Shelf life is a clock, and at 3% net a $3,000 pallet in the dumpster takes $100,000 of sales to earn back. The list of lots about to breach a customer's spec lives in somebody's head.
We run the short-date sweep every morning, lot by lot: how many days are left, which accounts can still legally take it, and what it is worth, so the product ships instead of getting dumped.
We do it for you. Your workload goes down, not up.
- LOT-447119 days left · offer drafted, $3,100
- LOT-4488FEFO forced onto the pick ticket
- GRN-2209inbound short of spec → held on dock
- KDE-0731capturing CTEs as it ships
01/Where the hours go
The work quietly eating your team's week.
01
The short-date list rebuilt by hand off a lot report when there is time, while FEFO at the pick face means whatever is in the front bin
02
Foodservice orders taken by phone, text, email and portal from 5am, with catch-weight pricing and substitutions decided from memory
03
Traceability records assembled for a recall or a customer audit by walking two days of paper, lot tags and spreadsheets
02/How the system works
The daily short-date sweep.
Before the pick starts, the system reads the lot table in your ERP against every customer's remaining-shelf-life spec and the open order book: this lot has 21 days left, that account's spec is 30, so it cannot ship there and it can ship to these two accounts today. It writes a dated action list per lot with the dollars at risk on each one, reserves short lots against the orders that can legally take them, forces FEFO onto the pick ticket instead of front-bin picking, and drafts the offer to the accounts that will take a shorter code at a price you set. At receiving it holds any pallet whose shelf life on arrival breaches your inbound spec, before it is put away and forgotten. Your purchasing lead approves the moves and the pricing. Nothing is discounted automatically.
- 01
Read the lot table
Every lot, date code and quantity on hand is read out of Aptean or Produce Pro each morning, alongside the open order book.
- 02
Score the clock
Days of shelf life left are checked against each customer's remaining-shelf-life spec, with the dollars at risk on every lot.
- 03
Place the product
Short lots are reserved to the accounts that can legally take them, the offer goes out on iTradeNetwork or the lane they already order on, and FEFO is forced onto the pick ticket.
- 04
Keep the record
CTEs and KDEs are captured as the product moves, and inbound pallets short of your shelf-life spec are held on the dock.
- /Native integrations. We write into the systems you already run (Prophet 21, NetSuite, SX.e, Acumatica, Cin7, or QuickBooks and a folder of spreadsheets), not a parallel tool you have to adopt.
- /Real document extraction. We parse the emailed PO, the scanned packing list, the portal export and the retailer's deduction detail reliably, not regex on a happy path.
- /Multi-system orchestration that handles exceptions. The line keyed as eaches instead of cases, the contract price that expired, the SKU that is not in the item master: routed to a person with the backup attached, not dropped.
- /Built to run in production for years. Monitored and maintained under the partnership, not handed over and abandoned.
03/What it's worth
Recover the money, get ahead of it, keep the customer.
01
Ship it instead of dumping it
Every lot inside 10 days of a customer's spec gets a name, a price and a dollar figure of dump avoided, on a list that exists every single morning.
02
Catch it on the dock
Shelf life on arrival is checked at receiving, so the pallet that was never going to make spec is held on the dock before put-away, with the credit taken from the vendor while the paperwork still supports it.
03
Pass the audit, keep the account
CTEs and KDEs are captured as the product moves, not reconstructed afterward. If anything you carry sits on the FDA's Food Traceability List, the records become enforceable July 20, 2028: the continuing appropriations act Congress passed in November 2025 directed the FDA not to enforce the rule before that date. If nothing you carry is on the list, your customers' audit requirements still are.
04/Is this you?
You're a VP of Operations, Director of Purchasing, Food Safety & QA Manager, or the Owner / President / CFO who feels it, at a US distributor doing $10M-$100M with the work above spread across three people and a spreadsheet.
One lot report and one customer's shelf-life spec is the whole ask. Your QA manager does not have to prepare anything for this call.
Start with a 30-minute scoping call.
Andrew walks your Food & Beverage workflows, tells you plainly what is worth automating, and what it would take.
We do it for you. Your workload goes down, not up.