Optimizing Seasonal Frozen Foods Supply Chain: A Giant’s Success Story

In the fast-moving frozen foods industry, especially where summer demand can skyrocket fivefold, precise timing isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s survival. The Magnum Ice Cream Company, operating in a market with a complex distributor network, faced the ultimate challenge: how to replenish over 1,000 SKUs to 130+ distributors daily, serving 200,000+ local customers, while keeping products cold, customers satisfied, and logistics costs under control.

With sales volumes surging dramatically between May and September and a product line that includes some of the most beloved frozen treats in the region, this company needed more than guesswork or gut feel. It required a synchronized planning engine that could outsmart the heat, the volatility, and the complexity, without missing a beat (or a scoop).

The Planning Puzzle

• The company needed more than just daily replenishment decisions or vehicle routing. They required a synchronized, intelligent planning system that could: Anticipate future demand and pre-ship accordingly
• Reduce the number of mixed pallets that include different SKUs to make picking and packing easier and faster in the warehouse
• Ensure balanced inventory distribution while honoring distributor capacity constraints

To tackle this complexity, they partnered with Solvoyo for an end-to-end planning transformation.

The Solvoyo Solution: Optimization in Action

Solvoyo’s platform integrated seamlessly with the manufacturer’s SAP and other execution systems, incorporating real-time operational data along with planning constraints captured via Solvoyo’s user interface.

Key planning inputs included:

• Distributor inventory snapshots
• Daily demand forecasts
• Target days of cover provided by the planning team

Minimum and maximum cover levels are generated using Solvoyo’s Distribution Requirements Planning (DRP) solution, which simulates annual transportation flows to account for distributor capacities, overflow warehouse needs, and warehouse in/out operations. These simulations dynamically update weekly inventory targets per distributor-product pair, aiming to identify pre-shipment opportunities, improve truck utilization, and reduce mixed pallet ratios.

Once replenishment quantities are calculated, Solvoyo’s vehicle routing module kicks in. Pre-defined route logic, mixed pallet ratio targets (6–8% during peak), and cold-chain constraints are all factored in to produce optimized, feasible transportation plans—without sacrificing cost or service levels.

Notably, during peak periods, pallet quantities are rounded to full layers, reducing handling time at warehouses nearly tenfold.

Tangible Results

With Solvoyo’s synchronized replenishment and transportation planning:

Time Spent Planning Was Cut to One-Third: Service and logistics teams reported a 3x reduction in planning time in 2024 compared to earlier years.

Higher Product Availability: Target inventory levels were consistently achieved without overloading the network.

Lean and Efficient Transportation: Vehicle utilization improved, mixed pallet ratios declined, and loading time dropped significantly.

All this while enabling user overrides and seamless pushback into SAP through Solvoyo’s Transport User Interface (TUI)—empowering planners without compromising automation.

Final Scoop

Whether you’re managing ice cream or inventory, planning in seasonal environments isn’t for the faint of heart. But with the right optimization tools, even the most temperature-sensitive supply chains can operate like clockwork.

Solvoyo’s platform helped this frozen foods leader turn their planning into a synchronized symphony, melting away inefficiencies, one truckload at a time.