Swiss sports supplement brand KA-EX has appointed Aaron Heidebreicht as CEO North America, accelerating a US retail buildout that already spans more than 4,000 points of sale just months after its stateside launch. The hire signals a meaningful organizational commitment: Heidebreicht will operate out of Nashville, Tennessee, assembling a dedicated North American commercial team to manage what the brand calls its most important growth market.
Heidebreicht arrives with roughly two decades of sports nutrition channel experience, including stints at GNC, Nutrabolt, and KAGED — where he served as Chief Commercial Officer — before most recently leading Applied Nutrition's North American business as CEO. That résumé maps directly onto KA-EX's distribution footprint: a specialty-retail-first route-to-market anchored in premium fitness and health chains rather than mass grocery.
The Retail Footprint
KA-EX completed a national rollout into all 2,200 GNC stores in August 2026, giving the brand immediate shelf presence in the country's largest specialty supplement chain. Two additional retail expansions are slated for January 2027: Vitamin Shoppe will add the line across its 700-plus doors, and Earthbar will graduate from test markets to a full-chain rollout. The brand also carries meaningful velocity on The Feed, where it ranks among the platform's highest-growth brands so far in 2026. Digital off-premise channels — Amazon, GoPuff, and Rumble — round out the omnichannel distribution picture alongside DTC sales at ka-ex.com.
The current US SKU count is deliberately narrow: two products, Creatine + Energy and Cortisol Stress Reducer, each available in ready-to-drink (RTD) and ready-to-mix formats. That tight assortment simplifies planogram negotiations and shelf-set conversations with retail buyers — a common entry strategy for international brands crossing into the US three-tier-adjacent specialty retail environment. Both SKUs carry Informed Sport and NSF certifications, credentials that carry particular weight in the sports nutrition channel and with team accounts. Current athlete and team partnerships include Brooklyn Pro Pickleball, Brooklyn FC, and Tudor Pro Cycling.
Technology as a Shelf Differentiator
The RTD products are built on VICAP, KA-EX's patented dual-chamber cap technology, which keeps active ingredients physically separated from the liquid base until the moment of consumption. For sports nutrition RTDs — a segment long challenged by ingredient degradation in solution — the format addresses a genuine formulation and cold-chain stability problem. Heidebreicht pointed to the technology as a tangible retail advantage, noting that wholesale partners are already registering the differentiation at shelf. "KA-EX does something no one else in this category does," he said. "That is a real advantage at shelf, and our retail partners are already seeing it."
Pedro Schmidt, CEO and Founder of KA-EX, framed the appointment as an investment in infrastructure rather than just headcount: "With him leading North America, we are investing in a dedicated US team and in the partnerships that will bring KA-EX's Swiss science to many more athletes and everyday consumers."
For sports and functional beverage operators tracking the specialty supplement channel, KA-EX's trajectory illustrates how a tightly curated SKU set, a defensible technology story, and a fast-follow retail expansion strategy can compress the timeline from launch to national scale. The January 2027 Vitamin Shoppe and Earthbar activations will be the first meaningful read on whether depletions at GNC are translating into durable consumer pull — the critical test for any brand moving from distribution gain to sustainable RTD category growth.
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.
