Your production manager is building tomorrow’s bake plan when they realise the system says 200kg of cocoa powder, but they’re pretty sure the afternoon shift used the last of it. So they walk to the warehouse to check. It’s 50kg. Now it’s a phone call to the supplier at 4pm, hoping for next-day delivery.
This scenario plays out in food manufacturing facilities every week, and it’s almost always an inventory visibility problem, not a purchasing problem.
Why Ingredient Inventory Is Harder Than Finished Goods
- Partial quantities. You use 47kg from a 25kg bag stack. Tracking what remains in open containers requires discipline or a system.
- Perishability. Flour lasts months. Fresh cream lasts days. Managing FEFO (first expiry, first out) adds a dimension non-food inventory doesn’t have.
- Dependent demand. You order flour because you have orders for bread. Ingredient demand derives from production schedules, which derive from customer orders.
- Variable lead times. Flour arrives next day. Specialty chocolate needs a week. Imported vanilla takes three weeks.
The Real Cost of Poor Visibility
- Emergency orders. Rush delivery fees and premium prices for 4pm discoveries.
- Waste from expiry. New stock placed in front of old stock, over-ordering, near-expiry deliveries.
- Production disruption. Running out mid-batch wastes every ingredient already added.
- Overstocking. The natural response to stockouts that ties up cash and storage space.
Building an Accurate System
- Record at receiving. Every delivery logged with quantity, lot number, expiry date, supplier.
- Deduct at production. When ingredients go into a batch, inventory updates automatically from the recipe.
- Enforce FEFO. System flags the oldest stock for use first.
- Set reorder points. Trigger purchasing before you run short, based on usage patterns and lead times.
- Count regularly. Cycle counts by category keep physical and system quantities aligned.
How FlexiBake Helps
FlexiBake tracks ingredients from receiving through production with real-time deductions. When a batch runs, inventory adjusts automatically. Reorder alerts trigger before shortages happen. FEFO is enforced systematically.