Welcome to the Smoke Show
How RSI is helping Smoking Goose achieve great results
What happens when you combine delicious slow cured and smoked meats with expert supply chain management and inventory support? A business that is truly on fire! Smoking Goose brings meat, salumi, and sausages prepared with “old world craft and new world flavor” from their home in Indianapolis. Chris Eley, founder and owner of Smoking Goose opened up shop in 2010. He wanted to bring a different type of experience to the world of specialty meats. Today, Smoking Goose offers over 40 different types of unique meats, sausages, and salumi that are shipped to discerning customers all over the world. Chris and team produce the most creative and interesting meats around like their Hillbelly sausage and Delaware Fireball salame. No matter what true meat-lovers crave, it can be found at Smoking Goose.
Strong sales and rapid growth are, of course, fantastic. Thanks to e-commerce technology, Smoking Goose shares their innovative meat offerings to more clients than ever before. However, good business results also bring real challenges. Producing unique meats with the care and expertise of a true craftsman is Chris’s passion. Managing inventory policies for materials and finished products across dozens of offerings took time and focus away from that passion.
Chris first connected with Right Sized Inventory (RSI) in late 2020 and sought help to keep Smoking Goose’s operations on track with the rapid growth in business the company was earning. He reached out to his friend and RSI COO Kevin Koonce to help him address inventory imbalances that were driven by Smoking Goose’s burgeoning success. The fine meats industry is highly susceptible to inventory issues. Too little inventory and demand will perish! Retail and restaurant customers take their business elsewhere when they can’t buy the product they want, when they want it. Too much inventory and the raw materials will perish! Spoilage is a real concern in the food industry.
Smoking Hot Business Results
Kevin and RSI’s predictive analytics support has enabled Smoking Goose to secure the right inventory to ensure customer demand is met without experiencing costly excess, perishable inventories. Chris estimates that Smoking Goose’s fill rate performed at about 85% prior to enlisting RSI’s help. That customer service level metric now stands at roughly 94%! Increased availability of the right product has led to fewer stockouts and more customers that are able to consistently enjoy the savory offerings from Smoking Goose.
Improved product availability can not only result in higher revenue and fewer stockouts, but it can also lead to more consistent demand patterns. Consider the following example with data that is captured for
the same Smoking Goose line item analyzed at different points in time. Both figures in this example are actual data visualization screen captures from the RSI system.
Figure A shows results from the initial analysis using RSI in late 2020. This line item has an average lead time in the range of 6–7 weeks so replenishing to demand is far from instantaneous. This product experienced frequent stockouts which caused demand fulfillment to become quite inconsistent. Because this item has a finite shelf-life, Smoking Goose was reluctant to increase production and inventory positions.
Figure B represents data from a late 2022 RSI analysis. These results reflect nearly two years of Smoking Goose leveraging RSI analytics and managed services. Of particular note, the percentage of zero demand days has reduced from nearly 80% in 2020 to just above 40% in late 2022. Long stretches of zero demand days can be indicative of lengthy stockouts. In addition, the average daily demand for this item has increased from about 2 units per day to nearly 9 per day, driven in large part to greater inventory availability.
Figure A
Figure B
RSI’s unique predictive analytics and data visualization capabilities have helped Smoking Goose set more effective inventory targets which have contributed to higher customer service, improved revenue, and more consistent demand patterns. At the same time, RSI has helped Chris and team maintain reasonable levels of inventory, avoid spoilage and gain more confidence in preparing for future demand growth.
Working capital invested in inventory is not the only valuable resource that is better utilized now. Smoking Goose previously spent nearly 20 people hours per week worth of time on production planning.
That was important time spent not on making handcrafted meats, but on sorting through sales plans, past demand, and inventory numbers to make good business decisions. With Kevin’s help and RSI’s inventory optimization and replenishment analytics, Chris is now able to make better production decisions within just a couple of hours every week.
Chris and his team are also able to make better decisions about where and how to position inventory that is used in multiple final products. For example, bacon may ultimately be packaged in several different ways to satisfy retail and restaurant customer demand. Because RSI’s patented predictive analytics engine accounts for real world parameters, the inventory optimization output provides inventory policies at an item and location level. This capability enables Smoking Goose to be better prepared for future orders by making smart production and inventory decisions today.
Beyond Inventory Management
Today, the RSI Managed Services team supports Smoking Goose in ways that go beyond inventory management. They provide recommendations and guidance to Chris and his team that augment RSI’s optimization results. Whether it's better demand visibility, replenishment recommendations, or scenario analysis, RSI managed services allow Smoking Goose to spend time on what they do best: producing out of this world meats.
Predictive analytics are not just for Fortune 500 companies. Businesses of all sizes benefit from RSI’s advanced simulation capabilities and easy-to-use data visualization. When RSI’s supply chain expertise is combined with our patented predictive analytics capabilities, businesses can truly focus on delivering value to their customers without becoming bogged down by inventory challenges.
Smoking Goose is able to focus on delivering the best possible products at reasonable prices, in part, because of the strong working relationship with RSI. Orders of their delicious meats are more consistently available in full and on time. The smoke show at Smoking Goose continues without perishable demand and working capital going up in flames!
