Lipari Foods Adds AI to Inventory Planning, Tightens Control Across 23,000 SKUs
Lipari Foods, maker and distributor of fresh, natural, ethnic, and specialty products under brands like Sabrina's, Backroad Country, and Kitchen Ready, is automating its inventory management. The company partnered with Relex to consolidate demand and supply planning across grocery, deli, bakery, natural, and specialty categories.
The move centralizes planning for 23,000 SKUs and gives teams real-time visibility to act faster. For a network serving thousands of retailers, that means fewer blind spots in forecasting, replenishment, and distribution.
What's new at Lipari
- Integrated supply chain planning and automated replenishment
- Intraday recalculations that react to demand shifts and constraints
- Wholesale channel planning and seasonal planning
- Capacity planning and fresh optimization
- Supplier collaboration tools to align orders, lead times, and promotions
Why it matters for management
- Reduce spoilage and stockouts with earlier risk signals
- Free planner time by cutting manual work; focus on exceptions and supplier decisions
- Improve service levels while holding leaner inventory
- Coordinate promotions and seasons without overloading production or logistics
Operational impact
The platform helps Lipari's teams spot spoilage risks and potential stockouts sooner, then act with targeted orders and distribution changes. Advanced analytics reduce manual effort around capacity constraints and make automated adjustments-especially important for fresh items with narrow shelf lives.
By bringing planning into one system, managers can align demand forecasts, replenishment, and capacity plans without spreadsheet chaos. The result: faster decisions, fewer surprises, and tighter execution across categories.
"Our business is growing, and we need planning tools that keep up with the pace and complexity of our operation," said Shaun Bunch, chief supply chain officer at Lipari Foods. "We manage a wide range of fresh and specialty products, so having reliable forecasts, automation that reduces manual work and better visibility into future inventory needs makes a real difference."
How to apply this in your operation
- Start with clean masters: SKUs, locations, lead times, and supplier data
- Segment demand (fresh vs. ambient, wholesale vs. retail) and set distinct policies
- Adopt intraday re-forecasting for volatile and fresh categories
- Shift planners to exception-based workflows with clear thresholds and alerts
- Use supplier collaboration to align MOQ, lead-time variability, and promo calendars
- Pilot in one category, prove the gains, then scale in waves
- Track change management: define new roles, decision rights, and training upfront
KPIs to watch
- Service level and on-shelf availability
- Waste/shrink and freshness compliance
- Forecast accuracy and bias by segment
- Inventory turns and days of supply
- Supplier OTIF and lead-time variability
- Planner productivity (SKUs per planner, exceptions resolved per day)
Learn more
For a structured approach to building these capabilities in your team, see the AI Learning Path for Supply Chain Managers.
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