Los Angeles · International FMCG Advisory

Your brand is ready
for the world.
We help you get there right.

Pelagon Partners works with U.S. consumer brands across food, beverage, personal care, beauty, wellness, and OTC to build real commercial businesses in international markets. The right distributor. The right structure. The right markets, in the right order.

How We Work →
Πέλαγον
Pelagon

Pelagon derives from the Ancient Greek word πέλαγος, meaning the open sea. The name reflects our view of international expansion as navigation, not acceleration. In open water, judgment matters more than speed.

Categories
FMCG and consumer health. Food, beverage, personal care, beauty, wellness, and OTC across international markets.
Markets
Latin America, MENA, and Asia. High-growth consumer markets with real barriers to entry and significant upside for brands that get the entry right.
AI-Ready
Built-in data intelligence across market selection, distributor evaluation, and live channel monitoring.
Based In
Los Angeles, California. Operating across international time zones and trade environments.

"The distributor who won the pitch is rarely the one who builds the market."

We work with founders, export managers, and commercial directors who are serious about building international businesses that hold up on margin, in channel, and over time.

CPG Categories

We work across FMCG and consumer health.

From food and beverage to personal care, wellness, and OTC, these are categories where distribution quality, channel strategy, and commercial execution determine whether an international business is worth having. For regulated categories, compliance is part of the picture. But it is never the whole story.

Category I
Food & Beverage
Functional foods, better-for-you snacks, beverages, and natural products. One of the most exciting FMCG segments globally and one of the most competitive internationally. We help brands identify the right retail and foodservice channels, find distributors with genuine category experience, and build pricing structures that hold up as volume scales.
Functional foodBetter-for-youBeveragesNatural products
Category II
Personal Care & Beauty
Skincare, haircare, color cosmetics, fragrance. Fast-moving, trend-sensitive, and highly competitive in international retail. The brands that win internationally control their channel, their pricing, and their positioning from day one. The brands that lose find out too late that a distributor listed them everywhere at once.
SkincareHaircareCosmeticsFragrance
Category III
Health & Wellness
Vitamins, supplements, sports nutrition, and functional wellness. One of the fastest-growing FMCG segments globally. Market selection and distributor quality matter enormously here. Where regulatory classification is a factor, we know how to navigate it. Where it is not, we focus entirely on commercial execution.
Vitamins & mineralsSports nutritionNutraceuticalsFunctional wellness
Category IV
OTC & Pharma-Adjacent
Over-the-counter products, medicated personal care, cosmeceuticals. These categories require more structured market entry than standard FMCG, and we have the direct experience to do it correctly. Registration ownership, labeling compliance, and distributor accountability are non-negotiable here.
OTC medicationsMedicated personal careCosmeceuticalsRegistration strategy

How We Work

Three phases. No shortcuts.

Most international expansions run into the same problems: entering the wrong market too early, picking a distributor based on a good presentation, or losing control of pricing before the brand has any real leverage. We work to prevent those problems upfront, and fix the underlying issues when brands come to us after the fact.

Phase 1
Market Assessment
Figure out which markets are actually worth entering for your category. We use real data on pricing, competitive activity, retail landscape, and where relevant, regulatory classification, to build a shortlist that makes commercial sense, not just one that looks good in a presentation.
Phase 2
Partner & Deal Structure
Find distributors based on what they have actually done, not what they say they can do. Build agreements that keep the brand in control: registrations stay with you where applicable, pricing terms are enforceable, and there is a clear way out if the relationship stops working.
Phase 3
Ongoing Market Management
Stay on top of what is happening in the market without needing a full-time person on the ground. We monitor channel pricing, distributor activity, and marketplace listings so problems surface early, when they are still fixable.

The Firm

We have done this work ourselves.

Pelagon Partners is a boutique advisory firm based in Los Angeles. We work with U.S. consumer brands, from emerging FMCG startups to established CPG companies, that are either entering international markets for the first time or trying to fix problems in markets they are already in.

The issues we focus on are not glamorous: whether you are in the right market for your category, whether your distributor has actually built brands before or just warehouses product, and whether your pricing architecture will hold up as the business scales. For brands in regulated health and OTC categories, we also cover the compliance and registration side. But that is one part of what we do, not the whole thing.

We keep the client list small on purpose. The work takes time to do well, and we are not interested in taking on more than we can actually handle.

3
Regions: LATAM, MENA, Asia
4
Consumer categories with direct experience
LA
Based in Los Angeles, operating globally
Small
Intentionally limited client roster

AI Capability

We use AI tools. Here is what they actually do.

We use AI to get better information faster: on markets, on distributors, and on what is happening in the channel once a brand is live. It does not replace judgment. It makes the judgment better.

What We Do
Market Research
Before recommending a market, we pull real data on how the category is performing there, what the competitive set looks like, and whether the commercial and regulatory path is realistic for your product. It takes days instead of weeks and it is more current than anything from a traditional research report.
What We Do
Distributor Assessment
We look at what a distributor has actually done: which brands they carry, how those brands are showing up in the market, what their retail footprint looks like. A distributor who looks great in a meeting can look very different when you actually look at the data.
What We Do
Channel Monitoring
We track pricing and listings across online and offline channels in your active markets. If your product starts showing up somewhere it should not, or if pricing starts slipping, we see it early, before it becomes a bigger problem.

AI tools give us better information than we could get any other way at this speed. We use them on every engagement. But the decisions on which market to enter, which distributor to pick, and how to structure the deal are still made by people who have done this work before.

How We Think

A few things we will not compromise on.

These are not principles we put on a slide. They are the things we push back on when clients want to skip them.

