All Commodity Volume(ACV)

ACV (All Commodity Volume) is a distribution metric expressed as a percent. It measures the share of total retail sales (across all products in a given universe) at stores that carry your product.

If your brand has 60% ACV in conventional grocery, that means stores accounting for 60% of all grocery dollars in that universe are stocking your SKU. The remaining 40% of grocery dollars are flowing through stores that don't carry it. ACV is more useful than raw store count because a 100-store chain doing $100M in revenue matters more than a 100-store regional banner doing $20M.

ACV moves in two ways. Adding stores lifts it; gaining authorization at higher-volume stores within an existing chain also lifts it. Losing distribution at a single high-volume retailer (a Costco delist, for instance) can crater ACV even if the brand picks up dozens of independents to compensate.

There are two flavors. Total Distribution Points sum %ACV across every SKU in the brand, so a brand with 5 SKUs at 60% ACV each has 300 TDPs. Per-item ACV is the simpler number that retail account managers and brokers track on a single-item basis.

For growth-stage CPG brands, getting to 50% ACV in a target channel is usually the first commercial milestone after seed funding. The next milestone is velocity, since high ACV with low velocity gets you cut.

Roles where this matters: Sales, Trade Marketing, GM.