Why future-focused brands win in a short-term world

Conventional wisdom says that long-term thinking prioritizes decisions that secure the future, whereas leaders with a short-term focus prioritize today over tomorrow. I’d argue that conventional wisdom needs to be turned on its head.

According to our research, the long-term versus short-term question is based on a false choice. Turns out, those who look further ahead—with clarity on where they’re going—are equipped to make better decisions even today. Paradoxically, long-term thinking is the best short-term strategy.

In our annual study of 10,000 U.S. consumers, a group of innovative young “radar” brands emerged. They were rated highly on delivering better products and services today, while also making meaningful progress toward building a brighter future. One of those radar brands was Califia Farms.

We recently interviewed Dave Ritterbush, CEO of Califia Farms, to hear how he is turning his disruptor brand into a more recognized one by adding new chapters to an established story, encouraging experimentation and failure along the way. They remain committed to the idea that if you stop investing in your future, your present may be at peril.

Please share how Califia Farms begins and where it’s going.

The story of Califia Farms is about knowing where we are headed in the long term so that we remain well-prepared to make fast pivots along the way.

Califia Farms initially focused on creating healthy beverage products by converting imperfect produce into a perfect juice. Pretty quickly, abundant access to the required fruit sources dried up. The solution was not sustainable. But the company’s factory was in California’s Central Valley, adjacent to many almond orchards. The company pivoted, creating a different kind of healthy beverage: plant-based milk products as substitute for traditional dairy brands. We focused on premiumization—combining higher quality, non-GMO ingredients into plant-based options.

Right now, we continue to make nutritional plant-based beverages. I say, “right now,” because brands do have chapters. And good brands, like ours, are working to write new chapters, not disparate ones, for the same book. Brands cannot just attach themselves to a trend. And so Califia Farms is well positioned to continue because even when our offerings evolve, our reason for existing remains the same.

How do you create lasting change?

If you are going to positively and continually disrupt the food chain, there are three core tenets to adhere to: Be good for people, be good for the planet, be profitable.

In our experience, many solutions that are good for people and the planet can also be profitable. If you reduce resource consumption—like using less electricity in manufacturing or less virgin plastics in bottling—there can sometimes be cost savings over time. And adding better, high-quality ingredients that increase nutritional value can sometimes increase the price people may pay.

The problem is that over the past decade, too many disruptor brands—including some plant-based meat alternatives producers—overemphasized the first two tenets to the exclusion of ongoing profitability. Disruptor brands especially need to prove there is a good financial business in doing good through the business.

Califia Farms is thriving in that market. More than half of all U.S. households bought a plant-based milk in 2024. Our margin and profit profiles are comparable with traditional food companies. We can dispel the myth that plant-based companies cannot make money. Consistent with our aim, we are, in fact, good for people, planet, and profit.

No one brand is going to change the food chain system on its own. It’s going to take a collective effort. By proving our model’s economic viability, we seek to attract other disruptors to the food and beverage market to help us amplify this impact.

Have all your pivots and product extensions been successful?

No, not every product experiment has worked at Califia Farms. And that’s a good thing. We see ourselves as an innovative company. By necessity, innovation requires experimenting and learning. If we don’t have failures, then we are probably not being innovative enough.

One of our bigger failures involved getting out too far ahead of our customers. We noticed a generational shift emerging among coffee drinkers. Younger consumers started to prefer drinking their coffee cold. Not only in summertime, but all year round. We were right in observing the shift. Today, established retailers, like Starbucks sell more cold than hot beverages, with 75% of Starbucks’ drinks served cold. Progressive coffee retailers, including Dutch Bros., sell between 70-80% cold beverages.

Meanwhile, coffee additives were made for older tastes. It was more common, for example, to see imagery of creamers being added to steaming hot coffee. So, we reimagined things by creating a new creamer for the next generation: a product adding bold flavor and performing better in iced coffee. On paper, we thought we innovated brilliantly. But in practice, we failed miserably. We didn’t meet an unmet need—we gave them something they never wanted in the first place. Our sales were poor. The failed product took shelf space that previously belonged to our items that were selling well. The experiment took us back a little bit in our journey.

Knowing what we know now would we do it again? Yes. We were pursuing innovation. We were just too early in the adoption curve. The hottest thing in coffee right now is cold foam toppers, a product idea born from the same observation we were exploring earlier.

What advice do you have for others aiming to build a durable brand?

Building a strong brand requires creating a product that is not just better than near competitors, but also delivers a clear point of marketplace difference. It also requires having high ambitions and making the investment required to see them through. Leaders should aim to build their organization’s capability and culture substantially larger than what it is today. Yes, that requires ongoing investment. But the moment that brands stop investing in their ambitions is the same moment when growth ceases.

I like to say that we are building a home, not flipping a house at Califia Farms. Home flippers tend to do low-cost things to make a house look shiny. They make compromises that may not be easy for buyers to see. In contrast, those building a home, with the goal of living in it for years, put love, care, attention, and passion into their work. They invest. So, I would say we’re investing in building a home.

Mark Miller is the chief strategy officer at Team One, a fully integrated media, digital, and communications agency, and the coauthor of Legacy in the Making.