Aptean Food & Beverage eBook: Unlocking Savings and Driving Profitability (UK)

Aptean Food & Beverage

Software Solutions

Unlocking Savings and Driving Profitability

How our solutions help customers overcome the rising cost of doing business

Table of Contents

› SunWest Foods

› Enrico Food

› SanoRice

› GA Foods

› Hela Thissen

› Go Beyond ERP

Aptean Food & Beverage ERP

The rising costs of doing business loom large in the minds of food and beverage business leaders. IDC’s Global Food and Beverage Industry Trends and Strategic Insights 2022 whitepaper, commissioned by Aptean, indicated that higher operating costs and the need to raise prices as a result is the trend predicted to have the largest impact on the market in the next 5 years.

But recognising the challenge at hand does not necessarily mean that food and beverage companies will succumb to them and suffer as a result. More and more, decision-makers are choosing to future-proof their organisations and increase both resilience and flexibility through the implementation of purpose-built, industry-specific enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.

That’s because advanced solutions of this kind—like Aptean Food & Beverage ERP—offer the tools that modern businesses need to unlock cost savings and drive profitability, even in the face of uncertain economic conditions. We’ve rounded up 5 compelling stories of our customers succeeding on this front thanks to our system’s tailored features and functionality.

Read on to learn how each of these businesses is leveraging our award-winning technology to spend less, earn more and optimise operations overall. We’ll also cover how other offerings in Aptean’s solutions ecosystem can enhance your efforts on these fronts further.

SunWest Foods

Industry: Grains

Since it was founded in 1986, SunWest Foods has established itself as California’s second-largest rice and wild rice producer, employing 100 people across three processing and warehouse facilities and one marketing office. The company purchases from approximately 350 individual farms and then packages, distributes and sells both domestically and internationally.

Over time, though, the organisation began to struggle with the challenges presented by a disjointed set of solutions and repetitive, error-prone manual data entry. The internal leadership team identified the need for a centralised system that could provide a high level of visibility for important data, which would in turn help to optimise plant operations and empower employees.

With Aptean Food & Beverage ERP, SunWest has been able to streamline what were once time-consuming and tedious processes, boosting agility and facilitating new business to diversify revenue streams and promote profitability. Pricing is more accurate, staff are more efficient and supply and demand are precisely tuned to ensure timely order fulfillment with minimal waste.

““Working from timely information we can trust has absolutely brought in new money. My commodity buysell decisions are smarter now. In our business, real-time information is everything.”

- Jim Errecarte, President and CEO, SunWest Foods

Enrico Food

Industry: Food Manufacturing

As a producer of a wide range of distinctive products across a variety of categories, Enrico Food manufactures products under several well-known brand names and has grown to become an international organisation in more than three decades of existence. Headquartered in the Dutch city of Weesp, the company’s items are known for their great taste and unique flavours.

The business’s previous technology setup was limited, though, not offering the visibility into processes and critical information that such a large and fast-moving enterprise would need. Aptean Food & Beverage ERP was the solution ideally suited to help keep costs low while also enabling further expansion and greater flexibility.

Following implementation, Enrico Food has been able to increase its turnover from around €23 million to €50 million in a five-year span. Efficiency and consistency of quality and processes are also up, in no small part due to the industryspecific features that our software offers to modern food and beverage organisations.

“We are increasingly moving toward being a data-driven organisation. Data helps to keep costs low and to keep the business running effectively at a fast pace.”

- Robin Heetkamp, Managing Director, Enrico Food

SanoRice

Industry: Grains

Founded more than 30 years ago in Veenendaal, The Netherlands, SanoRice is a leading manufacturer of rice cakes, corn cakes and other cakes made from puffed grains, manufacturing some 15 million a day between three different locations. The business’s products are well-known across Europe, being sold both under private label to supermarkets or produced for other major brands.

But before the organisation implemented Aptean Food & Beverage ERP, SanoRice lacked a unified ERP system across three separate locations. This led to difficulty in identifying the supply chain inefficiencies that were holding them back, and the challenge of accurately tracking inventory was a drain on finances.

Today, the company has a “single source of truth” and a standardised platform for maintaining stock counts and optimising levels in accordance with the organisational strategy. With our purpose-built software, SanoRice has unlocked cost savings, improved efficiency and boosted organisation-wide accessibility.

“Over the past year, our inventory variances have dropped dramatically, from substantial euro amounts to an insignificant figure. It’s a huge difference.”

