Why CPG Playbook exists, what it is today, and where it might go

Why it exists

1. 2020

   It started at U-LUV Foods

   A cookie brand out of Colorado, built by a family. Getting it from a kitchen to a shelf meant brokers, distributors, retailer portals, spreadsheets and a dozen inboxes, with nobody to ask what to do next.

   Read the founder's manifestoClose the manifesto

   

   The founder's manifesto

   JJ Tartarini

   Founder, U-LUV Foods and CPG Playbook

   I built this because I needed it.

   Running U-LUV Foods taught me something: founders don't fail because their products are bad. They fail because the system is designed against them.

   Too much gatekeeping. Too much pay to play. Too little guidance. Too much time lost to systems that don't talk to each other.

   The brands fund it all: trade shows, distributors, retailers, agencies. Yet the brands have the least control.

   Twenty years of insider knowledge shouldn't be the barrier to entry, and the size of a software budget shouldn't decide who gets good help.

   Execution over theory

   Built from inside a real brand, tested under real pressure.

   Founders first

   Every decision asks: does this give founders more leverage?

   Intelligence should scale down

   What a big company has, a small brand should have too.

   Software should feel human

   Brands are run by people. Tools should take stress away, not add it.

   No brand should lose an opportunity because of scattered systems, missing information, or busywork.

   We're building CPG Playbook with founders, not for them.

   JJ Tartarini, founder

What has been built

1. 2020 to 2024

   Learning it the hard way

   U-LUV made it onto shelves at HomeGoods, King Soopers and Hy-Vee. Every one of those wins ran on phone calls, spreadsheets and memory, and every lesson had to be learned twice. The plan lived in our heads.

2. 2025

   The first sketch

   The playbook we kept rebuilding by hand became a first prototype, with the manifesto at its front door: one system for the brand, run by AI, built around the founder.

3. Spring 2026

   A plan from a conversation

   Tell ChatCPG what you are going for, and it shapes the steps with you.

4. August 2026

   The first neighbors

   Brands met CPG Playbook at Newtopia Now and put their names on the wall.

5. September 2026

   The plan beside the chat

   Playbooks you work step by step, with ChatCPG doing its part and your team on the same page.

6. October 2026

   Discover, MyCPG, MarketCPG and a page for you

   Discover is one room beside the chat, and every card has Heart, Comment, Ask, Save and Share.

   What changed

7. October 2026

   Files, links and meetings on a playbook

   Every playbook has Resources: upload a file, add a link to a Google Doc, a sheet, a Canva or any app, or paste an email.

   What changed

8. October 2026

   Open the ChatCPG sidebar when you need it

   On desktop, expand the sidebar to see the room names, then collapse it to give your chat more space.

   What changed

9. October 2026

   Smoother chats and shared task updates

   Starting a conversation keeps your first message and New Chat from creating competing threads.

   What changed

10. October 2026

    More reliable chat recovery

    Opening ChatCPG from your dashboard is more reliable while the page loads.

    What changed

Where we are

Where it might go

1. The right help finds you

   When you ask for something nobody on your team can do, the people who can help hear about it.

2. ChatCPG takes on more of the work

   Reading your files, working with the tools you already use, and moving things along while you sleep.

3. The neighborhood fills in

   More brands, buyers, brokers and makers, each with a page, so the next connection is a click away.

4. One place the work runs through

   The layer between a brand and everyone it works with, so the plan never lives in one person's head again.