The COVID-19 pandemic has turned our world upside down, with small businesses being hit especially hard. This is a pivotal time for SMBs, and the way they respond to the pressure will determine how their business runs for years to come. Many companies are taking this difficult situation and turning it into an opportunity. In our Positive Pivots series, we’re diving deeper into what these innovative businesses have done, and what lies beneath the surface to produce this kind of creativity and resilience.

This week we spoke with JJ Tartarini, Founder of U-LUV Foods, to discuss how COVID-19 has impacted his business operations.

What is your business?

U-LUV Foods officially launched in January 2020, but it has been an idea we’ve played around with for some time. When the gluten-free trend really took off in 2012, my mom made a cinnamon roll version that we sold in farmers’ markets. By 2018, we decided to make it a more focused business venture and landed in some natural grocery stores.

We went through some rebranding and reformulations of the recipe to meet market trends. After researching the natural food space, we settled on cookies with the name U-LUV Foods that are free from all eight major FDA allergens and gluten free. Since then, we’ve been off and running, selling online and in grocery stores.

How did COVID-19 affect your operations?

We were selling online but really wanted the focus of our business to be grocery stores. However, the disruption of COVID-19 forced us to rethink that effort. We’ve actually been able to use our digital sales to show retailers that people want our products, and the grocery stores have responded really well. In a way it has sped things up for us, and we’ve fit in nicely with the “ordering in” trend. But we wanted to take our experience with COVID a step further and fulfill our mission of “cookies with compassion.”

How did your product offering pivot during this unusual time?

We thought long and hard about how to support our customers and other small businesses during this time. We decided to offer free hand sanitizer with every order of cookies, and it has gone over really well. We have gotten a lot of positive press and most importantly, we’ve made our customers happy and supported the small businesses down the street.

How do you think the pivot you made in response to COVID-19 will impact your business long-term?

Our “cookies with compassion” mission won’t change anytime soon. We are now partnered with Denver Dream Center, a nonprofit that helps inner city kids get through high school. We want to continue partnering with other organizations as we roll out to different stores in other cities and of course think of other cross promotions that help us support small businesses.