The Origin Story
Guidance was built by the CEO of Claros Farm, a certified organic CPG brand that sources organic fruit internationally, processes it through co-manufacturers, and sells finished goods through retail and ecommerce channels.
Running Claros Farm meant managing a genuinely complex operation: international supplier traceability, organic mass balance reconciliation, co-packer cost tracking, lot-level COGS calculation, and annual USDA organic audits. For years, all of it lived in a web of 14 disconnected spreadsheets.
We looked at every operations platform on the market. The enterprise systems (SAP, NetSuite, Odoo) were built for discrete manufacturing and required months of implementation and a dedicated IT team to configure. The food-specific tools were either too simple, basic inventory tracking without real COGS or compliance features, or built for large manufacturers with production floors, not the asset-light co-packing model most CPG brands actually use.
"We couldn't find software that connected all of it, supplier traceability, co-packing costs, organic mass balance, and real COGS in one place. So we built it. Guidance is what we run Claros Farm on today."
, CEO, Claros FarmSo we built a working prototype around Claros Farm's operating model. That prototype validated the connected approach we wished had existed when the business ran on spreadsheets. We are now rebuilding it as a secure commercial platform for other CPG brands facing the same challenges.
Claros Farm
A vertically integrated organic CPG brand and the first early access partner of Guidance. Claros Farm sources certified organic fruit internationally, processes through co-manufacturers, and sells through retail and ecommerce. Read the case study →
What We're Building
Guidance is being rebuilt as an operations platform for CPG brands: a connected commercial system intended to replace the spreadsheet stack many growing food brands rely on. The product roadmap covers purchasing, inventory, production, COGS, and compliance.
The core insight behind Guidance is that food manufacturing data is relational. A purchase order connects to a lot code. A lot code connects to a production run. A production run connects to yield loss, COGS, and organic mass balance. When all of this data lives in disconnected spreadsheets, you spend your time reconciling it. When it lives in a connected system, the reconciliation is automatic.
We are rebuilding Guidance with a small cohort of design partners who can validate the commercial workflows against real operations. This keeps the product grounded in the complexity of food manufacturing rather than a theoretical model.
Our Principles
Built from the inside
Every prototype workflow began with a problem encountered in a real CPG operation. Commercial capabilities will advance only when they can be validated against that operating reality.
Operators first
Guidance is designed for the person running operations, not the CFO or the IT team. It should be usable without a consultant or an implementation project.
Data accuracy over convenience
We don't round numbers or use theoretical yields when actual data is available. Accurate COGS and mass balance require accurate inputs, we make it easy to capture them.
Compliance as a byproduct
Organic mass balance, lot traceability, and FSMA records should emerge from the same connected operating data. The commercial rebuild is designed around that principle; automated documentation is not yet generally available.
Design Partner Program
Guidance is in commercial rebuild after validating its core operating model in a working prototype. We are selecting a small number of design partners to test emerging commercial workflows and provide active feedback as the production platform takes shape.
We're looking for brands that are outgrowing their current spreadsheet or point-solution setup and are ready to consolidate into a single connected system. If that's you, we'd like to talk.
Apply as Design Partner
A small cohort of CPG operators helping validate the commercial rebuild. Access is limited, capability availability will vary, and applications are reviewed on a rolling basis.
Apply as Design Partner