AI for pet food and CPG brands. On the shelf, in stock and paid in full.
AI can forecast demand by retailer and SKU, read retailer purchase orders and portal data, sort out deductions and chargebacks, keep product listings consistent across channels and answer consumer questions from your own product data. Modern Thesis helps founders and operators of pet food and consumer packaged goods brands put that to work.
At a glance
- Who it's for: founders, CEOs and operations leaders of pet food, pet products and consumer packaged goods brands with $10M+ in annual revenue.
- What Modern Thesis does: AI strategy, change management, implementation and ongoing stewardship, from one team.
- How it starts: a strategic assessment that measures how the work moves today and ranks where AI pays first. See the assessment.
- Where: based in the Denver area, with an office at 11001 W 120th Ave, Ste 400, Broomfield, CO 80021. On site across the Denver metro and Colorado, and remote anywhere in the US.
- What it doesn't do: replace your ERP or retailer portals, make regulatory or labeling claims, or publish a rate card. Each engagement is priced to its scope after a first conversation.
What makes AI different for a pet food or CPG brand?
CPG brands live inside retailers' rules. Orders arrive through retailer systems, each retailer has its own portal and reports, and deductions for shortages, late shipments and promotions come off payments. Many are wrong, but each one takes time to dispute. Forecasts have to work by retailer and SKU, with promotions and seasonality. Product listings must match across retailers and your own site. Pet food adds questions from owners about ingredients and feeding. AI handles the data and documents. Label and regulatory claims stay with your people.
Where does AI help pet food and CPG brands?
These are examples of what can be built, not past results:
- Forecast demand by retailer and SKU from sales, promotions and seasonality, and flag inventory risk.
- Pull retailer portal data and purchase orders into one view for sales and operations.
- Match deductions and chargebacks to orders, shipments and promotions, and draft disputes for the ones that look wrong.
- Write and update listings for every retailer and your own site from one product record.
- Answer consumer questions about ingredients, feeding and orders from your approved product information.
How does AI help with deductions?
By doing the matching. Each deduction has to be tied to an order, shipment, invoice or promotion before you can decide whether to dispute it. AI can do that matching and draft the dispute with the support attached. Your team approves. Recovered deductions and hours spent are easy to measure.
What does Modern Thesis do here?
Modern Thesis covers four disciplines with one team. In strategy, Jim Coleman and the team map how the work moves through your brand today. In people, we work with sales, operations and customer care staff on training and incentives, so they use what gets built. In implementation, our AI specialists and Forward Deployed Engineers build the workflows and connect them to the software you already run. In stewardship, we stay to check accuracy, keep pace with new AI models and report the return against the baseline.
How does an engagement start?
Every engagement starts with a strategic assessment. We sit with the people who do the work, map how it moves through the brand today, and measure a baseline on the workflows that matter most: forecast accuracy by retailer, out-of-stocks, deductions recovered, hours per deduction and time to publish listings. Then we rank the opportunities by return and define the first build. If AI won't pay for itself somewhere in your business, we'll tell you.
When is something else the better choice?
If your ERP or a deductions tool already handles matching and disputes well, use it fully first. If the main need is better writing and email, the ChatGPT or Copilot licenses you already pay for may be enough; our comparison of Copilot or ChatGPT and an AI partner walks through the difference.
How Modern Thesis handles this
We put AI to work inside xFusion, the 70-person company Jim co-founded, and then for several of its clients. For a pet food or CPG brand, we usually start with deductions and retailer forecasting, because both go straight to cash. Ongoing stewardship has no set end date, and you own your data, accounts, code and documentation throughout.
Questions
Can AI help with retailer deductions?
Yes. It can match each deduction to orders, shipments and promotions, identify the ones that look wrong and draft disputes with the support attached. Your team approves each dispute.
Can AI forecast CPG demand by retailer?
It can combine retailer sales data, promotions and seasonality into a forecast by retailer and SKU. Planners review it. Forecast accuracy and out-of-stocks are measured against what actually happened.
Can AI answer pet owners' questions?
From your approved product information, yes: ingredients, feeding guidelines and order questions, with health questions sent to your team or to a veterinarian. It does not make new product claims.