For more than three decades, Frulact has supplied fruit and plant-based value-added ingredients to the world’s top food and beverage brands—including Danone, Chobani, and Nestlé.
Founded in Portugal in 1987, the company now operates eight production facilities across five countries, each fed by 2,000+ raw materials and subject to the realities of harvest windows, perishability, and seasonality.
The Challenge: Perishable Supply, Unforgiving Demand
Forecasting is hard in any process industry; it’s tougher when key inputs—like fresh fruit—are available only in limited windows and in limited supply. Get replenishment wrong and you either miss orders or write off materials.
Frulact tried for years to tame the problem with traditional tools.
- 2000–2008: Multiple in-house MRP engines—each fell short.
- 2008+: A full SAP implementation—valuable lessons, but the planning engine still couldn’t solve the problem.
The team needed a planning model that could protect availability while absorbing variability—without disrupting SAP or daily operations.
“The implementation wasn’t intrusive to our process. We could run DDMRP side by side with SAP and see the results.”
— Rogério Silva, Executive Director (Supply Chain & IT), Frulact
The Solution: Demand-Driven Planning with Intuiflow
When Frulact evaluated Demand Driven MRP (DDMRP) and Intuiflow (formerly Replenishment+), they saw a way to plan to actual consumption, not long-range guesses.
- Parallel, low-risk start: A consultant proposed a January 2019 go-live; Frulact asked to start nearly three months earlier and ran DDMRP in parallel with SAP—no risk to the business and complete freedom to accept or reject recommendations.
- Method + platform: Intuiflow delivered the DDMRP logic (buffer positioning/sizing, demand filtering) inside a simple, operationally clear UI.
- Expandable footprint: With early results in hand, Frulact expanded Intuiflow across six of eight plants.
“As soon as we saw the first material requests, we found how easy to use and easy to implement it was. It’s not intrusive to our ecosystem—we could try it in parallel, see the advantage, see the results, and keep using it. We’re very happy with the results.”
— Rogério Silva
What Changed
- From forecasts to flow: Buffers tuned to lead times and consumption protected availability without overbuying during short harvest windows.
- Side-by-side confidence: Teams compared SAP vs. DDMRP recommendations daily, building trust through proof—not disruption.
- One clear signal: Planners moved from spreadsheet workarounds to visual priorities that show exactly where to act and why.
The Results: Cash Back, Risk Down, Service Protected
- €2M reduction in raw-material inventory directly attributable to DDMRP.
- €1.5M increase in working capital—fuel for growth, not shelf life.
- Six plants live (and counting), running a repeatable demand-driven model.
Just what any growing, perishable-supply business needs.
Future-Proof Your Supply Chain with Intuiflow
Frulact’s transformation demonstrates how Intuiflow helps complex, global manufacturers simplify planning, cut inventory, and sustain growth through real-time visibility and adaptive control.
Intuiflow connects materials planning, scheduling, and execution in one unified platform. Planners manage by priorities, not firefighting, with AI-optimized buffers and live dashboards showing exactly where attention is needed.
Intuiflow: One Platform. Four Core Solutions
Intuiflow is Smarter by Design
With Autopilot, Intuiflow’s AI engine continuously tunes buffers to maintain service while minimizing inventory. Embedded Power BI analytics make performance transparent, and seamless SAP integration ensures data accuracy and fast deployment.
See how Intuiflow can help your organization move from forecast-driven complexity to demand-driven flow.
👉 Book an Intuiflow demo here to see how it can help you unlock results.
