New Zealand's biggest grocery distributor achieves greater customer satisfaction with SAF solution

Foodstuffs, New Zealand’s largest retail grocery organization with over 680 owner operated stores and 30,000 employees nationwide, successfully implemented an Automated Store Replenishment solution from SAF. The SAF technology directly contributed to a reduced store inventory and incremental sales at Foodstuffs. SAF AG, which is listed in the Prime Standard of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (ISIN CH0024848738), is one of the world’s leading software vendors of automated forecasting and ordering systems for retailers.

Amongst others, quality of forecast, degree of automation, TCO and confidence in the supplier had been identified by Foodstuffs as key criteria for the RFP process. “The introduction of an automated replenishment solution became the enabler for a business process transformation that included the introduction of perpetual inventory”, explained Egon Guttke, Group Manager Strategic Projects at Foodstuffs. “With the help of SAF RetailSuite Store not only our inventory reduced and our out of stocks have halved. In addition to these measurable effects, the whole project also resulted in a significant improvement of our customer satisfaction”, said Guttke.

“Our leading-edge technology combined with a proven industry know-how convinced Foodstuffs to count on SAF,” commented Udo Meyzis, Chief Executive Officer at SAF AG, and added: “SAF customers do not only benefit from our technology leadership but also from our in-depth understanding of and experience in optimizing ordering processes for retail companies around the world. It really makes us proud to help Foodstuffs strengthen their competitive advantage”.

Foodstuffs is the first SAF customer in the Asia-Pacific region and confirms SAF’s strategy of expanding the direct business in new regions. The company-wide implementation of the SAF RetailSuite Store did take place between 2006 and 2009 with the recent deployment of investment buying in 2010.