How Poppi went from farmers market vinegar drink to a $2B Pepsi acquisition

Executive overview

Allison Ellsworth started drinking apple cider vinegar to fix chronic digestive problems, then spent years making it taste good enough for others to drink. That homebrew became Mother Beverage, then Poppy — a prebiotic soda Pepsi acquired for nearly $2 billion in March 2025.

The breakthrough wasn't the product alone. A Shark Tank appearance brought investor Rohan Oza, who forced a complete rebrand. Calling themselves a "prebiotic soda" — when soda was a dirty word — turned out to be the right bet.

Positioning a functional drink as soda, not health food, unlocked a category no one else had claimed.

From personal health fix to farmers market product

• Allison developed severe inflammation, acne, and digestive issues while living on the road doing oil and gas fieldwork
• Doctors dismissed her symptoms; she ran an elimination diet and added daily apple cider vinegar, feeling 50% better within two weeks
• She began masking the harsh taste by infusing vinegar with raspberries and rose petals, then mixing with sparkling water and stevia
• Neighbors started requesting mason jars weekly; a family tasting at Thanksgiving had almost no takers — the gap between her enthusiasm and others' reaction was clear
• She applied to a Dallas farmers market in 2016, bottling by hand with $90,000 from family savings and her sister
• The drink sold out every Saturday; a Whole Foods buyer handed them her card and said "there's nothing like this in Whole Foods"

Building a micro-manufacturing operation

• No co-packer would take them on: raw, unfiltered apple cider vinegar risked contaminating other products and souring beer lines
• They rented a warehouse and bottled by hand — two filler lines, eight bottles at a time, nine-to-twelve-hour shifts five days a week
• Carbonating into glass proved explosive; they discovered not all glass handles carbonation, switching to standard 12-ounce soda bottles
• Stephen worked a second job at night throughout this period so all business revenue could be reinvested
• Revenue in the 12–18 months before Shark Tank was roughly $500,000

Shark Tank and the Rohan Oza rebrand

• They turned down a $200,000 offer from an investor with no CPG experience or connections, then saw Shark Tank casting open in Dallas three days later
• On the show, Mr. Wonderful called them an "apple cider vinegar roach"; Rohan Oza, a guest shark with Coca-Cola and Vitaminwater branding experience, was the right fit
• They asked for $400,000 at a $4M valuation; Oza came in at 25% — they said yes immediately
• Oza's verdict on the brand: "your branding is shit" — they agreed and welcomed a full overhaul
• Nine months of positioning work followed: personality mapping, can color debates, name brainstorming
• They chose colored cans over white after physically placing both on grocery store shelves and stepping back — colored cans "popped off the shelf"
• The name Poppy came from "soda pop"; calling it a "prebiotic soda" was a deliberate provocation at a time when soda was seen as toxic

Launch chaos and the COVID pivot

• They spent $90,000 on a booth for Expo West in Anaheim — their planned launch event — only for the show to be canceled one day in as COVID cases surged
• Grocery stores told them to wait; they pivoted to Amazon and leaned into pantry-loading behavior from consumers suddenly focused on health
• A Shark Tank update episode aired in April 2020; within hours they hit number one on Amazon's hot new products list and were doing $250,000 a month on Amazon
• Allison started posting on TikTok when no brands were there — recipe videos, personal story, dancing with her kids
• A one-minute story post — farmers market to Shark Tank, five grams of sugar, apple cider vinegar — went viral overnight and drove $100,000 in Amazon sales while she slept

Scaling to $500M and the Pepsi acquisition

• The business grew triple digits year over year after the rebrand
• By 2023: $100M in revenue. By 2024: ~$500M
• A Super Bowl ad tripled brand awareness overnight; they said "soda" 17 times and declared themselves "the future of soda"
• Retailers initially placed Poppy next to sparkling water and enhanced waters; over time, Poppy carved out an entirely new "modern soda" shelf set that didn't exist before
• Pepsi acquired Poppy in March 2025 for nearly $2 billion — moving them from 50,000 to 350,000 distribution locations
• Pepsi's stated approach: "let Poppy be Poppy"

Running a business as a couple

• Working multiple jobs, raising two children, and building a startup created sustained pressure on the relationship
• A turning point: they explicitly agreed to de-prioritize romantic gestures and focus energy on kids and business — releasing that expectation reduced conflict
• Role clarity mattered: Allison drove product, brand instincts, and TikTok; Stephen handled operations and found external income to keep the household running
• Both credit the other as essential; neither would redo it without the other