[ FOUNDER ]
The playing field was never level. That's why I built this.
The playing field was never level. That's why I built this.
The playing field was never level. That's why I built this.
I spent 16 years inside a CPG food company, helping grow it from ~$20 million to $350 million. I touched nearly every level of the operation — manufacturing, sales, distribution, product development. But my home was marketing, and marketing sat closer to the product than anyone else in the building. We had to understand the mechanics of every department to ensure that what we put on the shelf actually made sense across the entire system.
I didn't have a massive budget or a fleet of consultants. I was handed a department that ran on scraps and told to build a brand in a category that didn't want one. The in-store bakery was built on private label, contract packing, and the illusion of "baked on-site." Clear clamshells. Hobart labels. No brand identity, and no precedent for one.
My team and I built one anyway — multiple SKUs, in every single Walmart in the country.
That experience taught me something that shaped everything I've done since: the people closest to the product rarely have the intelligence they need to make the best decisions. The data exists somewhere — in syndicated reports, in category reviews, in siloed departments, locked behind six-figure consulting fees — but it doesn't reach the people who need it most, when they need it most.
I carried that problem with me when I left the industry. Then I found the unlock.
I studied AI through MIT's CSAIL program — not the theory, but the application. Where to aim machine learning, retrieval systems, and autonomous agents at the decisions that determine whether a CPG brand lives or dies. Then I stopped studying and started building. Hands-on. From architecture to deployment. Not theory — systems.
CPG Canary is the result. It's built for every question I could've had at any stage of that 16-year journey — and for every question a CPG team doesn't even know they should be asking yet. It delivers in minutes what took me years to learn the hard way: where your product sits competitively, whether your pricing makes sense, what risks are hiding in your category, and what to do about all of it.
This isn't a side project from a developer who googled "CPG." It's a tool forged from 16 years of making high-stakes decisions without the intelligence that should have informed them — built so that no one in CPG has to operate that way again.
The playing field was never level. Now it can be.
I believe the next generation of great food & beverage brands will come from founders and growing companies, not conglomerates. They just need a fair shot.
David Skinner, Founder
I spent 16 years inside a CPG food company, helping grow it from ~$20 million to $350 million. I touched nearly every level of the operation — manufacturing, sales, distribution, product development. But my home was marketing, and marketing sat closer to the product than anyone else in the building. We had to understand the mechanics of every department to ensure that what we put on the shelf actually made sense across the entire system.
I didn't have a massive budget or a fleet of consultants. I was handed a department that ran on scraps and told to build a brand in a category that didn't want one. The in-store bakery was built on private label, contract packing, and the illusion of "baked on-site." Clear clamshells. Hobart labels. No brand identity, and no precedent for one.
My team and I built one anyway — multiple SKUs, in every single Walmart in the country.
That experience taught me something that shaped everything I've done since: the people closest to the product rarely have the intelligence they need to make the best decisions. The data exists somewhere — in syndicated reports, in category reviews, in siloed departments, locked behind six-figure consulting fees — but it doesn't reach the people who need it most, when they need it most.
I carried that problem with me when I left the industry. Then I found the unlock.
I studied AI through MIT's CSAIL program — not the theory, but the application. Where to aim machine learning, retrieval systems, and autonomous agents at the decisions that determine whether a CPG brand lives or dies. Then I stopped studying and started building. Hands-on. From architecture to deployment. Not theory — systems.
CPG Canary is the result. It's built for every question I could've had at any stage of that 16-year journey — and for every question a CPG team doesn't even know they should be asking yet. It delivers in minutes what took me years to learn the hard way: where your product sits competitively, whether your pricing makes sense, what risks are hiding in your category, and what to do about all of it.
This isn't a side project from a developer who googled "CPG." It's a tool forged from 16 years of making high-stakes decisions without the intelligence that should have informed them — built so that no one in CPG has to operate that way again.
The playing field was never level. Now it can be.
I believe the next generation of great food & beverage brands will come from founders and growing companies, not conglomerates. They just need a fair shot.
David Skinner, Founder