Pacific Natural Foods Masters TPM in the Midmarket
As a growing name in the natural and organic foods category, Pacific Natural Foods needed to get a better handle on its promotional spending. The company was specifically interested in how that spending related to volumes and promotion-ability for its soup, broth and non-dairy beverage product lines.
In 2007, the midmarket company selected MEI as the ideal partner to help manage its trade promotions more effectively based on a recommendation from its broker Acosta.
Initially, Pacific Natural Foods used MEI’s Trade Promotion Management (TPM) software primarily for cataloguing and organizing promotions. They started by entering OI promotions and moving them over to Innatrack, its ERP system by The Barke Group, to apply to orders. Four years later, the entire sales and marketing group utilizes MEI, along with the accounting and the order entry team.
“Thanks to MEI, we are becoming more proficient, our sales team is getting better at forecasting, and we continue to see a greater profit in our promotional activities,” states Trista Awtrey, business analyst for Pacific Natural Foods.
The adoption of a TPM system has enabled Pacific Natural Foods to:
FAST FACTS
A Growing Force in Food
A multi-year TPM initiative enables Pacific Natural Foods to compete with larger companies. Since implementation in 2007, the company has achieved millions of dollars in trade savings while growing sales.
Company at a Glance
Since 1987, Pacific Natural Foods has been blazing trails in the natural foods industry. Today, the company offers a wide variety of all natural and organic food and beverages including soups, broths, non-dairy beverages, frozen pizzas, pot pies and ready-to-drink iced coffees, teas and mats.
Technologically Advanced
To strengthen its impact on the shelf, Pacific Natural Foods put recipes, cooking demos and easy-to-access shopping lists at consumers’ fingertips with new QR Code technology on-pack in 2011.
Words of Wisdom
“We are becoming more proficient, our sales team is getting better at forecasting, and we continue to see a greater profit in our promotional activities.” —Trista Awtrey, Business Analyst, Pacific Natural Foods Gourmet Foods, Inc.
In 2007, the midmarket company selected MEI as the ideal partner to help manage its trade promotions more effectively based on a recommendation from its broker Acosta.
Initially, Pacific Natural Foods used MEI’s Trade Promotion Management (TPM) software primarily for cataloguing and organizing promotions. They started by entering OI promotions and moving them over to Innatrack, its ERP system by The Barke Group, to apply to orders. Four years later, the entire sales and marketing group utilizes MEI, along with the accounting and the order entry team.
“Thanks to MEI, we are becoming more proficient, our sales team is getting better at forecasting, and we continue to see a greater profit in our promotional activities,” states Trista Awtrey, business analyst for Pacific Natural Foods.
The adoption of a TPM system has enabled Pacific Natural Foods to:
- Improve gross margin for retail business by 3.4 points since 2007, resulting in millions of dollars in trade savings while growing sales
- Utilize forward-looking estimates of spend and volume, improving the finance team’s forecasting, cash flow management and spend liability
- Greatly reduce the amount of time spent on order entry
- Match up network support with promotions to reduce the loss from unauthorized trade spending
- Recover a greater amount of chargebacks by having clear visibility into what is authorized spend and what is not
- Better plan for the future by understanding where and what they are spending so the company can focus on removing promotions that are not profitable.
- Have greater visibility and accountability into promotional spending to ensure spending plans are being executed properly
- Trace deductions for specific promotions and products
- Ensure all accounts are completely up-to-date. The integration efforts with MEI TPM exposed old and inaccurate information in the company’s ERP system and helped clean up data.
FAST FACTS
A Growing Force in Food
A multi-year TPM initiative enables Pacific Natural Foods to compete with larger companies. Since implementation in 2007, the company has achieved millions of dollars in trade savings while growing sales.
Company at a Glance
Since 1987, Pacific Natural Foods has been blazing trails in the natural foods industry. Today, the company offers a wide variety of all natural and organic food and beverages including soups, broths, non-dairy beverages, frozen pizzas, pot pies and ready-to-drink iced coffees, teas and mats.
Technologically Advanced
To strengthen its impact on the shelf, Pacific Natural Foods put recipes, cooking demos and easy-to-access shopping lists at consumers’ fingertips with new QR Code technology on-pack in 2011.
Words of Wisdom
“We are becoming more proficient, our sales team is getting better at forecasting, and we continue to see a greater profit in our promotional activities.” —Trista Awtrey, Business Analyst, Pacific Natural Foods Gourmet Foods, Inc.