Yasso Frozen Greek Yogurt continues to disrupt the ice cream industry by providing healthier alternatives to traditional, well-established name brands.
Founded by two childhood friends turned competitive athletes, Yasso believes consumers should never have to sacrifice taste for nutrition or settle for the high-calorie choices found in traditional premium brands.
Looking to provide a superior alternative, partners Amanda and Drew developed their product, created buzz through good old-fashioned footwork, and launched a delicious variety of flavors in 2011. Experiencing sustained growth and a burst of fulfillment requests, they partnered with Chainalytics to improve their ability to respond to the increasing demand for their product and the supply challenges facing their market.
Planning production in a highly seasonal demand environment as a small player relying on third party manufacturers is challenging in and of itself. The previous year, product recalls affecting the entire ice cream industry created co-manufacturing capacity shortages, making it difficult for Yasso to maintain the fulfillment pipeline.
As a result, case fill metrics were low and conversations with key accounts were focused more on service issues than on promoting the brand and introducing new products. Further complicating the situation, Yasso’s supply chain manager found their existing planning process and tools failed to provide adequate visibility into the current low inventory situations or a timeline as to when the company could recover from it. Seeking outside expertise, Yasso asked Chainalytics to further review their planning process and identify areas for improvement.
After a thorough assessment, Chainalytics discovered a number of issues. For starters, Yasso’s on-hand inventory system accuracy was suspect, with confidence only in the numbers at the beginning of the month after a cycle count. Second, the existing tool’s projections of future inventory projections were based on two flawed assumptions — that all orders would be filled and that product supply after the first frozen month was not limited. Finally, the information coming from co-packers about the status of production was largely incomplete, resulting in occasional surprises when trucks would arrive at Yasso’s warehouse.
To address these issues, Chainalytics worked with Yasso to improve the planning process through better data and a more realistic view of supplier’s capabilities and limitations. Yasso took a “boots on the ground” approach to visit each co-manufacturer to better understand their resources, equipment, constraints, and concerns.
Building trust and developing win-win relationships was key to improving information sharing that is necessary to support a good planning process. Chainalytics also replaced Yasso’s home-grown planning spreadsheet with the Planscape Production Planning (P3) application to improve visibility into the current supply chain situation and to create realistic capacity-constrained plans going forward. The tool also allowed the running of “what-if” test scenarios to understand the impact of potential changes in demand and supplier capabilities.
With the new planning process in place, Yasso has experienced significant benefits. By utilizing accurate supplier data along with the Planscape technology, Yasso has realized significant customer service improvements, moving from worst to first in their current case fill percentage of 99.3%.
With the new planning process in place, Yasso has experienced significant benefits. By utilizing accurate supplier data along with the Planscape technology, Yasso has realized significant customer service improvements, moving from worst to first in their current case fill percentage of 99.3%.
As a result, they have improved their ranking in the novelties category and they continue to drive expansion within the category while experiencing faster growth than other top brands. According to co-founder Amanda Klane, “Our success is due in large part to the knowledgeable advisors and employees that support our company and growth.” The partnership with Chainalytics has allowed the organization to navigate the complexities of specialty product supply as they continue to expand their brand across North America.
