Balancing the carcass at NZ’s largest supermarket chain

After a comprehensive pre-study, Countdown Ltd (Woolworths’ NZ subsidiary) implemented Optimity across all categories in the meat division of its highly successful New Zealand supermarket chain.

“To gain an edge over competitors in our industry it is fundamental to integrate price-driven retail demand with supply-side carcass balance and procurement. The challenge is to manage surplus, service levels, procurement and carcass balance to achieve the best profit outcome for the organization. “
Shannon Owens, Countdown’s Optimity Project Manager

To gain an edge over competitors in the industry Countdown recognised that it was fundamental to integrate price-driven demand with supply-side carcass balance and procurement. The challenge was to manage surplus, service levels, procurement and carcass balance to achieve the best profit outcome for the organization.

Optimity’s Australian Managing Director, Christer Liden, states, “To win the confidence of a company like Woolworths is a major breakthrough for us. Woolworths is known to carefully select the best solutions without compromising quality and to have passed this test makes us even more confident we have the world’s best solution for companies who need to balance demand and supply with a focus on maximum profitability.”

Mr Liden continues, “The use of leading-edge optimization methods in conjunction with our unique optimization model ensures the plans provided by the Optimity software will always be of the highest quality. The flexible user interface allows the planners to analyze and interact with the plan in an unrestricted way.”

About Countdown

Countdown is New Zealand’s leading supermarket brand, serving more than 2.5 million customers every week. Countdown is the New Zealand subsidiary of the publically-listed Australian company Woolworths Limited, who manages some of Australia’s most recognized brands.