Poppi, the fast-growing prebiotic soda brand partly responsible for creating an entirely new category of better-for-you beverages, has scaled quickly across national retail channels in the last few years - culminating in its acquisition by PepsiCo in 2025.
In 2024, the Poppi team was searching for a solution to help them deal with increased complexity in trade spend, deduction management, and accrual accuracy. But as a fast-moving team, they were looking for more than just software. Hear from Ayyaz Zakaria, CFO at Poppi, on why they chose Promomash and what made the difference in solving their trade and deduction challenges.
As Poppi expanded, their finance team lacked a consistent, reliable system for tracking deductions and managing accruals. This created two core challenges:
Limited visibility into where trade dollars were going
Difficulty ensuring accruals would stand up to financial scrutiny and due diligence
At the same time, Poppi needed more than just software. Traditional trade promotion management (TPM) tools often provided features—but not the speed, flexibility, and support required to implement them effectively.
Poppi ultimately chose Promomash not just for its platform, but for its hands-on partnership model. As Zakaria put it:
“We saw a CEO that seemed really committed and joining our meetings...and we saw a team just extremely involved. We needed agility, speed and attention versus out-of-the-box features.”
From the beginning, Promomash stood out for its level of ownership and involvement:
Direct access to a highly responsive team
Leadership engagement, including the CEO joining weekly calls
Fast problem-solving without relying on ticketing systems
This approach enabled Poppi to move faster and adapt quickly - something critical for a high-growth CPG brand on the cusp of a billion-dollar acquisition.
With Promomash, Poppi implemented a more structured and reliable approach to deduction management and accrual tracking. Key capabilities included:
Building accruals that passed a rigorous due diligence process
Tracking deductions with greater accuracy and consistency
Gaining clear visibility into trade spend and financial performance
Equally important, the Promomash team took on much of the execution work - reducing internal burden and accelerating implementation.
Since implementing Promomash, Poppi has seen meaningful improvements in its financial operations including:
More accurate and defensible accruals
Improved visibility into deductions and trade spend
Reduced manual workload for the finance team
More time spent on analysis vs. execution
According to Zakaria, the impact goes beyond the software itself.
“The system can do one thing...but it’s really the people driving the issues that make or break the implementation.”
This combination of technology, ownership and execution has been key to the success of the partnership.
As Poppi continues to grow under PepsiCo, maintaining control over deductions, accruals, and trade spend will remain a top priority. With Promomash, they now have:
A scalable system for financial operations
A partner that moves at their pace
A foundation for improving trade promotion management over time
For CPG brands evaluating trade promotion or deduction management solutions, Poppi’s experience highlights an important truth:
The success of any TPM or deduction management system depends not just on the software - but on the people behind it.
The combination of platform capabilities and hands-on ownership Promomash has been able to provide made the difference for Poppi in bringing structure, accuracy, and clarity to its financial processes at scale.