A recent study by the American Frozen Food Institute entitled Frozen Food Sales Amid Covid-19 suggested that consumers have increased purchases of frozen food and will continue at the elevated levels for some time. 39% of consumers purchased frozen food online. Key reasons for the purchase of frozen food included long shelf-life, a desire to stock up in case of shortages, limiting the number of trips to the grocery store, ease of preparation, and safety.
Major grocery players are making investments and acquisitions in customer-value proposition, customer experience, picking and delivery that are driving true transformation in the farm to table food chain.
These trends and the corresponding shifting demand mean that your organization must be flexible and agile to deliver innovative products and value-added services timed to market needs, all while managing costs and risk.
The Adroit team helps organizations to improve their agility. Our team works to understand your specific operational challenges, jointly craft solutions that incorporate best practices, leverage your existing software assets, and where necessary implement Adroit’s software solutions.
Working with Adroit, you are better positioned to efficiently create and produce products and services in response to newer trends.
Looking Deeper – Frozen Food Operational Challenges
Frozen Food distributors meet the challenge of frozen food or cold chain logistics to offer their customers the convenience of providing consolidated frozen food inventory and delivery services. Often they provide distribution at the local level. The product and services can include their own inventory and customer base or as a third-party logistics provider.
The frozen distributor often will provide three bundles of services including frozen food logistics, frozen food warehousing, and frozen food transportation. The logistics services include integrated and turnkey planning and consolidation services across the multiple distribution channels served by their customers.
The frozen food warehousing stores and rotates the product within the required frozen temperature ranges. The transportation services offer their customers the opportunity to utilize refrigerated transportation effectively and to have a predictable cost per case.
Frozen Food distributors provide their services within the challenging frozen environment. This means that computing devices must stand up to the harsh environment and provide the proper ergonomics for use by gloved personnel in freezer suits.
Adroit can help you solve your production and inventory control challenges with the application of best practices, optimizing your existing food distribution software, or through the implementation of an Adroit software solution.
Frozen Food Distribution Industry Solutions for Improved Operations
Whether it is crafting targeted solutions to specific operational issues or helping to improve the processes of the entire supply chain, Adroit understands the unique challenges of frozen food distribution.
Frozen food distributors have to manage supply and demand of large numbers of SKUs, and meet desired customer service levels within a harsh operating environment. Local and national distribution means organized picking, route planning, and direct store delivery confirmations. Inventory accuracy must be maintained.
Key process and food distribution systems requirements of Food Distributors support the six major activities of the SCOR model which include Planning, Sourcing, Production, Order Fulfillment, Returns Processing and Enablers.
Planning includes integrated supply chain planning that brings together demand, supply, inventory, and financials. These four plans are integrated to produce a cost effective plan that meets the required service levels of the distributor.
In many cases, we can help understand how a food distribution ERP system in combination with a Supply Chain Planning system can be leveraged to meet key challenges, including:
- Developing cohesive sales, operations, and finance plan (SOP Planning) with accurate forecasts, warehouse management capacities, inventory inclusive of distribution pipeline and planned expiration, and financial metrics.
- Eliminating manual and labor-intensive traceability through the application of traceability software.
- Improving warehouse productivity through improved seek and put times and minimizing travel
- Organizing inventory into zones and locations based on velocity and dimensions
- Integrate the record-keeping and document management challenges into ERP software
- Improving inventory accuracy through task automation
- Complying with a GFSI food safety schema, supported by independent record-keeping and plans
Frozen food distribution ERP software, WMS, and other key business systems all have a role in helping to modernize operations. When properly aligned with overall strategy, these systems help manage complex traceability and record-keeping mandates.
Adroit brings industry experience to each engagement and takes the time to understand the specifics of your frozen food distribution operations. We can help you migrate from informal and disjointed systems to a cohesive and operational systems framework.