01
Control What You Build
The business you build in an international market should belong to you. That means owning registrations where they exist, controlling customer relationships, and having distributor agreements with real teeth. We make sure the structure reflects that from the start.
02
Pricing Gets Set Early
Pricing discipline needs to be established before the first shipment. Once a product is in market at the wrong price, it is very hard to pull back. Retailers resist it, distributors resist it, and the brand usually ends up absorbing the cost.
03
Structure the Relationship Properly
Distributor agreements need real termination rights and clear transition provisions. A contract with no exit is not a partnership, it is a liability. We have seen enough of these situations to know how to structure agreements that actually protect the brand.
04
The Right Distributor Changes Everything
Across every FMCG category and every market we work in, the single biggest variable in whether an international expansion works is distributor selection. We evaluate based on what distributors have actually done for other brands, not what they say they will do for yours.
05
Go Deep Before Going Wide
Entering five markets simultaneously sounds like momentum. It usually means doing all five badly. We push clients to go deep in fewer markets and expand once the model is actually working.
06
We Stay Small
We work with a small number of clients at any time. That is not a positioning statement. It is how we make sure the work is actually good. We would rather turn down business than take on more than we can handle well.

The Team

People who have worked in these markets, not just advised on them.

The Pelagon team has backgrounds in international FMCG and consumer health trade, distributor management across LATAM, MENA, and Asia, regulatory navigation in personal care, wellness, and OTC categories, government relations, and global finance.

The common thread is direct operational experience. We have negotiated the distributor agreements, dealt with the registration disputes, and managed the situations where a market that looked great in a deck turned out to be much harder in practice. That experience is what we bring to every client engagement.

Backgrounds
  • FMCG and consumer health brand building in international markets
  • International CPG trade and export
  • Regulatory work in personal care, VMS, and OTC
  • Government relations and trade policy
  • Global finance and commercial deal structuring
  • Distributor management and channel operations
How AI Fits In
  • Market research that is current, not six months old
  • Distributor assessments based on real activity, not references
  • Live monitoring of pricing and channel activity
  • Early warning on problems before they compound
  • Better data going into every decision we make

Markets

Three regions. All harder than they look.

We focus on high-growth consumer markets where distribution is complex, retail is demanding, and the consequences of a poorly structured entry are significant. These are not easy markets. That is exactly why experience in them matters.

Region I
Latin America
Every country has its own retail structure, its own consumer behavior, and its own way of doing things. LATAM rewards patience and punishes brands that try to move too fast across too many markets at once. For FMCG brands, the opportunity is significant. For regulated health and OTC categories, the structure of entry matters even more. Direct experience across Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Central America.
Region II
Middle East & North Africa
Strong consumer demand, high purchasing power in the GCC, and a retail environment that is evolving quickly. FMCG and personal care categories are growing fast across the region. Pricing control and the right distributor relationships are what separate a good business from one that never gets traction. Experience covers the GCC markets, Egypt, and selected North Africa markets.
Region III
Asia
High potential, high complexity, and real consequences for getting the initial entry wrong. Consumer demand for U.S. FMCG and wellness brands is strong across the region. We focus on controlled, well-structured entry for personal care, health, and food and beverage categories, where the cost of fixing a poorly structured first entry is measured in years, not months.

When Regulation Is Part of the Picture

We know the frameworks that control market access.

Not every FMCG category requires pre-market regulatory approval. But for personal care, health and wellness, and OTC products, compliance is a real factor in market entry. We know these frameworks well enough to plan around them.

Latin America
COFEPRIS — Mexico
Latin America is not one market. Every country has its own regulatory framework, and navigating them requires country-specific knowledge. COFEPRIS in Mexico is one of the more demanding examples: registration timelines are real, classification disputes are common, and distributor-held registrations are one of the most frequent problems we inherit.
Middle East
ESMA / MoHAP — UAE
The UAE sits at the center of MENA distribution for personal care and health products. The Emirates Authority for Standardization and the Ministry of Health both play a role depending on product classification. Getting this right upfront is what separates a smooth entry from a customs hold that derails your launch timeline.
Asia
NMPA — China
The National Medical Products Administration governs cosmetics, health foods, and OTC drugs in China. Registration timelines are long, documentation requirements are extensive, and the consequences of getting product classification wrong are severe. Most brands underestimate what a China entry actually requires until they are already in it.
Pacific & Canada
TGA / Health Canada
Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration and Health Canada both operate rigorous pre-market frameworks for health and OTC products. These are often treated as straightforward markets by U.S. brands. They are not. Both require specific registration pathways and labeling compliance that need to be planned well in advance.

Regulatory requirements change. The above reflects our working knowledge as of early 2026. We verify current requirements on every engagement before making any recommendations.

Before You Reach Out

Pelagon works best in specific situations.

We keep our client list small. If the following describes where you are, there is likely a fit worth exploring.

✓
You have real U.S. commercial traction
Your product has proven sell-through in the U.S. market. You are not testing whether the product works. You are deciding where to take it next and how to do it without building a problem you have to fix later.
✓
You are in FMCG or consumer health
Food, beverage, personal care, beauty, wellness, or OTC. Categories where distribution quality, channel control, and commercial execution determine whether the international business is worth having.
✓
You want to own the market you enter
You care about who controls the registrations where they exist, how pricing holds across channels, and whether there is a real exit if the distributor relationship stops working. You are building something, not just shipping product.
✓
You are ready to move deliberately
You are not looking for someone to tell you what you want to hear. You want an honest read on whether the market and the structure make sense before committing. Speed matters less to you than getting it right.

Contact

Get in Touch

Tell us about your brand and where you are trying to take it. We will follow up directly if there is a fit worth exploring.

Got it. We will take a look and be in touch if there is a good fit.