While chocolate is considered a delicious dessert any time of year, it becomes quite the popular item from Christmas to Valentine’s Day. And what an opportunity for retailers who line the store shelves with an abundance of varieties of this sweet treat, wrapped in packaging that reflects the specific holiday. I’m always a bit in awe at the ability of food and beverage manufacturers to whip up a new recipe and packaging design for every season. How do they do that?
I asked Sunil Thomas, COO of Selerant, a maker of process product lifecycle management (PLM), how these seasonal products get conceived, produced and delivered in time—especially when there may be special ingredients added to the mix. The planning, Thomas said, requires a bit of reverse engineering. “They give us the on-shelf date and our system works backwards to calculate when they need to start the project.” Exact timing is important, otherwise, they could lose the window of opportunity around the holiday business.
