Reinventing bakery stock management with AI

What is bakery stock management software?

Stock management software is a digital tool that centralises all data related to the bakery and patisserie supply chain. It notably allows for:

• Automatically recording incoming and outgoing movements of each ingredient, intermediate product, or finished product through a direct connection with the POS. This allows for accurate tracking of sales, goods deliveries, and stock transfers between sites and central bakeries.
• Centralising suppliers in a single tool, facilitating the setting of conditions (free delivery, packaging, etc.), placing, and tracking orders.
• Centralising information related to your product offering: recipe sheets with portioned ingredients, purchase and sale prices, and VAT.
• Providing a stock status to visualise incoming and outgoing movements and to facilitate inventory taking.

These software solutions aim to enable centralised stock management.

Why does artificial intelligence improve bakery stock management?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a powerful tool that can process data from various sources, but also incorporate external factors into decision-making. It is capable of automating complex calculations and freeing employees from time-consuming, low-value tasks.

There are two critical aspects of stock management in bakeries and patisseries:

• The first is demand forecasting: Poor sourcing leads to food waste and sub-optimal working capital needs, while insufficient production disappoints customers and impacts turnover.
• The second is the difficulty of analysing profitability when transforming raw materials into finished products: There is the reality of the gross margin generated by your products versus the theoretical margin expected when creating the recipe. This never goes as planned; this is called yield variance.

But how do we achieve concrete, quantifiable results with artificial intelligence? The difference with traditional stock management software is that Inpulse has designed a solution based on 3 pillars: automation of supplier orders, simplification of stock management operations, and real-time access to profitability ratios.

Relying on data and automatically generating orders

With the ongoing increase in food prices, stock management errors in bakeries can be very costly. It is therefore essential to be precise, especially when placing supplier orders.

Inpulse's sales forecasts allow for ordering just what is needed, thus minimising losses. This is particularly useful for fragile, perishable products or those with short expiry dates, such as fresh products used in pastries, salads, or sandwiches (red fruits, raw vegetables, salmon, etc.).

Algorithms accurately anticipate sales history to forecast which products to prepare each day and the adequate quantity of raw materials to order for recipe preparation. By taking into account various factors that impact activity such as weather, holidays, sporting events, or public holidays, Inpulse allows bakers to order what they need at the right time.

"Inpulse's forecasts are reliable; artificial intelligence can achieve up to 95% accuracy on forecasted turnover and product mix." Anthony Nicolas, Network Monitor L’atelier Papilles (French Bakery Chain of 36 sites)

Just-in-time sourcing and production

Food waste is the number one enemy in the bakery and patisserie sector. Although solutions are available for repurposing unsold goods and organic waste, still the end-of-day losses can be colossal, with a significant environmental impact and consequences for profitability.

The Inpulse forecasting tool is not limited to automating supplier orders to avoid losses and stock shortages. It also serves to plan production upstream. Thanks to the forecasted product mix, it is thus possible to forecast the number of baguettes to produce, and the number of sandwiches and salads to prepare each morning.

Improving profitability with AI

Inpulse enables automatic real-time calculation of material costs. You can know the exact cost of raw materials, the quantity of ingredients actually consumed, losses, breakages... Thus, you can easily manage your margin, analyse purchases, stock levels, and yield variances that will help you identify areas for improvement in the transformation process.

With the Inpulse AI tool, you know which products are the most profitable. If you manage several bakeries, you save valuable time by having instant access to all profitability indicators, allowing you to accelerate your deployment and make better decisions.

Simplifying tasks and saving time

Automating stock management in bakeries can save you considerable time. Bakery managers save an average of 20 hours per month thanks to Inpulse's supplier order recommendations and forecasts. They also allow them to improve staff scheduling.

It also involves easily bringing all employees on board to digitalise stock management operations: inventories, goods reception, automated generation of credit notes and stock transfers

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Automated management software offers perfect stock control, allowing for reduced losses and improved profitability. Inpulse is a precise AI solution that has proven itself in bakery management. Store managers gain up to 5 points of margin on material costs. Inpulse is easy to use, allowing you to configure and get started with the tool in less than 4 weeks. 

To find out more, you can talk to one of our experts by booking a personalised demo of our solution.