How a Midwest prepared-food manufacturer took control of their inventory with Harvest Food Solutions
A fast-growing bakery and prepared-foods brand cut ingredient waste 25%, eliminated backorders, and moved to 100% digital traceability — on Harvest ERP, powered by Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.
A fast-growing Midwest bakery and prepared-foods manufacturer, known for small-batch prepared meals made with premium ingredients. As the company expanded its retail and wholesale operations, balancing ingredient purchasing, production planning, inventory levels, and compliance became increasingly challenging.
Like many food and beverage manufacturers and distributors, the company faced three critical inventory management issues that were impacting profitability and customer satisfaction:
Manual planning processes made it difficult to align purchasing with actual production needs, leading to excess ingredients and wasted finished goods.
Without real-time visibility into production and inventory, high-demand varieties would sell out faster than the team could replenish them.
As the company scaled, their need for robust lot tracking and regulatory readiness grew. Manual recordkeeping created risk and slowed response during audits or recalls.
“We knew we needed better visibility and control. Our old systems couldn’t keep up with our growth.”
— Operations Director
A system built for food and beverage, not retrofitted to it
The company partnered with Harvest Food Solutions to implement Harvest ERP, powered by Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, which is tailored specifically for the food and beverage manufacturing industry. Harvest’s team of food-industry experts worked with them to implement a system that addressed their key challenges:
Streamlined forecasting and scheduling now ensure purchasing aligns with production needs, reducing both shortages and overages.
Every ingredient and finished product is traceable from supplier to customer. The system automates lot assignments, expiration management, and audit trails for effortless compliance. Getting us ready for FSMA 204 was a primary objective that we accomplished.
Out-of-the-box Microsoft Power BI dashboards give the team instant visibility into production efficiency, inventory trends, and ingredient usage — data-driven decisions in real time.
From raw ingredients to finished goods, the team can view inventory across all locations and plan proactively to meet customer demand.
“Harvest understood our challenges immediately. Their team spoke our language and delivered a solution made for food.”
— CEO
“We picked Harvest because they understood our business in the first call. We didn’t have to explain why a one-day shelf-life mistake mattered.”
Harvest Food Solutions combines deep food and beverage manufacturing expertise with the flexibility of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and Power BI analytics. The result is a system that helps food and beverage manufacturers like this one plan smarter, stay compliant, and deliver consistently fresh, high-quality products to happy customers.
