With the bakery sector facing rising costs and sustainability pressures, collaboration across the supply chain, combined with software technology adoption, has never been more important. Suzanne Callander reports.
Rising raw‑material and energy costs, volatile ingredient markets, labour shortages and fast-changing consumer demands have combined to squeeze margins for bakery manufacturers, making planning more complex.
The bakery industry is also no stranger to disruption. With the distribution of baked goods often depending on a well‑synchronised flow of raw materials, production scheduling, packaging, storage and delivery – when any link in that chain falters it can affect the whole supply chain – a situation that is exacerbated by the short shelf life of most bakery products.
The implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) also poses supply chain challenges, as users of commodities such as palm oil and cocoa are now required to prove that their products are deforestation-free. Ingredients need to be sourced from areas not affected by deforestation or forest degradation after 31 December 2020 and they must have produced in accordance with the relevant legislation of the country of production. This includes compliance with that country’s land use rights, environmental protections, forest-related rules and labour rights. Bakeries purchasing palm oil or cocoa from operators or traders are also now required to ensure there are due diligence statements from suppliers.
So, ingredient shortages, changing regulations, and an increasing demand for sustainable production as well as sustainable ingredients has pushed bakeries to rethink how their supply chains operate. The focus now needs to be on resilience – building supply chains that can flex, adapt, and deliver consistency even when trading environments may be difficult.
Given all these pressures, no bakery manufacturer is able to manage supply‑chain risk in isolation. Collaboration – both vertically with suppliers and distributors, and horizontally with peer companies or shared service providers – is therefore vital to ensure greater resilience. Such collaborations can be simplified through the use of strong collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment (CPFR) strategies which should see suppliers, manufacturers and retailers sharing data about demand forecasts, inventory levels and production schedules. Such visibility will allow all parties to adjust procurement, production and delivery plans in a proactive manner.
In essence, the CPFR process consists of four key steps:
Planning: This step requires trading partners to collaboratively develop sales and inventory plans based on shared data – such as historical sales, market trends, and promotional activities. This alignment helps ensure that all parties are working towards common goals.
Forecasting: This step requires relevant information to be shared, such as point-of-sale data, inventory levels, and promotional plans. Using this shared data, it is possible to collaboratively refine demand forecasts and make any necessary adjustments that relate to consumer demand.
Replenishment: This requires sales and inventory plans and demand forecasts to be co-ordinated. It involves determining optimal replenishment quantities, timing and transportation modes to ensure an efficient and cost-effective inventory flow.
Execution: Executing the collaboratively developed plans and continuously monitoring performance metrics will require key performance indicators (KPIs) to be tracked. Any deviations need to be identified and necessary adjustments made to improve future planning and forecasting efforts.
The effectiveness of any CPFR strategy will require a well-defined methodology that uses technology, data integration, trust-building, and continuous improvement. It is a strategy that can be greatly simplified by the use of technology platforms and tools that enable seamless information sharing and collaboration among trading partners, including integrated software systems, cloud-based solutions, and data exchange protocols that facilitate real-time data sharing and coordinated decision-making.
Finding a cohesive solution
For most bakeries demand can vary by the day of the week and by the season. Having fresh-baked products on the shelves every day makes planning a complex task. Recognising this challenge, Finsbury Food Group – a speciality bakery manufacturer, set out to find a single, cohesive way of working to support future growth across all of its
multiple facilities in the UK and Europe. Each of these facilities has, traditionally used its own processes and systems.
Partnering with Optimum PPS – a UK-based ERP consultant – Finsbury launched a business transformation programme centred around the adoption of a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) software solution from Infor. The project aimed to align people, processes, and technology across the group, standardising workflows and improving overall visibility, from raw materials to finished products.
The Infor M3 EPR solution was chosen for use in the Finsbury project. It was developed to provide industry-specific process support and functionality built on good practices and user experience for medium to large national and global organisations.
A combination of advanced analytics technology and pre-packaged, industry-specific content makes this ERP solution a useful tool in developing actionable insight and can help minimise risk. Its supply chain practices create and control demand-driven supply networks that are more resilient to disruptions. Multi-site enterprise planning capabilities can help synchronise supply processes – lowering inventory, optimising resource utilisation and improving customer service.
The results became evident very quickly after the system went live at Finsbury Food Group. Automated processes reduced manual effort, consistent reporting enabled better forecasting, and integrated planning tools improved traceability across the entire supply chain.
“For bakeries, the supply chain is the heartbeat of the business. When every link is connected through shared systems and data, teams can plan better, waste less, and respond faster to demand,” says Steve Wilson, Managing Partner at Optimum PPS:
To sustain progress for Finsbury Food Group, Optimum PPS went on to develop a detailed strategic roadmap designed to keep the business evolving. This defined clear actions and priorities for continuous improvement, ensuring every site continues to build on the efficiencies gained through standardisation.
