When you manage the inventory of a business like yours, which sells food to consumers, you are constantly juggling several challenges.

The biggest of these is ensuring the freshness of your products meets your customers’ expectations.

In an environment where perishable goods are critical to operations, enterprise resource planning software can help make sure that your facility never runs out of supplies.

Here, we will examine three reasons inventory management is crucial to fresh produce companies and explain three tools of an advanced ERP system built on industry best practices that can improve your approach.  

Inventory management is crucial for fresh produce businesses to ensure they have enough food items in stock to meet customer demand.  Acumatica Cloud ERP will help you to manage the inventory of fresh food.

1. Traceability and Food Safety  

Inventory management is about tracking the entire history of each item in your stock. In practice, inventory management can affect several other aspects of your organization. 

To provide total traceability, food and beverage businesses must have bi-directional visibility between every point in their supply chains. This means that materials entering and leaving a facility can be tracked as they are transformed into inventory, processed, and packaged for shipment. 

A fresh-specific ERP solution is a valuable tool for managing the data associated with fresh produce. It allows you to automate the process of collecting and logging information so that you can keep records complete. For example, if you are tracking the origin of produce, it is essential to be able to enter the country of origin and variety.  

2. Minimizing Waste and Becoming More Sustainable  

Time-sensitive goods must be moved quickly to market because they have a short shelf life. If you don’t carry them, you risk wasting not only the items but also the money, time & energy you invested in purchasing them from suppliers and storing them on-site.

Inventory management capabilities can be found in ERP software for the fresh produce industry. These capabilities help retailers with first-in, first-out (FIFO) picking methods, which prioritise inventory so that it does not spoil and cannot be sold before it breaks.

By minimizing losses from expired produce, you can improve your profit margins and brand reputation for sustainability.  

3. Customer Satisfaction  

According to the Food Marketing Institute, consumers still prioritise fresh fruits and vegetables when choosing a grocery store. 

In the current market conditions, you can capitalize on your sales and increase your market share by opting for a purpose-built enterprise resource planning system.

By making your sales figures highly visible through real-time data analysis and reporting, the system helps you avoid stockouts at inopportune times. The system also syncs up with your sales outlets, so replenishment orders are always received and processed promptly.  

Because consumers want to know they’re getting fresh and delicious food, it’s essential to have a robust, dependable technological foundation to ensure you can deliver what you promise.  

What tools do ERP platforms offer for inventory management?  

Acumatica cloud ERP for Food & Beverage contains purpose-built functionality that simplifies inventory management and streamlines processes. The Fresh Produce Inventory Management module is one of the three essential tools to consistently have the fresh produce products you need when you need them. 

Advanced Demand Forecasting  

A fresh food supply chain management solution can help you estimate demand for certain products, so you can ensure that your suppliers provide the correct amount of goods to your outlets.

When you know how much of a particular crop will be necessary, you won’t have to frantically search for suppliers or sell excess goods that go to waste.

A sound inventory management system can help you achieve this balance. 

Automatic Replenishment  

To avoid potentially costly shortages, a fresh produce business like yours should have a backup plan to ensure adequate stock levels. With an inventory management solution built around ERP software, you can set the level at which automatic reordering is triggered, ensuring that your shelves remain stocked at all times.  

You can issue purchase orders in the system, which will record all needed information and ensure they’re processed correctly. When your supply levels drop, you’ll receive alerts and be able to reorder quickly.  

Integrations with Connected Devices  

Streamlining data collection and maintenance and automating the process to reduce the likelihood of human error is essential for effective fresh food inventory management. By connecting with the devices that are analyzing the characteristics and reading the labels of goods, fresh produce ERP systems take this matter off your employees’ plates.  

You can integrate ERP platforms with intelligent sensors, scales, and scanners to automatically upload temperature, ripeness, and other data into your database in real time.

To achieve excellence in inventory management, companies must have a comprehensive system that can track, store and access the information needed to run their businesses.

Enterprise resource planning software helps companies manage their inventories. ERP can be customized to fit different needs, but cross-functional systems provide the best department visibility.

When you integrate your departments and connect them, you can plan well for the future, knowing that your business will always have sufficient stock to meet market demand but won’t be held back by waste that hurts your bottom line.  

AT Tayana, We’ve provided industry-specific solutions for our customers for decades. We have unique expertise in delivering excellent fresh produce, which led us to develop tools that improve processes and profitability.