Automated Settlement Process & Freight Spot Market Cost Avoidance for Tasty Brands

About Tasty Brands

Tasty Brands is an innovative provider of USDA-compliant meals for K-12 school districts across the nation. When “every bite is an adventure,” sourcing ingredients, packaging, etc. at high volumes relies on a carefully orchestrated supply chain that ensures meals make it to cafeterias on-time.

As a fast-growing company with a national footprint, Tasty Brands faced growing pains in managing their freight operations. Manual processes, limited visibility, and the inordinate time needed to plan FTL’s with multiple stops were causing unnecessary delays and eating into productivity. Looking to expand farther into the retail private brands market, Tasty Brands realized a transportation management system (TMS) might serve up a delicious approach to streamline their supply chain.

Challenges

At its core, Tasty Brands thrives on a commitment to delivering excellence. Their team is driven to exceed customer expectations and provide nutritious meals – but as their operations scaled, managing freight became more complex.

The team relied on manual processes to manage shipments, and information was scattered across multiple systems and spreadsheets. Coordinating multi-stop, full truckload (FTL) shipments while optimizing loads and planning routes felt like piecing together a puzzle with missing pieces.

For a company that values urgency and proactivity, this lack of visibility and efficiency was a roadblock. They needed a centralized platform—a “one-stop shop for information”—to simplify freight management and provide real-time insights across all modes of transportation.

Why Shipwell

When asked why they chose Shipwell over other solutions, the Tasty Brands team highlighted several key factors:

• Ease of use: Shipwell’s intuitive, clean, and browser-based platform made adoption simple for both their team and their carriers.
• Comprehensive capabilities: From centralized TMS functionality to real-time shipment visibility and load optimization, Shipwell’s platform delivered everything Tasty Brands needed in one place.
• Proactive partnership: Shipwell’s team went above and beyond to understand TastyBrands’ unique needs and ensure the solution was tailored to their goals.
• Reporting & KPI’s: With so many spreadsheets used for various shipment types, it was becoming impossible to manually track freight spend and carrier KPI’s. Shipwell’s outstanding analytic function is used daily for light tasks and weekly for heavy reporting.

"By leveraging Shipwell’s platform, we’ve saved a lot of time manual logistics processes,from building multi stoptrucks to the tendering of shipments. The automation and centralized visibility have streamlined our operations,allowing us to focus on more strategic tasks instead of getting bogged-down in logistics details.Additionally, our A/PDepartment has enjoyed a significant reduction of hours using the Settlement feature to avoid manually processing each invoice."
- Christine Miller, Director of Logistics at Tasty Brands

Solution

Tasty Brands partnered with Shipwell to achieve their vision of a smarter, more efficient supply chain. Shipwell’s TMS provided the tools they needed to centralize freight operations, optimize processes, and gain end-to-end shipment visibility—all from a single, easy-to-use platform.

From the start, the implementation process ran smoothly, with onboarding completed much quicker than Tasty Brands anticipated. Shipwell’s team demonstrated a deep understanding of Tasty Brands’ business, tailoring the platform to meet their specific needs.

Using Shipwell’s TMS, Tasty Brands was able to:

• Centralize freight management into one accessible, web-based system.
• Plan and optimize multi-stop FTL loads with ease.
• Gain visibility across all modes of transportation in real time.
• Simplify the settlement process for carrier payments.

The platform’s intuitive design and browser-based accessibility made it a hit with Tasty Brands’ team and carriers alike, ensuring a seamless adoption process.

"Shipwell’s customer service has been exceptional. Their team took the time to understand our unique needs and provided a tailored solution that truly set them apart. Whenever we’ve had questions or needed support, they've been quick to respond and proactive in helping us find the best path forward."
- Christine Miller, Director of Logistics at Tasty Brands

With Shipwell in their corner, Tasty Brands experienced immediate and measurable results. Over the past year, the partnership delivered key benefits such as:

• Significant dollar savings in cost avoidance on FTL spot bid processes: By leveraging Shipwell’s tools to optimize freight spot market bidding and carrier selection, Tasty Brands significantly reduced shipping costs. 
• Multiple hours saved each week: Process optimization and automation to build efficient multi stop trucks saved the team at least two full workdays every week, allowing them to focus on higher-value tasks. 
• Less stress, more success: The true surprise was the scope of the day-to-day improvements. From better communication with carriers to faster access to critical information, the platform has been a game-changer for Tasty Brands’ logistics team.

And the benefits don’t stop there. Thanks to Shipwell’s commitment to continuous improvement, the Tasty Brands team knows their logistics solution is built to grow alongside them.

Looking Forward

Tasty Brands is already looking forward to what’s next with Shipwell. They recently implemented Swifty, Shipwell’s AI-powered logistics assistant, and Settlement Automation, Shipwell’s automated freight settlement function. With Swifty, they can now create orders, retrieve tracking updates, and automatically classify shipment documentation 24/7/365. And with Settlements, they can streamline their entire freight payment process, including AI automation that compares settlement documents against shipment financials for prompt discrepancy resolution. In both cases, Tasty Brands is eager to measure the ROI on these features.

The next step? A full ERP integration with Shipwell once Tasty Brands completes their internal ERP system implementation. By connecting these systems, Tasty Brands will unlock even greater efficiencies and insights, ensuring their supply chain scales with their growing business.