Merenda Foods chooses Aptean as ERP partner and goes live with Business Central

Breda, July 2026 – Merenda Foods is growing. As a producer of organic baby snacks and porridges for private label, the company has been building other brands' success for more than forty years. Every product is developed specifically and in close consultation with the customer, for retailers, A-brands and distributors across the Netherlands and abroad.

That growth brought Merenda Foods to a difficult question: how do you stay flexible for customers of every size, without your own organisation buckling under the strain? The answer wasn't another standalone system, but a single foundation the whole business could build on.

Since 1 June 2026, that foundation has been in place. Merenda Foods went live with the Aptean Food & Beverage ERP, built on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, within six months and comfortably within budget.

A system that could no longer keep up

Spreadsheets here, an outdated application there, and nothing talking to each other. "We had a kind of spaghetti automation," says Marco Netten, Interim IT Manager at Merenda Foods. "We couldn't keep growing, because our systems were outdated and missing certain food-specific functionality."

That was the starting point of the search: not an upgrade of the old system, but a replacement that actually matched how Merenda Foods works. Interim IT Manager Marco Netten led the implementation. The result: purchasing, sales, planning, production and finance now come together on one platform for the first time.

Why Aptean

During the search, Merenda Foods set two non-negotiables: the company wanted to stay on Microsoft, and food functionality had to be part of the standard solution, not bolted on as costly customisation or run separately alongside it. For a private label producer, that's not a nice-to-have but a condition. Aptean proved to be the partner that could deliver it.

The fact that Merenda Foods' CFO and IT organisation already knew Aptean from previous projects gave it a head start. Just as important was the consultants' approach: no custom-built solution, but a standard product already tailored to the food and beverage industry.

Source: Merenda Foods

From production floor to warehouse

For the people on the floor at Merenda Foods, the difference is biggest of all. Raw materials and ingredients are now scanned at the point of use, so the status of a production order can be tracked live instead of pieced together afterwards. That means every material is checked, and product traceability is better safeguarded. Paper has disappeared entirely: everyone can see, digitally, the progress of each production order in terms of output, consumption and any quality checks still outstanding.

The picture is the same in the warehouse: every item now has a storage location in BC365, pallets carry an SSCC code, and the network behind it has been redesigned to support that. For Merenda Foods' customers, who put their own brand on the product, one thing matters above all: if a batch doesn't meet requirements, it's blocked immediately, and its origin can be traced with complete precision.

At the same time, Merenda Foods has dramatically improved its data quality by restructuring its master data and using workflows to capture information in a structured, logical way — reflected in clear, reliable reporting in Power BI.

Phase two: from capturing data to optimising it

Going live was phase one. Phase two is about optimisation, such as scheduling production through a visual planning board. Elements still living in Excel, like quality complaint registration, are moving across to the new system step by step. It isn't always a smooth transition, since some teams have worked their own way for years. Even so, support is growing, simply because people are seeing the benefits of BC365 for themselves.

There's more on the horizon. Through the connection with the Microsoft app store, Merenda Foods can add extra functionality without setting up a new project each time. Aptean, too, is already looking ahead. "Aptean AI could help companies like Merenda Foods boost employee productivity. That's an opportunity we're keen to explore going forward," says Joris Kolff, Senior Regional Account Director at Aptean.

Ready for controlled growth

For Merenda Foods, this project is more than a system change: departments now genuinely work with each other instead of alongside each other. Data no longer needs to be recorded in multiple systems, and internal processes have been reshaped and optimised as a result. That's the foundation for continued international growth with private label customers, without quality or lead times paying the price. With Aptean as its partner, Merenda Foods has a foundation that grows with the business — today, and for whatever comes next.