope instead of by plan. Most of the team responded positively, welcoming the clarity and the sense of reaching goals.

Releasing the existing distributor had been the right decision. Selecting a new one was one of the most consequential moves of the engagement. We evaluated options, made the selection, and built the onboarding process to give the new relationship the best possible start.

We also hired a broker to focus on eastern expansion—a different structure for a different market. Brokers bring local relationships and market knowledge that an out-of-province brand can’t build overnight. Getting the right representation in place was a meaningful step toward building a national business rather than a regional one.

On the national account side, we were dealing with the realities that every small CPG brand faces in a national grocery warehouse environment. Large grocery chains at a national scale are difficult partners for small brands. The fee structures, chargebacks, marketing requirements, and payment terms—all of it is designed for companies with finance teams and legal departments. For a small brand, every deduction is a fight, and many of them can’t be won. We decided to focus on profitable, genuinely good partners and step back from listings that were costing more than they were returning.

At the same time, we grew. We increased sales within the Save-On Foods chain, secured large displays and full distribution across their BC and Alberta locations, and successfully renewed the City of Vancouver concessions—keeping kegs of Bucha Brew kombucha on tap at city locations. We worked with the national 7-Eleven distribution to add more stores and provide better product education, and we introduced Bucha Brew Lite, a new shelf-stable line extension that opened up new placement opportunities.

New Website, a Raise, and Packaging Format Change

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, we also rebuilt the Shopify website, and I helped Kara bring more of her story into the brand marketing. I wrote mission, vision, and story drafts that we polished until they were in Kara’s voice and supported her vision for the brand. We rebuilt the wholesale marketing materials to reflect this and launch the new packaging format and the new shelf-stable line.

The website project that had been underway before I arrived had stalled, communication with the team hired to do it had broken down, and the site wasn’t moving. I took it over and revamped it myself, ensuring the direct-to-consumer experience supported the local delivery program, which was growing rapidly in the early days of the pandemic. A refrigerated live culture product has logistics that shelf-stable brands don’t—cold chain, delivery windows, customer education about what they’re receiving and how to store it. The website had to support all of that.

We also worked through significant packaging changes, a big deal for a CPG brand. Bucha Brew moved from glass bottles to aluminum cans. The reasons were clear—cost, weight, recyclability, shelf presence—but the execution touches everything. Labels, SKU counts, production runs, distributor relationships, customer communication. We reduced the SKU count at the same time, cutting products that weren’t moving and simplifying the line.

And through all of it, Kara was building toward a raise. I supported her through the FrontFundr campaign that raised $500,000 as she explored investment and acquisition opportunities. (Bucha Brew was later acquired.)

What We Accomplished in Ten Months

When I joined the team, sales were down 49% year over year. When our time together ended ten months later, sales were trending at 30% growth year over year. That’s an 80-point swing during a global pandemic, with a refrigerated live culture product that couldn’t be sampled, in a market where every sales call had moved to a screen.

I’m proud of that number. I’m more proud of what it represented—a team that found its footing, a founder who made hard decisions when it mattered, and a set of systems and structures that gave the business something to build on.

It wasn’t without its bumps. Long hours, hard calls, and more decisions in a week than most businesses make in a quarter. But we communicated well, worked through the challenges, and accomplished more in ten months than most engagements do in two years.

That’s what happens when everyone is working toward the same destination.

The lesson I keep drawing from the Bucha Brew year isn’t about the turnaround numbers. It’s about integration.

Sales grew because the operations got cleaner. The operations got cleaner because financial reporting improved. Financial reporting improved because we were asking the right questions across the entire system at once. When brand, sales, operations, and finance are in separate conversations, problems compound. When they’re in the same conversation, solutions compound instead.

A strategic head of growth and brand isn’t a luxury; it’s an investment like any other in your business. You get out of it what you put into it, and when you hire the right crew and bring the team together, you can achieve a lot in a short period of time.

“Chantal joined us on the day BC shut down for the pandemic. We spent almost a year together, and her impact during an already pivotal time for the brand was significant.

We established a new distributor relationship, completely overhauled our sales program, and rebuilt our financial and reporting systems from the ground up. Sales grew 80% year over year. 

She helped reshape and then lead our sales team, built us a new Shopify website to support retail sales, and her support during a $500K raise gave me the space to focus on the big picture.

It was a challenging year for everyone. Having her in our corner made all the difference.”

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