Melting Forest moves roughly 10,000 cans a day with a team of fewer than 10 people.

Sean McDonald, founder and CEO, and Nancy Pineda, who runs operations, joined Richard Wang on In the Mix with NuLiv Science to explain how that actually works. We covered the parts most founder interviews skip: what velocity a grocery shelf really demands, why they added cost to the can instead of cutting it, and how a full-spectrum cordyceps ends up dispersed in a beverage instead of sitting at the bottom.

Melting Forest is a food-based functional beverage brand now in just under 8,000 stores, including Target, Sprouts, multiple Kroger divisions, Ralphs, Stater Bros, Bristol Farms, and World Market, with a recent launch in Canada.

In this episode:

Putting unapproved prototype cans on a Bristol Farms shelf to watch shoppers react

Why the mushroom branding scared off national buyers, and why that was the point

The real velocity bar for an RTD: three to six units per store per week

Fail fast, and why 20 strong stores beat 2,000 weak ones

Solving mushroom solubility instead of hiding behind extract ratios

Cordyceps at 20 microns, caffeine held at 150mg

Why Senactiv® was formulated for truck drivers and warehouse workers, not athletes

Glow Up: 15g collagen, 5g fiber, no caffeine, and why it isn't sold as a protein drink

FODMAP certified fiber, and the cost of not bloating your customer

How Astrion® made the cut, and why supply reliability decided it

Saying no when a national retailer wants to change your formula