Twenty-five years inside CPG's hardest R&D challenges. Now she's on our side of the table.

Miriam Ueberall was a Pilot Lite client before she was a partner. She saw the model work from the inside, under pressure, when it counted. The decision to join was not a career move. It was a conclusion.

Nine-minute delivery. Twelve million kirana stores. A middle class rewriting the rules of consumption. If you're entering India with one channel strategy, you're already behind.

The first thing CPG executives get wrong about India is the instinct to treat it as a single growth opportunity. It is not. It is several markets stacked on top of each other, each with its own competitive logic, its own consumer behaviour, and its own distribution reality. Brands that enter with a unified playbook built for modern trade will find themselves outmanoeuvred by local challengers who understand the ground far better.

Here is what the data and the reality on the ground are telling us.

Robert Leechman spent over two decades at The Coca-Cola Company, ultimately serving as Chief Customer and Commercial Officer and Member of the Executive Board in Atlanta, responsible for 25 of the world's largest retail and foodservice accounts. Before that, eight years at Mars in both the confectionery and petcare divisions. And for the last fifteen years, Chairman and investor with some of the UK's most successful founder-led challenger brands.

Few people in this industry have such depth of experience across both worlds, and that is exactly why we are delighted to welcome him as Board Advisor at Pilot Lite.

Elixirr and Pilot Lite partner to drive real-world commercial impact for CPGs

New joint offering accelerates growth for CPGs globally in weeks instead of months

Pilot Lite, the global CPG commercialisation partner, today announces a partnership with Elixirr, the London-listed challenger consultancy. With 17 years’ experience across 30 markets, Pilot Lite deploys products into market – from development through to in-store execution – delivering growth and impact for CPGs.

GLP-1 Is Reshaping Food and Beverage At A Speed Most Organisations Are Not Built To Match.

The consumer shift driven by GLP-1 is moving faster than the food and beverage industry's ability to respond to it. Not because boardrooms aren't paying attention. Because the planning cycles, development timelines, and organisational structures that most manufacturers rely on were built for a different pace of change.

For a lot of large CPG brands, new product development is complex:

- Global alignment
- Layered approvals
- Long innovation cycles

In most markets, that’s manageable. 

In China however, speed is not an option, it’s a necessity.  

Why do so many large organisations struggle to innovate despite having deep pockets and world-class talent? The answer lies not outside, but inside. Internal structures, cultural norms, leadership behaviours, and operational processes often conspire to stifle creativity. At Pilot Lite, we’ve seen this pattern repeatedly: companies want innovation but fail to create the conditions for it to thrive. Here’s what’s holding them back—and how to fix it. 

GLP-1 drugs are transforming how consumers eat and shop, disrupting portions, preferences, and entire grocery categories. This blog explains why brands must act now with rapid test-and-learn launches to capture emerging opportunities and stay ahead of the shift.

Pilot Lite is delighted to announce a £62m Series D investment round led by the National Wealth Fund and The Scottish National Investment Bank, which will finance the construction of the first commercial-scale manufacturing facility near Glasgow for the sustainable technology packaging company Pulpex.

Since 2009, Pilot Lite has been adding bandwidth and deployment capabilities to leading corporates in the CPG and food & beverage sectors. With the launch of Pilot Accel, we're now able to partner with ambitious challenger brands looking to expand internationally.

We are thrilled to announce Toby Matthewson has joined us as Venture Director, bringing more than 20 years of experience and a passion for getting the right innovations to market with the people and processes at the right velocity to be successful.

Pilot Lite sponsored the Future Food-Tech event in London 2-3 October. The summit, which attracts hundreds of executives from global food & beverage corporates, focused on scaling solutions in health, nutrition, and alternative proteins, an area of expertise for Pilot Lite.

We are thrilled to announce the expansion of our executive team at Pilot Lite USA’s office. Joel Nelson, Pete Dulcamara, and Nigel Hughes are powerhouses in the CPG industry who have worked for world-leading companies in innovation, R&D, sustainability, and executive management. They join PL USA CEO Dave Behringer to help US companies quickly deploy strategy and innovation into the marketplace.

We are thrilled to announce the expansion of our senior management team in the Latin American office. 

Pilot Lite USA CEO Dave Behringer took the stage with an esteemed panel of CPG executives at Future Food Tech Chicago in June.

Pilot Lite is proud to sponsor the Sustainability Live Net Zero conference March 6-7 in London.

Simply Roasted, a Pilot Lite-backed company, has received two more awards for its triple-cooked, never fried, delicious, better-for-you crisps. 

Pilot Lite-backed Pulpex, the proven, patented, and scalable packaging technology company, has been awarded grant funding from Innovate UK.

Congratulations to The Simple Root, the global, veggie-first plant-based food brand for being named a finalist in three categories of the World Plant-Based Innovation Awards 2023. 

Pulpex, a Pilot Lite-backed business, announced a successful investment round enabling the company to deliver a world-first, commercial-scale production line to produce genuine paper bottles made of 90%+ sustainably sourced fibre.