Real Customers, Real Results: How Food ERP Improves Processes

We’ve published hundreds of posts on our blog about food and beverage business software, especially food enterprise resource planning (ERP). There are listicles enumerating must-have features, how-to guides for comparing different solutions and answers to frequently asked questions.

Another favorite topic of ours is process improvement and how the right solutions can fuel it. Of course, it's not a surprise to you that we'd cover that—after all, we're a business software provider, and we believe in our products. So wouldn’t it be nice to hear that from someone else? From real customers, in their own words, about how they’re achieving real results with Aptean solutions?

That’s why we’ve pulled together a list of common food and beverage business activities, each with an explanation of how food ERP can increase accuracy, efficiency and visibility, as well as a customer testimonial and link to the full success story. You’ll see that, across different sub-industries and geographies, our software streamlines processes and helps companies grow.

So you don’t have to take our word for it, dive into this compilation of case studies to see how Aptean Food & Beverage ERP is improving real-world processes right now.

Grower Management

Fresh produce providers typically source products from a variety of farms, and it’s a central part of the business concept for cooperatives like Fossa Eugenia. With 34 members, the Dutch organization must assign orders optimally to ensure that demand from major retailers is met, and the grower management portal offered by our advanced food ERP solution is the perfect platform for that purpose.

“Short lines of communication, that’s what it’s all about,” said Ton Holthuijsen, advisor. “Aptean Food & Beverage ERP’s portal works just as desired. The next step is a quality project, so that growers can now state the quality of the product in the interface.”

More visibility into and control over sourcing gives Fossa Eugenia assurance that orders will be fulfilled accurately and on time, promoting customer satisfaction. The portal further supports this by providing member farms with a clear view of what needs to be delivered and when, as well as any customer-specific labels that must be applied before shipping.

Read the full Fossa Eugenia case study for more.

Food Traceability

As one of the most important (and frequently discussed) best practices in the food industry, traceability is critical for both food safety and regulatory compliance. Without the right system in place to facilitate it, New York-based bakery ingredient producer Creative Foods Ingredients had to tackle the task using inefficient manual means.

“Previously, our team relied on disparate departmental data to track product, and it took up to four hours to complete a basic traceability exercise,” Rodney Smith, executive director, said. “With Aptean Food & Beverage ERP, that same exercise takes about 30 minutes. And the data can be tracked from finished lot back or raw material forward.”

By centralizing all business data, including movements along the supply chain and product details, Aptean Food & Beverage ERP has allowed Creative Foods Ingredients to break down the silos that made traceability exercises so time-consuming. The human hours saved can be reallocated to strategic activities that generate more value.

Read the full Creative Foods Ingredients case study for more.

Inventory Management

From a single location opened in 1980 on the back of founder Joe Seminara’s dream, Pizza Joe’s has become a successful franchise with nearly 40 locations across western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio. Of course, with growth comes higher volume, which made the flaws in the business’s traditional inventory management processes clear.

“Last year, I did three on-hand inventory counts with our old system and every single time, item counts were off by 50 to 70 units. Now, it’s a lot easier to see an accurate picture,” said Jerry Dugan, controller. “It’s very nice to be able to easily track and see what products are moving and what products aren’t moving.”

Thanks to that improved precision, the business can more easily get a clear view of what supplies need to be replenished and which are overstocked, which informs purchasing and helps prevent surpluses that result in spoilage. Plus, Pizza Joe’s has been able to eliminate the expense of hiring external auditors to reconcile stock levels at year-end.

Read the full Pizza Joe’s case study for more.

Production Planning

If you’ve ever noshed on nachos at the movie theater or ballpark, there’s a good chance you’ve enjoyed Gehl’s products. Headquartered in Wisconsin, the company provides foodservice outlets across the U.S. with its signature chips and cheese sauces. Such a wide distribution network and variable demand made fine-tuning production planning imperative, and food ERP technology has made that possible.

“Some of the most significant improvements to our processes are around the ways that we plan production,” Brian Jahn, IT director, said. “Without our Aptean Food & Beverage ERP, we wouldn’t be able to source the right materials at the right times to make the right products. With Aptean solutions, we’ve been able to grow the business considerably.”

Together, manufacturer and software provider have solved the challenge of serving many different customers with unique needs. Gehl’s has also integrated Aptean Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) to track production performance and drive continuous improvement, as well as Aptean Smart Hub, our integration and automation engine.

Read the full Gehl’s case study for more.

Warehousing

The warehouse of a food and beverage business can be a busy place, and with countless aisles, shelves, bins, racks and other equipment, it’s not always easy to find what you’re looking for. But in the case of Bongards, a cheese and powdered whey producer based in Minnesota with several facilities around the country, at least one location has a warehouse that operates like a machine.

“Automating warehousing at our Humble, Tennessee, plant had a huge impact,” said Bob Grinsell, business analyst. “We’ve got automated guided vehicles and robots on the floor moving pallets and barrels seven stories high, and it’s all being run through Aptean Food & Beverage ERP and Smart Hub. So that’s been amazing.”

This has decreased the need for manual labor and saved staff valuable time that they can devote to tasks that require the human touch. What’s more, by integrating Aptean Food & Beverage ERP with handheld barcode scanners, Bongards has fully digitized warehouse data collection at multiple facilities, improving efficiency and accuracy.

Read Bongards’s full case study for more.

Expiration Tracking

It’s hard enough remembering when the various perishables in your fridge are due to expire—think about that at the manufacturer scale. Until Madrona Specialty Foods implemented an industry-specific food ERP, staff had to track expiration dates manually, so momentary lapses of memory could result in spoilage. Not to mention, there was no visibility into the shelf lives of finished products, which was a requirement for many customers.

