Foodlogik helps Stuart’s ride the pandemic rollercoaster
Executive summary
Stuart’s have been delivering fine food from Fife for over 160 years. A sixth-generation family bakers and butchers with shops and outlets serving Fife and the surrounding areas.
Stuart’s started out as a bakery and began sourcing meat in the 1960’s to guarantee the quality of filling in their speciality pies, so consequently became Stuart’s The Bakers and Butchers.
Today, as well as 9 bakery shops, most with cafes, Stuart’s have an additional three award winning combined baker/butcher/café shops. Retailing cakes and bakery products in its own stores, increased demand has also meant Stuart’s have developed offerings into several convenience store groups across Scotland.
Faced with managing a successful and expanding business with an outdated unsupported and ‘clunky’ business management solution (Netbake), Stuart’s management team knew they needed to take the company on a transformational ‘business digitisation’ journey.
Keyfacts
12
Award winning shops
20
Users
>7.5%
in staff efficiencies
Challenges
The company’s old bakery software was not financially viable and unable to meet the present or future needs of the business, so the management team decided to begin their search to evaluate other Bakery specific solutions available. Following their discovery journey Stuart’s concluded that the combination of rich industry specific functionality at a fair price delivered with Foodlogik was the more appealing solution for their business.
The Affinitus digital innovation
The 20-user Foodlogik solution implemented for Stuart’s included: production management, recipe management, sales order processing, Full EDI integration, delivery notes, technical specifications, and an interface with Xero accounting. In addition, Foodlogik also deployed an integrated android app for managing sales and returns for wholesale customers and a web portal for shop orders.
As part of the business needs and process analysis phase of the implementation project, it was also recommended that Stuart’s change the product coding structure to allow the Foodlogik solution to accommodate future product range expansion.
Results, ROI & Future Plans
Since implementing the Foodlogik solution Stuart’s production processes are much more efficient. Accurate forecasting of demand means that they are producing correct quantities of product, at the right time, reducing instances of short orders or over production as well as removing unnecessary waste whilst improving customer satisfaction.
The largest, most noticeable, saving in time and costs has come from the android app deployed to manage sales and returns for Stuart’s wholesale customers.
By using the android app we have a much more efficient and accurate sales and returns process. We were able to reduce the admin headcount required to process these transactions by approximately 1.5 people, meaning that resource could be focused elsewhere.
Having a slick, labour efficient operation has proved invaluable during the Covid-19 pandemic. Bakery and Butchery shop counters were classed as essential trading and remained open to supply the good people of Fife and throughout Scotland who continued to support local trades to purchase their supplies. Throughout the pandemic trading has been buoyant and demand has increased. Stuart’s needed to continue to operate at full capacity, sometimes with reduced staffing and additional health and safety restrictions.
Having labour saving and efficient technologies to hand such as Foodlogik with the android apps and the web ordering portals in our shops, really enabled our business to continue operating efficiently, even with reduced labour, in very challenging times.
Looking to the future Stuart’s have plans to continue to expand and evolve their Foodlogik solution into the remaining parts of the business, such as despatch and logistics, allergen management and “digitising” the stores & inventory.
These are all existing standard features within Foodlogik and we are always pleased with the way the software fits as we continue to expand its use.
