BDH Consultants is a beverage commercialization firm. Acquirers, investors, and counsel hire us to pressure-test beverage and restaurant deals before they close. Founders, co-packers, and operators hire us to source, build, and fix product lines, supply chains, and operations. Same judgment, both sides of the table, backed by 35+ years of combined beverage and hospitality expertise.
Twenty years for Billy and fifteen for Don, across tea, coffee, foodservice, and hospitality.
A four-unit Southern California chain in tea and coffee. Fourteen consecutive quarters of growth, $10M+ in sales, exited in 2020.
Our combined skillset covers all aspects of a beverage business, from product development, sourcing, foodservice operations, and legal compliance.
Billy spent nine years in research and development at DAVIDsTEA, where tea sales over that period approached $930 million.
Spill the Tea by Billy Dietz, and The Perfect Blend by Don Ho.
You're acquiring a beverage brand, a restaurant group, or a co-packer — or advising someone who is — and the model, the lawyers, and the accountants are covered. What's not covered: whether the product line, the co-packer contracts, and the supply chain actually hold up. You need that box checked by someone who has run one. Defensibly, in writing, inside your exclusivity window.
And you need it matched to a co-packer who can actually hit your volume, format, and budget — not just tell you what you want to hear.
One supplier, no backup, and a compliance or quality issue away from a scramble you didn't see coming.
And you need your own team or your own line performing well enough to serve your clients better than your competitors do.
You need an outside, evidenced read on where you actually stand before you commit resources you can't easily unwind.
And you need it profitable, well-built, and running on a supply chain that isn't quietly working against you.
Every beverage deal has a moment when someone at the table asks: has anyone who's actually operated in this category looked at this? The QoE firm can't answer it. The expert-network calls don't leave anything behind for the file. We exist for that moment.
A fixed-price operational and commercial diligence sprint on the beverage business you're buying — product line, co-packer, supply chain, margin stack, operations — delivered as a written findings memo and risk register built to sit in the deal file and stand up in front of an investment committee.
Earlier in the deal? The Red-Flag Review is a three-to-five-day screen of the data room that tells you whether the beverage story survives first contact — and the fee credits toward the full Diligence File if you proceed.
After the close? The risk register becomes the 100-day plan. We can stay to run it down.
There are twelve ways a beverage dies between concept and shelf — we wrote the list, and it's in the Library. Priced into a deal, they don't just kill a brand. They come out of your returns.
Start A Diligence Review →/ n. / — the distance between how a business runs in an owner's mind, and how it actually runs.
A supply chain nobody's questioned in years. A team that looks productive but isn't driving profit. A pricing strategy no one's benchmarked. A risk that only shows up if you know where to look.
Most beverage businesses don't fail because an owner wasn't good at their job. They fail in the gap between what an owner believes is true about their business and what's actually true — a gap that's invisible from inside and obvious from outside.
Every blind spot looks obvious in hindsight and almost none of them are visible in advance, unless you've already crossed one. We have. Many times, in our own businesses first. Closing that gap in yours is our entire business.
And if you're the buyer: the Operator's Gap doesn't disappear at closing. It transfers — at the multiple you paid.
We are not AI skeptics. Don runs an AI implementation firm and works with these systems daily, at the edge of what they can currently do. We use them here for research coverage, for first drafts, for speed. Used well, they let a two-principal firm move like a ten-person one, and we would rather our clients have that leverage than pay for its absence.
Which is exactly why we can tell you where the machines stop. AI is trained on what has been published. This industry runs on what has not: the co-packer minimum that moves when you know how to ask, the supplier whose paperwork is immaculate and whose lead times are not, the ingredient broker who picks up during a shortage. None of that is on the internet, so none of it is in the model. AI also gives you the average answer, and deals do not fail on averages. They fail on this formulation, on that line, at this volume, under that contract.
Then there is accountability. When the investment committee asks who stands behind the diligence, a chatbot is not an answer. A signed memo is.
Five ways the gap shows up. One method for closing it: find where the business runs on assumption instead of evidence, and replace the assumption with a verified answer, fast.
Before you commit resources, know exactly where you stand. We ran a 270-data-point competitive analysis for a multi-million dollar international beverage supplier to inform a new portfolio launch. Separately, we corrected an undervalued pricing position for a regional foodservice chain, optimizing their profit margin by low double digits. For acquirers, this same discipline becomes the Beverage Diligence File.