“With our previous system, we had to hand-type all of these things,” Chris Perrott, supply chain director, said. “Whenever you key something in manually after the fact, there’s always a higher risk for error. Aptean has helped us solve a number of those data issues and ultimately helped us move forward as an organization.”

Now, Madrona has a "single source of truth” for expiration dates, and the system supports a first-expiry, first-out (FEFO) picking method to minimize waste while still ensuring all orders are fulfilled with products that have sufficient remaining shelf life. Perrott is confident that the Seattle company is fully equipped for growth with an Aptean Food & Beverage ERP in place.

Read Madrona Specialty Foods’s full case study for more.

Quality Assurance

Among UK-based egg producer Noble Foods’s most important commitments to customers is that every egg sold is a good egg. Because the business sources products from several different farms, it’s vital that there’s a means of oversight into quality assurance (QA) so that good manufacturing practices (GMPs) and hygiene procedures can be enforced. A mobile-ready, food industry-specific ERP proved to be the right solution.

“The cloud-based QA application supplied by Aptean met our requirements for ease of deployment, flexibility of design and configuration,” said Avril Ritchie, auditor. “The provision of ‘connector software’ to integrate the cloud application with our Aptean Food & Beverage ERP solution provides and added value benefit.”

Better still, the QA module can be used offline, so quality audits can be completed on a phone or tablet without cellular data or internet access, then synced with the central system later once connection is established. Noble Foods is then able to provide the farm with the results so that processes can be improved and quality standards maintained.

Catch Weight Management

With products that naturally vary in size—like cuts of meat and blocks of cheese—it’s necessary to capture and display the exact weight (“catch weight”) of each product, both to meet retailer requirements and to accurately price the item. This functionality was crucial for Joseph Gallo Farms, an artisanal cheese producer in California, so the business sought an ERP built specifically for food and beverage companies that fit the need.

“With Aptean, it was clear we found an organization with expertise, both in terms of the food industry and in terms of consultancy and best practices,” Pete Lundrigan, director of IT, said. “We’re committed to staying current with the technology.”

Standard, one-size-fits-all ERPs often lack the capability to assign variable weights to products of the same kind, as discrete manufacturers make items to exacting specifications and many process manufacturers use precision filling systems. But Aptean Food & Beverage ERP provides advanced industry-specific features, like catch weight management, to tailor our system for the market and make it suit unique needs.

Read Joseph Gallo Farms’s full case study for more.

Compliance

Quality Harvest Foods provides frozen strudels in both cheese- and fruit-filled varieties to local Portland, Oregon, school districts, where the products are quite popular because they’re easy to eat, delicious and nutritious. Given that the company’s products are eaten mostly by children, compliance with regulations and food safety standards is top priority. With an industry-specific food ERP, leadership is assured excellence on that front.

“Everything we do has to be safe and compliant with both FDA rules and our customers’ requirements, and our partnership with Aptean is key to us preserving that business concept,” said Bob Weaver, VP of finance. “Our next phase is a deep dive into variances. It’s going to improve our system even more.”

At 4 million pounds of food produced per month, the company has achieved a scale of production that demands standardization and consistency—both to guarantee that the consumers get a healthy and tasty snack, and to ensure that the nutritional value of the strudels matches the schools’ requirements. Aptean Food & Beverage ERP helps Quality Harvest Foods set the bar high and keep it there.

Read Quality Harvest Foods’s full case study for more.

Reporting

In order to remain competitive, every food and beverage business must rely on real-world data to derive strategic insights. Northern Ireland’s Finnebrogue Artisan, a leading provider of meats and meat alternatives, was struggling to extract full value from its information before because records existed only in paper and isolated spreadsheets, meaning reports had to be created from scratch. The business has eliminated that problem with Aptean’s specialized food ERP software.

“We have a greater level of detail in our information, and it’s available in real time, so we can make informed decisions,” Tariq Habib, program manager, said. “Aptean’s reporting delivers a clear picture of our margins, and we also use the software to measure our weekly performance against the standards we’ve set.”

And the company doesn’t only have full access to Aptean Food & Beverage ERP’s robust analytics tools—it also deployed active dashboards to provide at-a-glance key performance indicators (KPIs) and other vital metrics. Now that Finnebrogue Artisan has the reporting capabilities it needs, the business’s leaders can identify areas to target for improvement, as well as potential revenue-boosting opportunities, to fuel further growth.

Read the full Finnebrogue Artisan case study for more.

What Could Aptean Food & Beverage ERP Do for You?

Having just read a compelling collection of real-world customer stories in which food ERP software drove process improvement, you might reflect on what such a system could do for your business. Or, you might want to go to Google or ChatGPT to ask if Aptean Food & Beverage ERP is really all it’s cracked up to be.

We’ve got some good reasons for you to believe it is. First off, it’s built on decades of collective experience in the food and beverage industry. We’ve assembled best-in-class, purpose-built technologies to create a solution that serves every sector and size of business.

Better yet, it’s cloud-native and built on the Microsoft 365 Business Central foundation, so it’s easy to use and syncs with your Office apps. And as a provider, we’ve been recognized by third-party organizations, like IDC Marketscape, which named Aptean a “Major Player” in four of its annual reports.

But we saved the best for last: Aptean Food & Beverage ERP is now on AppCentral, our all-in-one, AI-powered platform that streamlines end-to-end operations. From GenAI Query for instant answers to natural language questions to Personalized Workspaces that empower your employees to get more done by putting everything they need at their fingertips, Aptean AppCentral gives you smart functionalities and time-saving automations to make your best decisions and get more done.

Want to learn more? Take the Aptean Food & Beverage ERP product tour, schedule a personalized demo or request pricing. And feel free to contact us.