Finsbury’s successes highlight how investment in digital systems, when paired with a clear vision for change, can deliver long-term results. The company now operates with improved forecasting accuracy, stronger cross-site collaboration, and faster decision-making, which is based on reliable, real-time data. Its journey offers a clear message – the most effective innovations often come from improving how people, processes and systems work together. “When people and data are able to connect seamlessly, the decision-making process becomes smarter, and innovation naturally follows. We helped teams at Finsbury to see the bigger picture and understand how their daily actions supported the wider supply chain,” concludes Steve.
Linking downtime with supply chain planning
A significant portion of unplanned downtime in bakeries can be traced back to supply chain planning gaps that have nothing to do with parts shortages or mechanical failures, according to RELEX, a provider of supply chain planning solutions. These downtimes occur when strategic plans fail to translate effectively into day-to-day operations on the factory floor, resulting in inefficient scheduling, improper sequencing, and misaligned resources.
The answer, according to RELEX, is to ensure that production planning and supply chain planning are not treated as separate functions. To reduce and optimise controllable downtime the use of AI-powered integrated planning software can connect strategic goals with everyday execution on the shop floor in a more effective way.
Many bakeries will create excellent monthly and weekly plans but can struggle to translate them for day-to-day use. When this translation is a manual process, someone needs to convert plans into spreadsheets, and this can introduce time lags and human errors that can result in unnecessary downtimes.
Today, data and visibility gaps can further exacerbate planning challenges. Without real-time inventory or production data, planners need to make decision not reflect actual conditions. This misalignment leads to inefficient resource allocation and unexpected production stoppages.
Even when production planning is automated, downtime can still occur when workforce scheduling doesn’t match machine availability. Downtime becomes inevitable when production systems do not include constraints such as operator certifications or machine qualifications.
Production scheduling, sequencing, and recipe management challenges will be shaped by unique operational constraints and regulatory requirements. Production scheduling must account for changeovers to minimise idle time between batches. Without proper sequencing, there are likely to be unnecessary delays when switching between product types.
For bakeries, contamination concerns also drive many changeover requirements. Some production plans cannot be executed back-to-back, for example, because ingredients from one recipe might contaminate the next. Cleaning and preparation between incompatible recipes can also add significant time that must be factored into scheduling.
Added to the everyday practicalities and planning issues, increasingly complex, interdependent global supply chains can also pose challenges. Disruptions can cascade rapidly through production networks, triggering bottlenecks and delays that lead to idle time.
As the cost of downtime rises, bakeries need to make use of modern technology to help reduce lost production hours. Predictive maintenance and condition monitoring technologies have helped address equipment-related failures; but these solutions do not address the planning and scheduling inefficiencies that cause a significant portion of the downtime.
RELEX argues that its AI-powered planning software solution can help overcome this. Rather than focusing on predicting machine failures, RELEX Production Planning and Scheduling optimises the controllable elements of production planning and scheduling that often cause unnecessary downtime. Its solution complements existing maintenance technologies with intelligent automation to help ensure machines run the right products in the right sequence at the right time.
At the core of RELEX’s approach to production planning is the ability to plan and schedule at a granular level – down to hourly – which allows bakeries to seamlessly translate high-level strategic plans into day-to-day operational schedules without information loss or manual intervention. The system can handle complex workforce scheduling, machine availability, and certification requirements as integrated constraints.
The solution employs artificial intelligence (AI) to automate complex optimisation decisions across multiple variables. It implements a ‘golden touch’ philosophy where human intervention occurs only where it truly adds value. The system analyses production capacity and the manufacturing demands of each product, accounting for lead times, shelf life, and other considerations to determine optimal production scheduling.
In addition to optimising production capacities, the solution can tactically manage planned downtime by scheduling maintenance windows based on operational realities. Granular modelling at hourly, rather than weekly intervals, helps ensure efficient asset utilisation while eliminating downtime caused by production planning gaps.
In bakery applications, the system optimises production sequences and reduces cleaning time between runs. It can ensure proper sequencing, such as running white bread, then brown bread, then seeded products in the right order, while establishing optimal patterns for recurring production cycles. Taking such a systematic approach can save hours daily by reducing the frequency and duration of production line changeovers.
Volatile ingredient markets, tightening regulations, sustainability obligations and the ever-present risk of disruption mean that traditional, siloed approaches are no longer sufficient when it comes to supply chain planning. Collaboration and intelligent planning is now more important than ever before.
Technology can provide the tools to achieve this – whether through ERP platforms that unify data, or through AI-driven planning systems. However, technology alone is not the solution. Success also depends equally on bringing people and processes together around shared goals, supported by accurate, real-time data.
