How Challenger Brands Are Scaling Their Way To The Top

From Huel to Harry’s, Trip to Pip & Nut — breakout challenger brands in grocery have generally followed a now-familiar challenger playbook. They start as a direct to consumer (DTC) brand, build a loyal community, and drive growth through highly targeted, performance-led activity.

But the fact that both Brothers Drinks and Huel have made it into Alantra’s Fast 50 for the fifth consecutive year signals something bigger. Alongside brands like Dirtea and Little Dish, there is a new phase of growth. Modern brands are redefining what scale looks like within grocery. Once seen as insurgents, many of today’s fastest growing FMCG players are reaching incumbent-level size, while still operating with the behaviours that made them successful in the first place.

Paving a new path to the top

Traditionally, the path for a challenger brand has been straightforward. Break in, scale fast, and eventually sell to a powerhouse brand that knows how to operate at scale. These large FMCG companies provide the rigour and investment that help promising brands reach their potential.

While this model is still highly effective and for many brands essential, there are now operators that are showing success outside of this tried and tested model. There is a third emergent space that sits between the classic start-up and corporate giant, demonstrating how much challenger thinking is saturating the mainstream and how valuable the foundation laid by established players has been in elevating new contenders.

We’re seeing the rise of scaled challenger brands first hand at WPP Media. The businesses that have achieved significant size but continue to prioritise agility, community and digital-first growth. Now, challenger brands no longer simply aspire to be absorbed by global giants; they are the ones in the driving seat, actively steering their own future.

For brands like Trip, Huel, and Moj — which also featured in the fastest growing brands list — growth started in niche communities with highly engaged audiences who buy into a brand’s mission, values and identity.

From there, momentum builds culturally before translating into retail success. This flips the traditional model on its head. Rather than using mass distribution to drive awareness, these brands build relevance first and scale follows.

The scaled challenger mentality

The success of many high-growth brands is the expertise in knowing when to introduce brand-led channels and how to evolve beyond performance-led growth. Many start by building early momentum through direct-to-consumer models, using paid social, search and influencer activity to drive efficient customer acquisition and subscriptions.

As they scale, they layer in brand investment through channels like out-of-home, while expanding into retail with listings in major supermarkets to drive broader visibility. It’s these scale-up models that are smarter, more flexible that integrate performance and brand as soon as possible.

The next question brands will have to face and one that many scaling challenger brands should ask themselves is how do you retain the creative agility that fuelled your rise once you start operating at a bigger scale?

For many, the answer lies in balance. Continuing to prioritise community-led growth, even as media investment scales. And ensuring that data and performance marketing don’t come at the expense of brand identity. This will help preserve the founder-led instinct that has defined many of these companies.

At the same time, borrowing the best of what traditional FMCG players do so well can also accelerate growth. Adopting the strategic rigour and operational excellence needed to sustain growth at scale while continuing to embrace the challenger spirit that brought fast growth in the first place.

The challenger-to-empire builder

The main thing the top 50 fastest growing brands have proved is that there is more than one route to becoming a category leader.

Scaled challengers sit in this middle ground. They are big, but still self-aware. Established, but not static.

Great brands can grow, evolve and become the leaders of tomorrow while still thinking, acting, and creating with the start-up mindset that first set them on the path to success.

Olivia Joy is client lead and scale-up specialist at WPP Media