{"id":19910,"date":"2020-06-12T13:01:38","date_gmt":"2020-06-12T17:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blueridgeglobal.com\/?p=19910"},"modified":"2025-09-15T18:51:41","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T22:51:41","slug":"perishable-order-management-stabilizing-yo-yo-demand-in-food-and-grocery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blueridgeglobal.com\/blog\/perishable-order-management-stabilizing-yo-yo-demand-in-food-and-grocery\/","title":{"rendered":"Perishable Order Management: Stabilizing \u2018Yo-Yo\u2019 Demand in Food and Grocery"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row type=&#8221;in_container&#8221; full_screen_row_position=&#8221;middle&#8221; column_margin=&#8221;default&#8221; column_direction=&#8221;default&#8221; column_direction_tablet=&#8221;default&#8221; column_direction_phone=&#8221;default&#8221; scene_position=&#8221;center&#8221; text_color=&#8221;dark&#8221; text_align=&#8221;left&#8221; row_border_radius=&#8221;none&#8221; row_border_radius_applies=&#8221;bg&#8221; overflow=&#8221;visible&#8221; overlay_strength=&#8221;0.3&#8243; gradient_direction=&#8221;left_to_right&#8221; shape_divider_position=&#8221;bottom&#8221; bg_image_animation=&#8221;none&#8221;][vc_column column_padding=&#8221;no-extra-padding&#8221; column_padding_tablet=&#8221;inherit&#8221; column_padding_phone=&#8221;inherit&#8221; column_padding_position=&#8221;all&#8221; column_element_direction_desktop=&#8221;default&#8221; column_element_spacing=&#8221;default&#8221; desktop_text_alignment=&#8221;default&#8221; tablet_text_alignment=&#8221;default&#8221; phone_text_alignment=&#8221;default&#8221; background_color_opacity=&#8221;1&#8243; background_hover_color_opacity=&#8221;1&#8243; column_backdrop_filter=&#8221;none&#8221; column_shadow=&#8221;none&#8221; column_border_radius=&#8221;none&#8221; column_link_target=&#8221;_self&#8221; column_position=&#8221;default&#8221; gradient_direction=&#8221;left_to_right&#8221; overlay_strength=&#8221;0.3&#8243; width=&#8221;1\/1&#8243; tablet_width_inherit=&#8221;default&#8221; animation_type=&#8221;default&#8221; bg_image_animation=&#8221;none&#8221; border_type=&#8221;simple&#8221; column_border_width=&#8221;none&#8221; column_border_style=&#8221;solid&#8221;][vc_column_text]<a href=\"https:\/\/blueridgeglobal.com\/foodservice-fresh-product-forecasting-perishable-order-management\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-19915 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/blueridgeglobal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/banana-rotten.png\" alt=\"fresh-product-forecasting-perishable-order-management\" width=\"450\" height=\"301\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Demand for food and grocery is all over the place. The food industry <em>always<\/em> had seasonal forecasting challenges, even before the Coronavirus struck. Now it\u2019s pure mayhem. Particularly if you supply fresh products and perishable goods.<\/p>\n<p>Check out these unsavory <a href=\"https:\/\/www.perishablenews.com\/produce\/costco-introduces-apeel-avocados-to-improve-quality-prevent-food-waste\/\">stats on food waste<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The global cost of food waste is now <strong>$2.6 trillion per year! <\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The U.S. retail food sector generates <strong>8 million tons<\/strong> of waste annually in distribution centers and stores, or <strong>$18 billion a year<\/strong> in lost value for retailers because of spoilage<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Foodservice: It\u2019s Boom or Bust<\/h3>\n<p>Depending on whether you dabble in grocery retail or the restaurant space, foodservice demand is boom or bust \u2013 with NO in between.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe because of Shelter-in-Place, you have an un-fulfillable poultry order from Kroger (demand high). Or on the flip side, rotting avocados in your DC because last year\u2019s history told you 18,000 units would sell to a restaurant in Q1 of 2020\u2026<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s all the same flavor of problem: \u00a0late, inaccurate information.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Is there really a way to forecast for this? Or is spoilage just a casualty of perishable products you\u2019re willing to live with?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Foodservice wholesale distribution businesses can easily stabilize yo-yo demand for restaurant and grocery retail customers with machine learning-driven <a href=\"https:\/\/blueridgeglobal.com\/foodservice-fresh-product-forecasting-perishable-order-management\/\">perishable order management<\/a> solutions.<\/p>\n<h3>Fresh Product Forecasting is Complicated<\/h3>\n<p>It blows my mind how many companies still use outdated forecasting methods such as spreadsheets and even stock boy-adjusted \u2018best guesses\u2019. These strategies can\u2019t keep pace with the unique volatilities around fresh food and other short-shelf life products.