Small bakeries see the merit of production control

9 August 2011 – Small and medium sized bakeries are being given the opportunity to achieve a level of control over their profit margins that has previously only been available to considerably larger operations.

The Works Orders and Stock Control aspects of Merit Technology’s flagship Food Management System (FMS) are flexible enough to apply to any company involved in food production and provide a comprehensive solution to the familiar headache of how to plan and control production, whilst also keeping a handle on costs and ensuring everything is completely traceable.

Bill Ward from Merit, who are based at Kent Science Park in Sittingbourne, Kent, said, “Production control systems are nothing new to this industry, the very biggest bakeries have been using big name software packages to keep track of even the smallest costs and ensure consistency amongst batch mixes for years. However, these systems have always been priced way out of reach of the smaller independent food producers for whom this kind of control is arguably even more important.

“You can look at every ingredient to go into a mix and see what batch it came from, how much was used, the total cost of the ingredients and the total cost of the product: it allows you to fully understand and micromanage your material usage and thus your margins.

“What we’ve done with FMS is produce a suite of systems that has the functionality to rival any of the larger packages but that can be implemented on a scale, and at a cost, that is much more appropriate for those smaller businesses. This software will play a big part in really helping smaller food production companies to streamline their costs and realise considerably improved profits.”