The Hire
Death Wish Coffee Co. has appointed Sasha Auguste as Chief Marketing Officer, adding a seasoned CPG brand executive to its leadership bench as the Saratoga Springs, N.Y.-based roaster pushes deeper into retail and new product development. Auguste will oversee integrated marketing strategy, digital initiatives, and innovation support across the brand's full portfolio.
Channel Footprint
The brand currently holds the No. 1 position in both Fair Trade and Organic roasted coffee in the United States, citing SPINS MULO scan data from December 2025, and counts distribution in more than 25,000 retail doors nationwide — a scale that puts meaningful pressure on the marketing function to sustain shelf velocity and drive trial across a fragmented retail landscape. Auguste's mandate spans direct-to-consumer, e-commerce, and key account retail, channels where the brand has built an unusually loyal consumer base relative to its size.
Auguste arrives from YumEarth, where she led a strategic repositioning for the better-for-you confectionery label, developed an innovation pipeline that extended the brand into adjacent segments, and executed an omnichannel strategy covering DTC, Amazon, and brick-and-mortar retail partners. Before YumEarth, she drove brand repositioning and launched the DTC channel at Kidfresh, giving her a pattern of pairing brand-building with channel diversification at growth-stage natural and better-for-you companies.
Why It Matters
For foodservice-adjacent coffee brands competing at retail, the CMO role increasingly functions as the connective tissue between product innovation, e-commerce, and in-store merchandising. Death Wish operates a SKU lineup — Dark Roast, Medium Roast, Espresso Roast, Light Roast, and the Valhalla Java blend — all certified Fair Trade and made with organic coffee, a positioning that commands premium price points but demands consistent consumer engagement to hold shelf in an increasingly crowded specialty and better-for-you coffee set.
Chief Executive Officer Steve Gardiner framed the hire as a talent-acquisition imperative tied directly to growth ambitions. The appointment signals that Death Wish is prioritizing brand investment and marketing infrastructure as it scales, a common inflection point for challenger brands crossing the threshold from cult-following to mainstream retail competitor. Investors and retail buyers alike will watch whether Auguste's omnichannel playbook — refined at smaller, nimble natural brands — translates to accelerating household penetration for a coffee label with strong identity but room to grow market share beyond its core enthusiast base.
The move is consistent with a broader trend in the specialty and better-for-you beverage segment where brands are upgrading marketing leadership to manage the complexity of simultaneous DTC, marketplace, and mass-retail growth. For operators and buyers tracking the coffee and hot-beverage category, Death Wish's retail expansion trajectory and premium Fair Trade positioning make it a benchmark for how independent roasters compete against multinational coffee brands at scale.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