<\/p>\n<p>Of the biggest offenders:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Strict traceability requirements<\/li>\n<li>Erratic consumer buying habits<\/li>\n<li>Long or variable supplier lead times<\/li>\n<li>Seasonality, holidays and weather events<\/li>\n<li>Promotions and new items<\/li>\n<li>Broader assortments including \u201cultra-fresh\u201d items with no more than 1-2 days shelf life<\/li>\n<li>Regional demand variances<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Machine Learning in Fresh Food Replenishment<\/h3>\n<p>The key word here is <em>fresh.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Fresh products account for up to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mckinsey.com\/industries\/retail\/our-insights\/the-secret-to-smarter-fresh-food-replenishment-machine-learning\" class=\"broken_link\">40%<\/a> of grocers\u2019 revenue and one-third of cost of goods sold. So YEAH\u2026 getting it right matters.<\/p>\n<p>Companies are having great success with perishable order management solutions. Driven by machine learning, these solutions help foodservice companies calculate the difficult trade-offs when placing fresh food replenishment orders: \u00a0buy too much and suffer loss from spoilage, or buy too little and suffer lost sales and lost customers.<\/p>\n<p>Perishable order management solutions eliminate costly risk by collecting, analyzing and adjusting large data sets from a wide range of sources, without throwing additional headcount at the problem. These systems look at not just historical data, but real-time parameters \u2013 with the ability to adjust on the fly and get smarter with every calculation.<\/p>\n<p>Machine learning tells the replenishment system the optimal forecasting recommendations across a very granular (SKU) level, for every channel and every location.<\/p>\n<h3>Results Are Dramatic<\/h3>\n<p>According to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mckinsey.com\/industries\/retail\/our-insights\/the-secret-to-smarter-fresh-food-replenishment-machine-learning\" class=\"broken_link\">report<\/a> by McKinsey &amp; Company,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cCompanies that use machine learning technology for replenishment have seen reductions of up to 80% in out-of-stock rates, declines of more than 10% in write-offs and days of inventory on hand, and gross-margin increases of up to 9%.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Learn more about <a href=\"https:\/\/blueridgeglobal.com\/foodservice-fresh-product-forecasting-perishable-order-management\/\">Fresh Product Forecasting and Perishable Order Management<\/a><\/strong> to stabilize yo-yo demand in food and grocery.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Perishable order management solutions fueled by machine learning replenishment are highly effective in stabilizing food and grocery demand forecasting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":28278,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[82,61,51],"scp_topic":[185],"sector":[180],"technology":[177],"class_list":{"0":"post-19910","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blog","8":"tag-data-science","9":"tag-sustainability","10":"tag-wholesale-distribution","11":"industry-food","12":"scp_topic-generic","13":"sector-generic","14":"technology-generic"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueridgeglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueridgeglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueridgeglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueridgeglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueridgeglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19910"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blueridgeglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33806,"href":"https:\/\/blueridgeglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19910\/revisions\/33806"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueridgeglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueridgeglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueridgeglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueridgeglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19910"},{"taxonomy":"scp_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueridgeglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/scp_topic?post=19910"},{"taxonomy":"sector","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueridgeglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sector?post=19910"},{"taxonomy":"technology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueridgeglobal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/technology?post=19910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}