Industrial Food Services selects Optimity for supply chain planning

Industrial Food Services (IFS), Australia’s leading industrial producer of pure chocolate and chocolate compound, has chosen Optimity to support its rapid growth, targeting better customer service and operational efficiency.

Having doubled its business in the last four years, IFS has no intention of slowing down. At the same time, pressure on manufacturing has been growing, making it harder to provide customers with reliable delivery dates.

Jonathan O’Connor, Managing Director at IFS, says, “We were in the habit of just saying yes to every customer order. That’s fine when you have spare capacity, but we’re no longer in that situation. Optimity will give us full visibility of customer demand and our production capabilities – exactly what we need to make better decisions.”

IFS supplies chocolate ingredients to many of Australia’s major cereal, ice cream and confectionary brands – companies that demand speed and flexibility and rely on their suppliers to keep their production lines going.

During the vendor evaluation phase, Jonathan and his team felt that Optimity stood out from the rest. “It’s a premium solution we can grow with, yet it’s both flexible and easy to use. Optimity allows us to see what we can deliver and when with our existing capacity – and at what cost. This means we can have a much better conversation with our customers. It completely changes the way we work.”

IFS is implementing Optimity’s Demand Forecaster, Supply Chain Optimizer and Production Scheduler. The project is ongoing, and Jonathan is impressed with the team at Optimity. “The guys at Optimity are brilliant. They understand the food industry, so everything is very straightforward. This was important to us. We’re only a month into the project and are already up and running with demand forecasting. Both my team and I are excited. It’s been a great experience so far.”

Fred Avellen, Managing Director, Optimity Australia & New Zealand, says: “IFS is a great company to work with. They’re in a rapid growth phase, juggling production bottlenecks and high demand from their customers – a great fit for Optimity. I’m looking forward to the next phase of the project.”

About Industrial Food Services

Industrial Food Services (IFS) is Australia’s leading industrial producer of pure chocolate and chocolate compound. The Melbourne, Vic. based company supplies domestic and international FMCG companies with over 15,000 tonnes of chocolate ingredients per year. IFS is a division of Fuji Oil Group, the 3rd largest Industrial Chocolate manufacturer worldwide.