Chefs’ Warehouse is taking steps to tighten how it forecasts and manages fresh food inventory across its 49 distribution centers, launching an effort to standardize planning and improve availability in one of the most demanding segments of food distribution.
The specialty distributor manages more than 88,000 SKUs and serves over 50,000 customer locations, ranging from independent restaurants to hotels, country clubs, caterers, and cruise lines. With multiple business units and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems in place, the company has been working to bring greater consistency to how it plans for short-shelf-life products that move quickly and can generate waste when replenishment is misaligned.
The new initiative will create a centralized approach to demand planning and allocation, giving Chefs’ Warehouse clearer visibility into order patterns and operational bottlenecks across its network. The move is designed to support continued growth while reducing spoilage and ensuring high product availability for customers that depend on fast, accurate replenishment.
“We’re focused on driving greater efficiency and consistency across our fast-moving, fresh-driven supply chain,” said Ken Klauser, vice president of supply chain and pricing at Chefs’ Warehouse. He said the changes will help unify planning and strengthen the company’s ability to support customers with sensitive, perishable products.
As part of the effort, Chefs’ Warehouse is adopting new software from RELEX Solutions to support forecasting and replenishment. But the core focus, the company said, is reshaping its own planning processes to manage complexity at scale and maintain the service levels required in premium food distribution.
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