AlmonDinA® BrAnD CookiES

CASE STUDY
Almondina Brand Cookies
®
CUSTOMER
PROFILE
The commercial bakery of Almondina® Brand Cookies,
produced by YZ Enterprises, Inc., makes toasted almond
biscuits that are all-natural, non-dairy, Kosher and Parve,
with no added fat or salt, no cholesterol or preservatives,
carried by major retailers such as Trader Joes, Whole
Foods, Costco and Walmart – to name a few. They employ
about 35 people at their office, warehouse and bakery
in Maumee, Ohio where they make more than 180,000
cookies per shift. Founder and CEO, Yuval Zaliouk grew
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up loving his grandmother Dina’s cookies; in 1989, he
launched Almondina® Brand Cookies, named after Dina,
in his kitchen and within seven years, the biscuits - now
available in a dozen flavor variations - are sold in 50
states and seven foreign countries. The family owned and
operated company includes Zaliouk’s wife, Susan Zaliouk,
as Vice President, their daughter, Tamar Markham as VP
of Finance/Treasurer and son-in-law, Jason Markham as
VP of Sales and Marketing.
THE
CHALLENGE
The company used to run their
operations on a Microsoft Great
Plains system, but they
switched to JustFoodERP
because they wanted
an Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP) system
built specifically for the
food industry, to meet
more of their requirements
than just accounting, says
Tamar Markham, VP, Finance/
Treasurer. “Our shortcomings
were on the manufacturing side.
We had to address this since we are a
growing food manufacturing company - and
we had to do it quickly.” As part of the Global Food
Safety Initiative (GFSI), a third-party GMP food
safety and quality audit was booked, and Costco
was waiting for audit results to decide if they
would do business with Almondina®. “Overall, we
noticed the trend towards food safety and quality
certification in the industry, and we wanted to get
ahead of that curve,” says Markham.
To meet these demands, the company fast-
tracked their ERP selection process, first looking
at SysPro since that software system is used by
their off-site chocolatier. “But after reviewing
JustFoodERP, we saw that it was more user-friendly
and scalable,” says Markham. “We
like the Microsoft platform of
JustFoodERP because of the
layout; it’s familiar to our
employees since we had
been working on Great
Plains.”
Aside from their
impending third-
party audit, other
factors complicated and
accelerated the bakery’s need
for the right ERP system. Their
multi-step baking process, which
happens over a period of days, is unique
to the industry. As well, “growth at Almondina is
pretty intense,” notes Markham. “We’ve almost
maximized our seven day/week shift so we are
moving in the direction of needing to introduce a
second shift in the bakery.” The company has also
just launched a new product line called Almondina®
Toastees™ - mini toasts available in resealable
packages in 5.25 oz. pouches for retail and 17.5 oz.
pouches for bulk retailers. The new ERP system had
to be in place and working well, notes Markham,
since “my husband [Jason Markham, VP of Sales and
Marketing] and I are featured on the Almondina®
Toastee™ packaging! In 2014, we’ll be busy
promoting the product across the country.”
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THE
SOLUTION
At the start of the project, the JustFoodERP team
visited the Maumee, OH bakery to “watch what
we do,” says Markham. “Our COO sat down with
JustFoodERP’s business analyst and project manager”
to map out the baking design to the ERP system.
YZ Enterprises, Inc. went live with JustFoodERP in
July 2013. A couple of months before that, Markham
attended JustFoodERP Customer Connect, the annual
user event held in Vegas. “I got a lot out of the event,
learned even more about JustFoodERP from industry
peers and from all the JustFoodERP product experts.”
Markham says the working relationship with
JustFoodERP as a partner, both during and since
implementation, has been “unbelievably good… the
business analysts and technical support people are
amazing. Even with the executives at JustFoodERP, I
feel like I know them really well,” says Markham. “It’s
been a seamless process; even when one of our main
contacts is out of town, we get a response right
away from JustFoodERP.”
THE
BENEFITS
The company got successful accreditation for
food safety and quality from a leading third-party
auditor - a result Almondina staff attributes in large
part to the superlative lot traceability and recall
functionality within JustFoodERP. “We finished our
traceability and mock recall requirements with
JustFoodERP in just 30 minutes,”
notes Markham. “It used
to take us days!” As
for that very large
customer waiting
in the wings for
the audit to pass they won Costco’s
business, fueling
Almondina’s growth
even further.
In the few months since
implementation, the company is reaping many other
benefits of their JustFoodERP system.
“We noticed the trend towards food safety and quality certification in the
industry, and we wanted to get ahead of that curve… Traceability and recall
functionality within JustFoodERP helped us gain our GMP certification - and win
Costco as a customer!”
- Tamar Markham, VP, Finance/Treasurer, Almondina Brand Cookies
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(cont’d)
THE
BENEFITS
“We like the routing functionality, its flexibility
regarding WIPs and finished goods,” notes
Markham, and “with lot tracking within
JustFoodERP, we’ve cut down an insane amount of
warehouse hours… now we know what’s happened
to all the finished goods all the time.”
She continues: “The costing component is amazing,
the fact that I can go to my item card and know
that costing is accurate for each SKU! And we’re
madly in love with the sales invoice profitability
report we get from our JustFoodERP system. We
look at it like crazy to see which customers we’re
making money on and which ones we’re not.”
THE
FUTURE
“We’re looking forward to using more of the
production planning and scheduling functionality
in JustFoodERP,” says Markham. They also intend
to roll out the mobile warehouse management
functionality, called JF Floor, in the next year, and “we
want to learn more about how to extract information
out of the system, with reporting.”
SOLUTION SUMMARY
JustFoodERP and Microsoft Dynamics
Location: Maumee, OH - offices, bakery, warehouse.
Implemented Modules:
Financials & Reporting; Manufacturing, including
Production Planning & Scheduling; Food Safety; Quality
Management; Inventory Management; WMS.
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“
The JustFoodERP team has been amazing…
even with the executives at JustFoodERP, I
feel like I know them really well. It’s been a
seamless process; even when one of our main
contacts is out of town, we get a response
”
right away from JustFoodERP.
- Tamar Markham, VP, Finance/Treasurer
Almondina Brand Cookies