Cater supplies food and beverages to hotels, restaurants, canteens and catering companies. They supply 10,000 stocked products and can provide another 15,000 non-stock products. In 2017, Cater AS decided to invest in - and professionalize its buying process with a state-of-the-art Supply Chain Planning solution to secure market leading service levels, maximize efficiency and minimize inventory holding costs.
Today, Cater has become one of the most modern and leading food service companies in Norway. With its new warehouse of 17,000 square meters and 11,000 pallet spaces, the company has Norway's largest warehouse within the food service industry. The warehouse is optimized for efficient flow of goods and has also been designed with a separate warehouse for optimal storage of fruits and vegetables, including three different temperature- and climate zones, and as well a separate ripening room for bananas.
“After operating for just over a year, the Blue Ridge solutions have had a huge impact on Cater. Shortly after go live, we found that we performed significantly better in several areas. Forecasts have improved successively and are now at a precision level of 97.5%. This has enabled us to become extremely precise in our supply chain planning. At the same time, we have saved two man-years.
We now have a stable service level of well over 99% across the entire range. In fact, our A items are almost never out of stock for long periods. The good thing about this is that these extremely good KPIs remain stable, regardless of whether we go in or out out of seasons or during the Christmas period.
It is also worth mentioning that, while achieving exceptionally good service levels, we experienced a reduction of overstock from 30% to 3%. And that was inspite of the fact that we actively use the system's support of Forward Buying, ”says Garder. "The Blue Ridge solution is the system in the market that in the best manner supports our needs."
Cater is a member of the nationwide
chain Servicegrossistene.
The chain is owned by 21 locally
based companies, providing food and beverages across Norway.
Servicegrossistene as group in total
have annual revenues of
NOK 3,5 billion.
