Case studies / Packaged Food and Beverage
Case studyLot traceability for a snack and beverage producer
After a slow, costly recall, a snack and beverage producer built lot traceability across four plants and its distributors, and found that some of its promotions were losing money.
Overview
A family-owned producer of packaged snacks and juice drinks in Mexico with four plants, selling through about 200 independent distributors, supermarket chains and convenience stores.
Scale. Some 600 products, more than 9,000 production lots a year and hundreds of trade promotions and distributor schemes running at any time, delivered as a phased, multi-location programme.
The challenge
A recall was slow and costly. When a supplier warned that one batch of seasoning might contain an undeclared allergen, the company could not say quickly which finished lots had used it or where they had gone. It took four days to piece together production sheets, warehouse records and distributor invoices, and in the meantime it withdrew far more product than was strictly necessary to be safe.
Each plant recorded ingredients and lots differently, and once goods left for a distributor, visibility ended. Expired products came back in large and unpredictable volumes, credited to distributors with little checking.
Trade schemes were another leak. Sales teams ran hundreds of discounts, rebates and display payments, each agreed differently by region. Distributors claimed for them on paper or by email, and finance had no reliable way to check claims against what had actually been sold. Nobody could say whether a given promotion had paid for itself.
The solution
Every ingredient lot is scanned into production, and every finished lot and pallet carries a code linked to what went into it. Shipments to distributors and retailers record the lots they contain. A traceability report, from supplier lot to customer delivery, is now produced on demand.
Expiry and returns follow one process. Distributors see the expiry profile of their stock and are prompted to sell older lots first. Returns are booked against lots and checked against what was shipped before credit is given.
Trade schemes are set up once with clear conditions and budgets. Distributor claims arrive electronically and are checked against shipments and reported sales, so valid claims are paid faster and invalid ones are queried with evidence. Shared master data for products, lots, customers and schemes underpins all four plants, and group reporting shows promotion profitability alongside volumes.
The engagement
- Nine months
- Seven specialists, with quality, production, sales and finance leads
- Process mapping, lot traceability from ingredient to customer, expiry and returns, trade scheme control, distributor claims, shared master data, pilot and phased rollout.
Integrations
- Laboratory and quality systems
- Retail and distributor ordering feeds
- Warehouse and cold-chain systems
- Group reporting
How we delivered it
- 01
Map the work and agree measures
Six weeks
We followed ingredients into each plant, finished goods out to distributors and claims back to finance, with operators, quality staff, sales managers and accountants. The leadership team agreed four measures at the start: trace time, returns, claim settlement time and promotion profitability.
- 02
Design common processes and integrations
Twelve weeks
Quality and production designed one way to record ingredient lots, production lots and pallets in every plant. Distributors were connected through ordering feeds so shipments could be traced to them by lot. Trade schemes moved into one controlled catalogue with clear rules, and claims were checked against sell-in and sell-out data.
- 03
Pilot in one plant
Eight weeks
The juice plant and ten distributors piloted the processes. A mock recall during the pilot exposed a gap where rework was recorded without its original lot; it was closed before rollout.
- 04
Roll out in waves and track results
Twelve weeks
The snack plants and remaining distributors joined in two waves. Leadership reviewed the four measures monthly.
Results
- Traceability reports produced on demand
- Fewer expired returns and faster claim settlement
- Loss-making promotions found and redesigned
- Teams worked from the same data across locations
Traceability reports are produced on demand. A later supplier alert was resolved in a morning, with a targeted withdrawal of three lots rather than a broad recall, and the quality team now runs mock recalls each quarter.
Expired-product returns fell as distributors rotated stock better and returns were checked. Distributor claims settle in about three weeks instead of two months, which has improved relationships with the larger distributors.
With claims and sales linked, the commercial team could see which promotions earned their cost. Fourteen were found to lose money once claims and returns were counted, and were redesigned or dropped. Because the measures had been agreed at the outset, the monthly review shows plainly what has improved.
We started this because of a recall. What surprised us was finding out which of our promotions were quietly costing us money.
What made the difference
The producer found promotions that lost money and redesigned them. Agreeing measures at the start made success easy to recognise.
