Touchless Demand Forecasting
Recommends adjusted forecasts based on real-time signals.
Data it draws on
- Historical sales
- POS or distributor sales
- Weather
- Syndicated sources
Industry Solution
Decision intelligence for food & beverage
Demand shifts, shelf life shrinks, and the window to act closes in hours. Aera senses changes across demand, inventory, and logistics; recommends actions that protect margin and service; and executes them in your systems before the gap reaches the shelf.
Industry Challenges
Three of the top challenges in food & beverage operations
The data already exists in your systems. The cost lands in what happens between the data and the action.
Demand moves faster than the plan
Promotions land differently than planned and seasonal spikes arrive early, while the forecast cycle still runs monthly.
Shelf life turns delay into write-offs
A batch that could have been transferred expires in one distribution center while another stocks out on the same SKU.
Coordination takes longer than the decision
Demand, inventory, and logistics each see their own piece, and no layer connects those signals into one action.
Aera Benefits
What your teams can accomplish with decision intelligence
Aera automates the routine decisions, augments the complex ones, and executes both in real time. F&B teams see the payoff in five areas of the business.
15–20% waste reduction
Cut waste at the batch level
Expiration risk surfaces early, at the material-batch level, with mitigation actions attached: transfer the stock, adjust the PO, target a promotion, or write it off when that is genuinely the best call.
15–20% inventory performance improvement
Hold the right stock in the right place
Safety stock recalibrates continuously against real demand variability, and rebalancing moves inventory across the network before a location goes short or long. Overstock and stockouts stop coexisting.
5–15% cost reduction
Move fewer, fuller trucks
Transfer, timing, and truck utilization are optimized in one recommendation, weighed against remaining shelf life. Fewer unnecessary shipments means lower freight cost and lower emissions from the same network.
20–30% efficiency increase
Give planners their week back
Routine decisions run without a planner in the loop, and complex ones arrive as a recommendation with the analysis already done. The role shifts from chasing exceptions to setting strategy.
10–20% revenue increase
Protect service and the retailer relationship
Accurate demand sensing keeps product available where and when customers reach for it. Higher fill rates protect revenue now and service credibility in the next retailer negotiation.
We now ask, 'What's about to happen, and how do we prevent it — or capitalize on it?' With Aera, we achieved payback in just 90 days.
SVP Global Supply Chain
The Hershey Company
Aera Skills™
Skills built for food & beverage
Prepackaged decision logic your teams can run on day one, tuned to short shelf life, promotional demand, and multi-site networks.
Demand Sensing
Updates near-term demand forecasts on weekly and daily horizons, then adjusts production schedules, inventory deployment, and replenishment plans.
Data it draws on
- POS data
- Weather
- Promotional calendars
- Pricing Changes
- Social signals
- Market events
Dynamic Safety Stock
Recommends increases or decreases to safety stock based on projected demand and target service levels.
Data it draws on
- Inventory history
- Current safety stock
- Projected demand
- Target service levels
Inventory Balancing
Recommends transferring stock from source to destination across a defined group of materials and SKUs, optimized for truck utilization and remaining days of cover.
Data it draws on
- Inventory with stock age
- Projected demand
- TMS transportation data
Aging Inventory Management
Recommends stock transfers, PO adjustments, targeted promotions to liquidate excess inventory, and write-offs when necessary.
Data it draws on
- Batch-level stock age
- Projected demand
- BOM data
F&B Control Tower
Surfaces critical exceptions with recommended actions, prioritized by business impact, then proposes mitigation such as expediting production, reallocating inventory, or activating backup suppliers.
Data it draws on
- ERP orders
- Inventory
- Production
- Quality holds
- Waste
- TMS shipment status
- Demand signals
Also relevant to F&B operations: Stockout Prediction and Prevention, Efficient Shipping, Logistics Event Management, CO2 Emissions Management, Sustainability Measurement
Industry-Focused Resources
Explore more on food & beverage
Whitepaper
The AI Recipe for the Future of Food and Beverage Supply Chains
Discover how leading food and beverage companies are revolutionizing supply chain operations with AI-driven decision-making, unlocking new revenue and significant cost savings.
Blog
Beyond the Control Tower: Orchestrating Food and Beverage Supply Networks
How leading organizations are moving beyond control tower models to build decision-centric supply networks that sense, evaluate, and act.
Blog
Lowering Logistics Costs in Food & Beverage Supply Chains
Where logistics spend actually leaks in food and beverage networks, and how decision intelligence recovers it across freight, routing, and replenishment.
Blog
Reducing Planner Effort in Food & Beverage Supply Chains
Streamline planner workload in food and beverage supply chains with AI-driven decision intelligence, automation, and real-time insights.