Chinook Seedery, a company dedicated to providing the best sunflower seed experience, was facing challenges in managing its food manufacturing business. The company was struggling to maintain consistent profits, increase sales, and keep customers satisfied. The founder, Mark Pettyjohn, had a deep understanding of how to create great sunflower seed snacks, but lacked the necessary knowledge to manage the business side of the operation. The company was in desperate need of real-time, accurate data to base crucial business decisions. Additionally, the company was dealing with issues related to late or incomplete orders, imprecise invoices, and penalties paid to distributors for late orders. These issues were negatively impacting Chinook’s cash flow and customer trust.

Sweet Jubilee Gourmet, a boutique chocolate product manufacturer, was facing challenges in managing its rapid expansion and meeting the requirements of new national retail customers. The company was struggling with lot traceability, a crucial factor for succeeding in Safe Quality Food (SQF) audits. Their traditional pencil-and-paper method was proving to be time-consuming, error-prone, and inadequate for the speed and accuracy required in a recall situation. Additionally, Sweet Jubilee was having difficulty tracking their existing inventory levels and planning for their production runs. With hundreds of products and ingredients, they were experiencing stock outs, where a key ingredient or packaging component was unavailable on the production day. This was hindering their ability to plan for large order runs for larger customers and ensure timely and consistent delivery.

City View Green, a company specializing in the production of edibles, faced a significant challenge in complying with federal controlled substances regulations and supporting their food production. The company needed a software solution that would not only help them meet these stringent regulations but also expedite their time to market. The company was also under pressure to obtain a cannabis license to start production, a process that could be delayed by costly application errors. Furthermore, the company needed to ensure product consistency, a critical factor in an industry where customers and consumers demand uniformity in the effects of the products. The challenge was further compounded by the high costs associated with custom software solutions, which also required a full-time, long-term IT team for maintenance and updates.

Custard Stand Food Products, a West Virginia-based company known for its Hot Dog Chili and Chili Soup, experienced a significant increase in sales following an appearance on ABC’s reality show “SHARK TANK.” This surge in demand from large retailers such as Wal-Mart, Kroger, and Sam’s Club, smaller chains, and independently owned stores strained the company's existing Excel/paper system for tracking inventory and production. The company was spending a significant amount of time and resources preparing for food safety audits and mock recalls. Additionally, the paper-based system made mock recalls a tedious process, involving the retrieval and cross-referencing of multiple receiving, production, and shipping records. The company also feared the loss or damage of paper records.

Fancy Farm Popcorn, a family-owned business in Bernie, Missouri, was looking to scale up and expand their market by offering private label packages for larger customers. However, they realized that to be competitive, they needed to become a food-safe certified facility and implement formal and auditable lot traceability. Initially, this was managed manually with handwritten logs documenting production events and related lot numbers as they moved through the plant. The process started when the truck came off the field and rolled across the scale, with many truckloads combined into bins for storage and aging. Tests were performed routinely, and lot numbers for both ingredients and finished cases were required and tracked. However, as customer opportunities and production volume increased, manual lot tracking became burdensome. They needed a better system to ensure success.

Fulcher’s Seafood, a North Carolina-based seafood company, was facing a significant challenge in scaling up their operations. The company experienced a sudden surge in demand for its prepared foods due to the pandemic, doubling their sales in just three months. However, hiring and training new employees to meet this demand was not feasible due to budget and time constraints. The company was also grappling with stringent food safety certification requirements, which were prerequisites for 80% of their customers. Furthermore, the company was struggling with poor inventory control, which was causing late deliveries, stock-outs, and short orders. The manual system of using pens and spreadsheets was proving to be inefficient and error-prone, leading to a domino effect of issues downstream.

Moo Thru, a hand-crafted ice cream manufacturer, was faced with the challenge of becoming compliant with the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in 2018. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration required Moo Thru to replace their traditional pen and paper records with a more sophisticated system that could provide instant access to detailed, real-time production and shipment data. The FSMA covers everything from preventive controls and standards to the traceability required for FDA-mandated and voluntary recalls. Moo Thru needed a solution that could provide accurate information for effective recalls and prevent potential disasters like the 2015 listeria outbreak at Blue Bell Creameries. As Moo Thru expanded its operations, the need for accurate and real-time data tracking became even more critical.

Surfacelogix, a Florida-based manufacturer of paver sealers, stains, and specialty coatings, was grappling with an outdated system that was no longer supported by its developer. The company, which has been in operation for over 60 years, was in dire need of a software upgrade to improve its operational efficiency. The old system was hindering the company's materials requirements planning, costing, traceability, and quality support. Determining which materials needed to be reordered was a full-time job, and the company was struggling with maintaining hundreds of formulations in the face of fluctuating raw materials costs. Additionally, the company needed a system that could track sampling and testing information for batches and traceability information from receiving through production and POS/shipping. The company also wanted to improve its integration with Windows and get better support for its day-to-day operations.

Titan Coatings International was grappling with the challenge of an aging software system that was no longer supported and was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. The legacy software, purchased in the 1980s, was not only outdated but also lacked the necessary features to meet the company's growing needs. The company's quality manager, Stephanie Kelly, was spending two hours a day on data entry and backup, which was inefficient and time-consuming. The lack of a robust, reliable, and fully supported software solution was hindering the company's ability to control costs and maximize profitability. Furthermore, the company was struggling with inventory management, material requirements planning, and the generation of key reports to analyze the financial health of the company.