Smoothie company gets serious about forecasting with solution from Ross Systems

Sunjuice, a division of The Serious Food Company which manufactures fresh juices and smoothies has today signed a deal for an integrated supply chain management solution from Ross Systems. Ross Systems, a leading provider of enterprise software solutions for food and beverage manufacturers will provide its iRenaissance SCM solution to support Sunjuices planning and forecasting in line with major business growth. The solution will go live at the end of November following an eight week implementation, with the APS module following in January 2006.

Escalating consumer demand for healthy, fresh, nutritious products has resulted in major business growth for The Serious Food Company in recent years and has led to expansion into chilled soups, desserts and premium food distribution. With considerable growth year on year, The Serious Food Company needed to implement a supply chain management solution which would enhance its forecasting and planning capabilities, increase visibility and better integrate sales with production to improve customer service levels.

Sunjuices previous system had relied on spreadsheets. It provided no real visibility and lacked the sophistication required to take the business forward in increasingly competitive marketplace. Planning was more reactive than proactive and as a result, service levels were lagging behind where they should be.

Having made the decision to implement a new system in May of this year, Sunjuice set about a review of the marketplace and selected Ross from a final shortlist of two players.

Mark Way, planning manager at The Serious Food Company, comments:

Having whittled our selection process down to two, Ross stood a head and shoulders above the competition. We were impressed with Ross industry experience and expertise as well as in the functionality of the iRenaissance product itself. Ross demonstrated an excellent understanding of our business, the challenges we face and had a highly professional, honest approach. Its early days in our relationship but we hope to work with the team at Ross to extrapolate more functionality from the solution over the next six months and potentially support other areas of the business going forward.