Company Profile

Carter & Spencer is a leading supplier of quality fresh fruit and vegetables, produce logistics and marketing services to Australian and international markets. Its unique produce sourcing capabilities allows it to maintain long standing domestic as well as building international relationships.

New Zealand company Foodstuffs is the country’s largest grocery distributor and one of its largest businesses. Comprised of three main cooperatives, Foodstuffs are leading distributors throughout New Zealand and own and manage extensive warehousing and transport operations. 

Business Issues

With a new distribution centre supplying a network of 80 supermarkets throughout New Zealand, Foodstuffs, in a joint venture with Carter & Spencer needed to ensure that they had the correct systems to manage the dc both cost effectively and efficiently.

A customer since 1992, Carter & Spencer have long been convinced of Ironbark Software's expertise in developing exceptional fresh produce management software. It's no surprise then, that with the very specific requirements of the Foodstuffs joint venture, they knew Ironbark Software was the right company for the job.

The new distribution centre is designed to be lean and streamline in all areas of its operation with cost, labour and time saving high on the list of priorities. 

The Solution

With a system based on the Ironbark Wholesale Distribution core application, the Foodstuffs distribution centre is able to accept orders directly from many supermarkets concurrently, consolidate those orders and send them straight on to its suppliers automatically.

The ability to track pallets between the supplier, distribution centre and the supermarket is key in controlling costs. Using the Pallet and Crate module, Foodstuffs are able to keep account of pallet use and charge accordingly.

To ensure compliance with industry practice and legal requirements, RF technology and mobile barcode scanners are used to provide accurate traceability of particular grower lots to individual stores.  

The system also uses XML implementations of eCommerce to forward invoices to Foodstuffs as well as automatic faxing of purchase orders to suppliers and shipping advices to stores.

Why Choose Ironbark?

Carter and Spencer and Foodstuffs have identified their reasons for choosing Ironbark Software as:

• Extensive experience in software development in industry
• Consultative approach to solutions development
• Seamless integration of modules
• User friendliness of systems
• Cost effectiveness
• Quick and problem free implementations

The Benefits

Ironbark Software is essential to the smooth running of the Foodstuffs distribution centre. Along with the fully integrated financial modules, the company has the ability to manage the business through one software solution.

The Ironbark Fresh system is developed in C#, the most current development language and part of the Microsoft .NET environment. Working on the C# platform means that Foodstuffs benefit from the greatest range of functionality from their system as well as the flexibility of a system capable of adding integrating new technologies.

What the Customer Says:

"... we were confident that Ironbark Software would do a good job for us, but they have exceeded our expectations. The level of benefits we are deriving from Ironbark’s innovative use of new technologies is outstanding – they listened when we outlined our priorities and developed a system which really addresses those issues.”  Rod O'Kane, CEO, Carter and Spencer.