Unique Food Inventory Challenges

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The perishable nature of food inventory makes tracking and tracing a unique challenge. Real-time data is required to prevent losses and increase profits. Below are the major unique food inventory challenges.

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1. Complex inventory management – It’s a fine balance between having too much inventory and too little inventory with a small margin for error. Preventing inventory losses due to overstocking or quantity on-hand meeting expiration dates will help lower costs and increase profitability.

2. Variable demand – It’s difficult to tackle quantity on-hand with the added challenge of variable demand. It takes a robust inventory tracking system to forecast and meet delivery dates without overstocking or inventory loss issues.

3. Managing food and beverage safety – When an order is placed, the supplier and the distributor must manage the timing to accommodate the known shelf life of each product. The whole process of procurement and distribution must coincide with the customer’s required delivery date.

4. Poor traceability –Foodservice industry leaders got together and created the Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI). It promotes voluntary maximization of the effectiveness of track and trace procedures to standardize traceability of inventory end-to-end. Your foodservice software meets PTI standards if you can manage traceability from end-to end. This is crucial in the worse-case scenario of contamination and/or a recall.

5. Expensive compliance – The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) is an FDA regulation that adds an extra burden and cost for foodservice distributors. If your software doesn’t meet compliance standards, it can ruin your business. The focus of FSMA is preventing contamination rather than managing it.

6. Recovering from recalls – Managing recalls effectively is at the heart of customer and brand loyalty. Managing your compliance regulations and processes within a modern foodservice software solution can be a make or break in the even of a recall. The right solution can protect you from the high expense of a recall and increase your customer and brand loyalty.

7. Lack of integration – You know the pain of not having access to the right data at the right time if you’re running and outdated system. An integrated system improves data flow, decision making and communication across all parts of the business.

8. Ineffective workflows and processes – Pressure on profit margins makes it more important than ever to optimize your workflows and processes. This can range from everything from procurement, fulfillment, packing, shipping, delivery and customer service. A modern foodservice inventory software solution combined with industry expert ERP consultants will help you optimize and work toward a culture of continuous improvements.

9. Expensive investments in technology – When your business becomes less efficient and productive, it’s time to invest in better technology. This may include; new equipment, delivery vehicles, mobile access, ERP software, barcoding and other hardware.

10. Low profitability – All of these challenges above contribute to lower profitability. Also, the rising costs of logistics, freight, employees, fuel, compliance and investments in new technology have an impact on profitability. After investment in new ERP and WMS technology, the return on investment (ROI) is expected to increase profitability if it’s the right solution implemented with experienced consultants and good training.

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