This is one of the first questions we work through with every brand we take on. There is no single right answer. The right channel depends on your margin, your capacity, and what stage you are really at. Here is how we think it through.
Supermarkets
Supermarkets bring volume and credibility. A listing puts a brand in front of thousands of shoppers a week and signals trust to everyone else in the category. It also comes with real demands. Tight margins, promotional funding, strict supply expectations, and long payment terms.
It helps to see how concentrated this channel is. A handful of retailers control almost all of UK grocery spending, and each one is a very different business. Winning here means winning a specific buyer at a specific retailer, on their terms.
We only take a brand into supermarkets once operations and cash flow can genuinely support it. The prize is large. So is the cost of getting it wrong, because a failed supermarket launch can set a brand back a year.
There is also a credibility dividend that founders forget to price in. A listing with a recognised grocer opens doors everywhere else. Other retailers take you more seriously. Wholesalers return your calls. Even investors read it as validation. That halo is real and worth chasing, but only once you can actually service the listing that earns it.
Wholesale
Wholesale opens up independent retail, foodservice, and smaller regional chains through a single relationship. It is a strong route for brands still building supply capacity, or brands that want distribution breadth without managing dozens of individual accounts. Margins are typically better than supermarket, though volume per account is smaller. It is often the least glamorous route and one of the most sensible.
Wholesale also does something founders underrate. It lets you prove your product in real retail conditions, on real shelves, in front of real shoppers, before you stake everything on a national supermarket launch. The learning you gain, on pricing, on packaging, on which formats sell, is often worth as much as the sales themselves. Many of the brands we take into the major grocers earned their confidence in wholesale first.
Direct to consumer
Selling direct gives you full margin, full control of the brand experience, and direct access to customer data. It is often where a brand proves demand and builds the sales evidence a retail buyer will later want to see. The trade off is that growth is slower and depends entirely on your marketing reach and spend.
The hidden trap with direct is that the economics can flatter you. Full margin makes a small business look healthy, but the cost of acquiring each new customer tends to climb the more you grow. Many brands hit a point where every extra sale costs more to win than it is worth. That is often the moment retail starts to make sense, because a shelf puts you in front of shoppers who are already there to buy groceries.
The channels are shifting under your feet
Where shoppers spend has changed sharply over the last decade. The discounters have roughly doubled their combined share since 2017, taking it almost entirely from the traditional Big Four. Any route-to-market plan built on the market of five years ago is already out of date.
This is not just trivia. It tells you where the growth is and which doors are worth queuing at. A value brand may find its shopper has moved to Aldi and Lidl. A premium brand may find the opposite. The channel decision and the retailer decision are really the same decision.
How we help brands decide
We look at three things. Your current margin structure. Your operational capacity. And what evidence you still need to build. A brand with strong direct sales and stable supply might be ready for supermarkets now. A brand still refining its product might be better served building through wholesale or direct first.
We also ask a blunt question that founders sometimes avoid. Where does this brand actually make money. It is surprising how many brands chase the channel with the most prestige rather than the one with the best economics. A national supermarket listing looks impressive on a pitch deck to investors. If it loses money on every unit, it is not a win. The right channel is the one that grows the business, not the one that sounds best at a dinner party.
Most brands are on more than one channel
This is rarely an either-or choice. Most brands we work with run several channels at once, using each for what it does best. Direct to prove demand and hold margin. Wholesale for reach. Supermarkets for scale. The real question is not which channel to pick forever. It is which one to prioritise next, and which one you are actually ready for.
Sequence beats ambition
The brands that struggle are usually the ones that chased the biggest channel too soon. The brands that win tend to build in the right order, so that each channel funds and de-risks the next. If you are weighing this up right now, send us your numbers and we will give you a clear read on where to focus first.