Fresh out the spreadsheets: How Hungryroot got its time back by automating replenishment with PorterLogic

What we did

‍

Pain Point: Hungryroot is a personalized grocery delivery service focused on making healthy eating easier for its customers, with a commitment to high-quality and fresh food. However, their ERP was making purchasing unnecessarily difficult. NetSuite doesn’t account for shelf life in material planning calculations, forcing Hungryroot’s operations team to build their own re-ordering tooling in spreadsheets.

While their homegrown solutions worked, they weren’t sustainable for Hungryroot’s ambitious growth and increasing complexity. The manual ordering process— a 14-step, 22-tab ordering tool in Excel—took 3+ hours per week to complete, and the separate spoilage report required an additional 4 hours to gain weekly visibility into which inventory products were at risk of expiring.

Hungryroot knew that to support its ambitious business growth, it needed a solution that could:

• Pull data automatically across Hungryroot’s different systems and act as a central hub, providing real-time visibility
• Integrate with any future ERP system or software the company brings in
• Customize to fit the existing operation, rather than forcing a change in processes
• Lower the total cost of ownership by paying for what you use, without shelling out for a full ERP customization
• Partner with the business from initial onboarding through ongoing support and future phases

‍

Value Proposition: Partnering with PorterLogic empowered Hungryroot to break out of the spreadsheets, reclaim 7+ hours per week, and focus on driving decisions instead of copying and pasting data. The tailored solution streamlines dozens of data fields into a single source of truth, automates the re-ordering process, and provides fresh visibility into the business, enabling Hungryroot’s operations team to make data-driven decisions faster. 

Key takeaway: As Hungryroot's business grew, NetSuite’s inability to account for shelf life and expiration dating for ordering recommendations forced its operations to spend hours per week manually wrangling that data. To avoid excess stock and stockouts, they needed to calculate how much to buy and when to place the purchase order. To scale effectively, they needed a flexible, configurable solution that could integrate with their existing systems and evolve with them. PorterLogic delivered a tailored solution that streamlined their operations, reclaimed valuable time, and empowered their team to go from weekly to daily decision re-ordering processes, fueling Hungryroot’s continued growth.

‍

How we did it

‍

Opportunity: Hungryroot’s operations team managed purchase orders by importing demand and inventory data from NetSuite into a 14-step, 22-tab Excel tool that accounted for food storage temperatures, shelf life, and vendor lead times for each ingredient. They used this tool to calculate the quantities needed for the following week, generate purchase orders, and manually upload the purchase orders — a process that took at least 3 hours every week and was fraught with risks.

Solution: PorterLogic simplified Hungryroot’s purchasing by automatically syncing data across different systems—including current on-hand inventory, safety stock, shelf life, changes in demand, vendor lead times, vendor minimums, and more. 

Now, Hungryroot’s team reviews a suggested order report, makes adjustments, and drafts purchase orders with a single click. No more conversion calculations, screen flips to check vendor lead times, or cross-referencing other reports to confirm demand or inventory changes. The new process allows Hungryroot to move from weekly to daily ordering, enabling faster business decisions and improving inventory management by allowing the team to react more nimbly to vendor delays or stock issues. Most importantly, the new process is built to scale with the company, supporting Hungryroot’s plans to double its SKU count by 2026.

"We saved somebody's time of three hours each week creating the ordering tool— and we were only doing the ordering tool once a week. You wouldn't get a new recommendation to order that item until next week. With PorterLogic, we see every day if we need to order something or react to potential replenishment issues.

PorterLogic spots problems early and prompts us to take action to mitigate them right there in the system. Rather than waiting a week to find out that a shipment was shorted, for example, now we can take immediate action.”

- Marc Fautas, Hungryroot’s Supply Chain Director

Opportunity: Hungryroot used an Excel-based spoilage reporting tool to calculate anticipated throwaway using available inventory, expiration dates, and customer demand. However, building that report took 4+ hours per week—and it wasn’t always correct. They needed a reliable solution with trusted data to fuel business decisions and optimize inventory levels.

Solution: PorterLogic automated Hungryroot’s reporting on expected throwaway and incoming purchase orders, providing real-time visibility into inventory freshness. This empowered the team to make faster decisions, reducing waste ahead of expiration dates and adjusting purchase orders in time to avoid overstocking.

“As our business grows and becomes more complicated, Excel isn't the tool to be using for what we need. In a growing organization, leadership often asks, 'What’s the ROI?' But sometimes, technology isn’t just about ROI; it’s about the sustainability and growth of the organization. PorterLogic’s easy API connections and building blocks allow us to tap into multiple ERP systems and scale up or down as our needs evolve."

- Marc Fautas, Hungryroot’s Supply Chain Director

Opportunity: Hungryroot needed a flexible solution that could scale with its growing business and a partnership that could add capabilities as needed, without requiring customizations to its ERP.

Solution: PorterLogic provided Hungryroot with a strategic collaboration and a trusted partner for their growth. The seamless partnership and highly responsive support from the PorterLogic team not only ensured a smooth go-live with immediate time savings but also established a foundation for future scalability.

PorterLogic offers more than just analytics; it also provides tactical recommendations and the enablement to execute them. For example, the new planning exception reporting solution helps Hungryroot identify what to order, flag potential issues, and take action—all within a single system, eliminating the need to switch between platforms.

Since implementing the new replenishment and inventory optimization solution, PorterLogic and Hungryroot continue to collaborate on additional capabilities to support Hungryroot’s growth. This includes historical stock transaction views, just-in-time inventory management, and analytics within demand forecasting trends, making PorterLogic a one-stop shop for Hungryroot’s inventory planning.

"As we continue to grow and scale, we've had our planners asking if we should consider expanding our use of PorterLogic, which speaks to the strategic partnership we've built. The flexibility and having the team right there to help us was amazing. Their in-depth knowledge of other software and how to tailor them to our needs, especially with ERP systems, was really impressive.”

- Marc Fautas, Hungryroot’s Supply Chain Director

‍

‍