We build product lines and match them to the right co-packer, fast. One recent build came in over fifteen percent under budget, in under four months, with preferential R&D terms secured on top. When a client's supplier lost organic certification, we replaced them without disrupting their sourcing story or their timeline.
We work directly with co-packers, blenders, and wholesalers to strengthen what they offer their own clients. We trained the R&D function at a $10 million private-label beverage co-packer to operate as a profit center instead of a cost center. Separately, we sourced first-to-market raw materials for a leading North American co-packer to fuel their fastest-growing segment, powders.
Run jointly by both founders. Over a decade of personal operational experience in the foodservice/beverage industry. Proven track record of achieving profitability for several clients in less time than industry standard.
A two-principal firm. Principals do the work. There is no B-team to hand you to.
A seasoned tea professional with over sixteen years in the industry. At seventeen he became the youngest Certified Tea Specialist in North America through the Specialty Tea Institute, and later a certified STI instructor. He continued his education with McCormick FONA and the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe, and has traveled extensively to study how beverages and food are woven into the cultures of each region. Billy spent nine years in research and development at DAVIDsTEA, pushing the boundaries of tea innovation across teabag, loose leaf, and powder formats. In 2023 he published Spill the Tea: Unveiling the Mysteries of Blended, Flavored, and Herbal Teas, a working guide for industry professionals, entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts.
Drinks Chinese black tea
Twenty years an attorney; sold his law firm to operate. Built an eight-figure foodservice and retail beverage business from zero — fourteen consecutive quarters of growth, $10M+ in sales, four locations — before exiting in 2020. He has sat on both sides of the deal table: as counsel, as founder, and as seller. Certified Bloom Growth coach. Mentors founders through Entrepreneurs’ Organization and ACE Next Gen. Author, The Perfect Blend.
Drinks Taiwanese oolong
35+ years of experience between us. One of us built the products. The other built the business around them.
A multi-million dollar international beverage supplier needed an evidenced read on the competitive landscape before launching a new portfolio.
A regional retail chain needed to know how far below market its pricing had drifted. Our analysis showed the client was ~15% under market rate and our recommendations helped increase revenue by 15.4% within one quarter.
A brand needed a product line built for third-party distribution, matched to a co-packer fit for their volume, format, and geography.
A $10 million private-label beverage co-packer needed its R&D function repositioned as a profit driver rather than a cost center.
A leading North American co-packer needed first-to-market raw materials to fuel its fastest-growing segment, powders.
Startup foodservice business bootstrapped by owners and needing to reach profitability as quickly as possible.
These are examples of range, not the extent of it.
The five inputs every beverage brief needs before a co-packer sees it: concept, flavor profile, base, price target reverse-engineered from margin, and compliance envelope. Includes the iteration cycle and the IP terms to settle before Round 1.
Read The Framework →What a co-packer actually sells you is consistency at scale. Four evaluation criteria in order, the diligence questions a sales call avoids, and the single most expensive early-stage sourcing error.
Read The Standard →A documentation and checklist standard for beverage retail and foodservice. Opening, closing, shift handover, maintenance tiers, and the quality-control layer. For acquirers: documented SOPs de-risk key-person dependency in an owner-operated target.
Read The Framework →The metrics stack that separates a defensible operator from one running on instinct. Sales, gross margin, COGS, labor as a percentage of sales, and break-even discipline. A target that cannot produce these is asking a buyer to underwrite an unmeasured gap.
Read The Framework →Everything in the Library is free, and more frameworks are in development. The judgment to apply them is what we sell.
As a certified Bloom Growth coach, Don implements the Bloom Growth Operating System with hospitality and F&B leadership teams — a communication and execution system built on prioritization and simplification. For acquirers: this is also how a post-close leadership team learns to run the plan you just paid for.
A three-to-five-day screen of the target’s data room: product line, co-packer, supply chain, margin story. You leave with a flag memo and a clear read on whether the beverage thesis survives first contact. Fixed fee, quoted before you commit, credited toward the full Beverage Diligence File.
A fixed-price diagnostic of exactly where your business stands — sourcing, supply chain, product line, pricing, or operations — with a written roadmap of what to close first. Useful on its own, whether or not you ever hire us again.
We are a two-principal firm and take a limited number of engagements each quarter.