CASE STUDY – S&A Foods

OVERVIEW

S&A Foods, a $250M prepared meals manufacturer supplying major UK grocers, had grown fast — but outpaced its own capability. A newly recommissioned factory was launched to serve Sainsbury’s but suffered from erratic demand planning, overwhelmed staff, and a broken forecasting model. Management doubled down on a flawed “make-for-stock” strategy. It failed within two weeks.

Trigger for Intervention: A $2M expiry write-off — after just two weeks of producing to minimum stock availability forecast — exposed system-wide failure across planning, execution, and quality control.

THE CHALLENGE

Short-shelf-life complexity collided with guesswork, system gaps, and overloaded facilities.

• Forecasting chaos — 70% order-line variance; batch sizes swung from 1 to 200 units per SKU.
• No inventory visibility — Factory, warehouse, and freezer movement wasn’t tracked or trusted.
• Disconnected buying — Materials were procured offline with no BPCS support, expiry tracking, or yield logic.
• Failed stock strategy — One rejected grocery load revealed widespread overproduction. Expiry losses mounted fast.
• Factory dysfunction — 45 SKUs ran through untrained staff in a layout with no structure — just daily chaos.

THE APPROACH

Gary was brought in as an expert Supply Chain Management Consultant to stem the waste spiral, uncover the breakdown, and lead a transition to improved fulfillment and reduced waste.

• Co-planning reset — Engaged ASDA in collaborative forecasting to clarify low-end demand baselines.
• Offsite control — Rebuilt replenishment logic with the 3PL freezer, using FIFO and expiry-driven rotation. Increased out of date visibility by daily and on demand reporting
• Inbound flow reform — Redesigned VNA layout and introduced inbound slotting to improve material flow.
• Shift overhaul — Shifted warehouse operations from reactive 24/7 to structured 16/7, supporting line-side staging.
• System uplift — Defined functional specs for BPCS upgrades — expiry tracking, planned purchasing, and auto-replen.

THE SOLUTION

Advisory input combined with tactical reset gave leadership control over every part of the supply chain.

• Postponement pivot — Replaced stock-building across all SKUs to agile production aligned to late-stage order receiving.
• Expiry visibility — Enabled expiry-led inventory movement and freezer feedback loops.
• Shift dashboards — Created daily production trackers to support shift performance reviews and short-interval control.
• Process clarity — Authored SOPs and trained leads on kitting, receiving, and replenishment sequencing.
• Packing redesign — Identified $200K in savings by removing 5 of 10 FTEs through task rationalisation.