Insurgent Brands 2023

Each year, a new cohort of high-growth brands joins Bain & Company’s annual list of insurgent brands. We define insurgent brands as those in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector that generate more than $25 million of annual revenues in tracked channels, have grown more than 10 times their category’s average growth rate over the last five years, and have remained independent or been acquired by a large consumer packaged goods (CPG) company only within the last two years.

This year, our seventh annual insurgent brands analysis identified 99 insurgent brands across more than 40 FMCG categories. Thirty-six of these brands have made our list of high-growth insurgents for the first time, 15 of which we identified as potential future insurgents in 2022. Another 63 brands remain on the list after first appearing over the course of the last six years, either sustaining high growth in the same category or emerging in an adjacent category. Seven of these brands—Harry’s, Chobani, Kodiak Cakes, Rao’s, EOS, Suja, and e.l.f. Cosmetics — were first identified as insurgent brands in 2017 and account for about 15% of market growth in aggregate across their core categories over the last five years.

Key insights

• Despite a challenging macroeconomic environment, insurgent brands continue to capture an outsized share of growth. While they account for less than 2% market share in their respective categories, they have captured about 10% of the growth over the last two years. This compares with about 20% share of growth for the period 2016 to 2020. 
• Insurgent brand performance in 2022 slowed as those brands struggled to keep pace with significant price increases by large CPGs. On average, CPGs raised prices 3.5 times more than insurgent brands in their categories.
• As a result, we saw the relative premiumness of insurgent brands decline from prior years, with the markup relative to private labels dropping from 3.4 times in 2021 to 2.8 times in 2022, and median growth relative to their categories slowing from 24 times to 20 times.
• On the other hand, insurgent brands’ volume grew by about 50%, whereas volumes declined for the rest of the market, suggesting insurgents are poised to recapture growth once the market stabilizes.
• Insurgent brands continue to demonstrate their ability to scale quickly, with 9% of brands scaling to $100 million or more in annual sales in tracked channels in less than five years, and some insurgents such as Prime Hydration reaching that milestone in just one year.

Explore the list of Bain & Company’s 2023 US Insurgent Brands in Consumer Products