7 hidden costs of in-house data ...
November 15, 2023
The famous NYC bakeshop manages nationwide distribution with daily data in the Crisp platform.
“Globally known, locally loved” New York City-based Magnolia Bakery, known for its iconic banana pudding and other sweet treats, has successfully expanded from brick-and-mortar stores to nationwide retail distribution. Key to this expansion has been the brand’s partnership with UNFI and leveraging the UNFI Insights powered by Crisp data platform to rapidly grow its line of banana pudding cookies and thaw-to-serve treats across shelves and into eager shoppers’ carts.
Crisp Sr. Sales Engineer Kelvin Brown Sr. and Magnolia Bakery Chief Commercial Officer Eddie Revis sat down to discuss how the brand harnesses real-time distribution insights with Crisp to drive its significant retail growth chapter.
Kelvin: Magnolia Bakery has a rich history in brick-and-mortar retail. What were the biggest challenges in transitioning to national distribution, and how did data play a role in overcoming them?
Eddie: Moving from a global bakery model to packaged retail in the U.S. was a big shift for us. We went from managing in-store production and sales to working with distributors, forecasting demand, and navigating inventory risks across a growing retail footprint. The biggest challenge was visibility – we needed to understand where our products were moving, who was buying them, and how to optimize our supply chain without overproducing or running into stockouts.
That’s where UNFI Insights powered by Crisp became invaluable for us, and we’re using it across every department in the organization today.
Kelvin: What are the departments using Crisp for?
Eddie: My commercial team, which focuses on product development, velocities, and growth, primarily uses the sales dashboard. It helps us ensure customers are ordering regularly and in the quantities we expect to see.
One of my favorite sales features is seeing who’s ordering our products from the UNFI DCs that we didn’t know about, and uncovering trends. For example, we discovered colleges and universities were ordering our products, which unlocked a new growth channel for us.
My supply chain team uses the platform heavily for sales and operations planning (S&OP). It drives our inventory planning, decisions around spoilage and risk, and helps build production plans with our partners. While POS data shows consumption through registers, seeing the velocity of cases with customers lets us identify when customers aren’t ordering as expected. This has empowered our teams to manage inventory, costs, spoilage, and ultimately improve our P&L.
“One of my favorite sales features is seeing who’s ordering our products from the UNFI DCs that we didn’t know about, and uncovering trends. For example, we discovered colleges and universities were ordering our products, which unlocked a new growth channel for us.”
Kelvin: What’s your favorite feature in the UNFI Insights platform?
Eddie: My favorite feature is the filtering capability. Being able to filter by DC, retailer, SKU, and time-period is incredibly helpful, and the dashboards quickly adjust to reveal the information we want to see. We can say “I’m curious about just this SKU” or “just this promotional period” and get those answers fast.
We recently had an issue where we identified that a product wasn’t moving at expected velocities. We were able to drill down into our customer’s DC and identify a coding issue with UNFI, which we quickly addressed to get orders flowing.
Kelvin: What advice would you give to other suppliers looking to grow their business with UNFI?
Eddie: Just log onto UNFI Insights! It’s so easy. We were initially skeptical, as many suppliers are about paying for reporting, but once the tool was offered with the supplier program, we said, “Let’s take advantage of it.” This is information we need that’s valuable to our business.
Now, when we have new team members join, we hand them a list of simple questions: Who’s our top customer? What’s our top SKU? What’s our top market? Then we ask them to check out the UNFI Insights platform and see what they can find. We want people to become familiar with the tool, not intimidated by it.
If something doesn’t look right during period close or P&L reviews, we say, “Let’s check Crisp.” Everyone from supply chain to finance to commercial and sales has embraced it and learned from it. It doesn’t have every answer for the business, but it does have a lot of what we look for.
“Now, when we have new team members join, we hand them a list of simple questions: Who’s our top customer? What’s our top SKU? What’s our top market? Then we ask them to check out the UNFI Insights platform and see what they can find. We want people to become familiar with the tool, not intimidated by it.”
Better data, better decisions, stronger growth with UNFI Insights powered by Crisp
Kelvin: UNFI Insights powered by Crisp provides brands with the data visibility and reporting tools they need to manage and capitalize on their retail distribution effectively. Chosen Foods used UNFI Insights to drive 35% year-over-year sales growth while eliminating food waste. Nestlé USA streamlined reporting across 1,500 SKUs for its $300M UNFI business segment, and Nature’s Bakery unlocked triple-digit growth in key retail accounts. As part of the UNFI supplier program, CPGs can begin leveraging the tool to optimize their supply chains, eliminate food waste, and unlock growth opportunities today. Contact Crisp to learn more.
