Published March 13, 2009
About Bellisio Foods
The Bellisio brands – Michelina’s, Lean Gourmet, Budget Gourmet, BUNdino’s, Joy of Cooking, Bellisio Foods Canada, and Bellisio Foods Australia – are found in restaurants and retail stores worldwide. The company’s brands stock the shelves at Albertsons, Food Lion, Kroger, Supervalu, and Wal-Mart among many other retailers, supermarkets and national chain restaurants in the United States, Canada, Australia, Russia, and China.
For its retail and food service partners, the Fusion Culinary Center R&D team continually adds value and creativity in products to drive its customers’ sales, and the manufacturing and distribution teams provide excellent service with nearly 99% accurate product delivery every day.
Headquartered in Minnesota, Bellisio Foods produces an average of two million meals a day at its main facility, and it can produce 4.9 million pizza snack rolls per day in 21 varieties.
The company utilizes more than 500 tons of raw materials per day, including 6,000 gallons of cream and 40,000 pounds of cheese. It is the third largest producer of frozen entres in the U.S.
The Challenge
With the rapid growth from its new business lines beyond the Michelina’s brand, Bellisio is near capacity at its existing manufacturing and production facilities. The company needed to develop a distribution network strategy to support the growth of its existing business lines as well as its expanding customer base.
Bellisio called upon Tompkins International (Tompkins) to formulate network alternatives to support its growth. The analysis included capital expenditures, transportation expenses, four-wall operating expenses, inventory carrying costs, service time, and risk mitigation. Tompkins’ supply chain experts provided a high-level, long-range distribution network plan that was driven by the results of the transportation analysis. The plan will decrease long-term operating expenses by consolidating facilities and optimizing facility locations to minimize transportation expenses.
The Results
By implementing the plan, Bellisio will experience reduced operating expenses and improved service time, and the company will be more competitive due to increased capacity and optimum locations. Conditions are now favorable for the growth projections to become a reality, and the opportunity is available for outsourcing additional manufacturing. Overall, Bellisio will be able to grow more rapidly with lower operational expenses and additional capacity for warehousing and manufacturing.
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The plan that Tompkins created for us is just what we were looking for. We had an idea of what we needed to accomplish, and they were able to give us the data we need to move forward with our growth and cost-saving strategies.
— Mike Evans
VP of Supply Chain
Bellisio Foods