- Marco Netten, IT Manager, SanoRice

GA Foods

Industry: Prepared Foods & Distribution

From a single manufacturing facility in Florida more than four decades ago to now serving nutritious meals to those in need in 40 U.S. states, GA Foods has come a long way and made a huge difference in advancing its mission of providing food security for infants, children, military personnel, senior citizens and those affected by natural disasters.

To fuel further success, the business’s leadership team decided that an advanced and highly accessible solution was the key. With Aptean Food & Beverage ERP implemented, GA Foods has been able to do away with the complicated setup of disparate systems and generic software that might have otherwise inhibited operations going forward.

Since the go-live date with our ERP, the company has seen 90% growth in revenue and made significant strides forward in efficiency and productivity. Greater accuracy and visibility of data also enables faster, more informed decision-making, which means more vulnerable individuals are safe from hunger and able to thrive—not to mention, GA Foods can be more resilient in the face of economic uncertainty.

“Over the last three and a half years, we couldn’t have grown as a company. We couldn’t have taken on initiatives. We could not have moved into this next phase that we’ve been planning for strategically without having a system like Aptean Food & Beverage ERP.”

- Beth Ann Valavanis, CFO, GA Foods

Hela Thissen Industry: Sauces

Hela Thissen is best known for its popular ketchup sold in an iconic red bottle, but the Dutch sauce and dressing manufacturer has a product portfolio that also includes mayonnaises, mustards and vinaigrettes. Today, the business continues to grow in both the retail and foodservice markets.

Unfortunately, an outdated system began to limit the organisation’s ability to meet demand, especially without integrated Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) functionality to suit larger clients’ needs. The leaders of Hela Thissen began a search for a software package to break down these and other barriers to progress, and they decided on Aptean Food & Beverage ERP.

Our software has already helped the company increase productivity and efficiency while also providing greater insight and transparency across various operational areas. That’s helped to inform a purchasing strategy that makes costs more manageable, which leads to the maximising of margins.

“We try to absorb the impact of slim profit margins with quantity and review of our internal processes to realise optimal cost efficiency. Aptean Food & Beverage ERP supports us by providing insight and transparency, enabling us to carry out our daily activities efficiently.”

- Jean-Pierre Verhasselt, Administrative Assistant, Hela Thissen

Better Manufacturing Performance with Aptean Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)

Aptean OEE has streamlined Monogram Foods’ operations and boosted equipment effectiveness by 10 points.

Going Beyond ERP

Aptean’s full solutions ecosystem extends beyond ERP to other systems that help drive datadriven decision-making, efficiency, continuity, innovation and profitability.

Improved Continuity and Lower Cost of Ownership with Aptean Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)

CoreFX Ingredients implemented Aptean EAM for better visibility into maintenance needs, lower cost of asset ownership and better operational continuity.

Streamlined New Product Development with Aptean Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)

Lascom Edition

With Aptean PLM Lascom Edition, Monin has been able to drive new product development (NPD) with an intuitive and powerful platform.

Unlocking Savings and Driving Profitability

“Aptean OEE has exceeded our expectations in that the visibility in the system is fantastic. This system has provided a great return on investment through improved materials variances and improved uptime.”

- Rob Hodgetts, Director of Operational Technology, Monogram Foods

“We really want to have all our parts in there, like a virtual warehouse, because we’ll be able to manage our finances much better that way. We’ll be able to issue costs correctly to each asset that we have on the list, and it will also help with cash flow overall because we’ll only have to charge out when we use those parts.”

- Frank Furgal, Director of Operations,

CoreFX Ingredients

“Searching for information is much faster with Aptean PLM Lascom Edition, boosting our productivity. Everybody has access to the same information at the same time. We save a lot of time!”

- Nathalie, R&D Project Manager, Monin

With decades of collective experience in the food and beverage industry, Aptean’s dedicated team members have the in-depth knowledge of the market and modern best practices to help your business engage in a holistic digital transformation that will drive growth, even in an era of economic uncertainty.

We also come backed by a top-tier placement in The Software Report’s Power 500 Software Companies list, earning the 30th overall spot to rank among the top 10% of included businesses. That demonstrates our commitment to product excellence, innovation and usability.

Are You Ready to Learn More?

So, if you’re ready to learn more about Aptean’s complete suite of advanced solutions for food and beverage businesses, contact us today. You can also request a personalised demo.

Aptean is one of the world’s leading providers of purpose-built, industry-specific software that helps manufacturers and distributors effectively run and grow their businesses. With both cloud and on-premise deployment options, Aptean’s products, services and unmatched expertise help businesses of all sizes to be Ready for What’s Next, Now®. Aptean is headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia and has offices in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

To learn more about Aptean and the markets we serve, visit www.aptean.com.