Absolute Nutrition connects retail, wholesale and online operations with Odoo

About the client

Absolute Nutrition is an Irish manufacturer of natural snacks and healthy energy balls, producing products for consumers looking for healthier and more convenient snack options.

As the business grew from local and direct sales into retail, wholesale and eCommerce, the number of customers, orders and sales channels it needed to manage increased significantly.

Absolute Nutrition now sells through channels including Lidl in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, Musgrave, BWG stores through Frontier Foods, independent retailers, hospitality customers, wholesale partners in Great Britain and its own Shopify store.

The challenge

When Target Integration became involved, much of Absolute Nutrition’s operation was still supported by paper, spreadsheets, email, a standalone web shop and a separate accounting package.

As the company expanded, managing information across these different systems became increasingly difficult:

• Disconnected information: customer, order, stock and production information was spread across different systems.
• Manual order entry: orders from the web shop, distributors and retailers often required information to be entered more than once.
• Limited stock visibility: tracking inventory, batches, lots and best-before dates became increasingly important as sales volumes grew.
• Knowledge held by individuals: important customer history and operational knowledge often sat with Jo and a small number of team members.
• Difficult handovers: customer and account information was harder to retain when responsibilities or team members changed.
• Growing traceability requirements: the business needed a stronger way to connect manufacturing, batches and customer orders.

The solution

Target Integration implemented Odoo as Absolute Nutrition’s central business platform, bringing CRM, sales, inventory, manufacturing, purchasing and invoicing into one connected environment.

Shopify was integrated with Odoo to connect online orders with the wider business process, while Target Integration also manages Microsoft 365 and provides ongoing user, system and application support.

From paperwork to traceable customer orders

One particularly important improvement has been the way Absolute Nutrition manages product traceability.

Previously, some distribution-centre orders were not being managed through a sufficiently controlled digital process, making it more difficult to link manufactured products back to individual customer orders.

By creating and managing each order within Odoo, Absolute Nutrition can now maintain a clearer connection between what is manufactured, the relevant batch or lot, and the customer it is supplied to.

For a food manufacturer working with major retailers and distributors, this provides a much stronger foundation for traceability, documentation and customer compliance requirements.

The outcome

• One central place to view customers, orders, inventory and sales activity.
• Less manual re-keying between eCommerce, sales and finance processes.
• Better visibility of stock, batches and lots.
• Stronger traceability between manufactured products and individual customer orders.
• Customer and sales history remains within the business when team members change.
• Sales information can be analysed more effectively to support retail and network growth planning.
• Reduced reliance on spreadsheets, inboxes and paper-based processes.
• Better readiness for retailer, traceability and food-industry documentation requirements.
• A small team can manage retail, wholesale, export and online sales through a more connected operating model.

Supporting growth across multiple sales channels

Absolute Nutrition now manages a varied mix of routes to market, including Lidl in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, Musgrave, BWG stores through Frontier Foods, independent retailers, hospitality customers, wholesale partners in Great Britain and direct online sales through Shopify.

For a relatively small team, managing these different customer types through disconnected systems would create considerable additional administration.

Odoo provides a central record of customers, orders and sales activity, while the Shopify integration brings online orders into the wider operational process.

This gives the team a more consistent way to manage different channels as the business continues to grow.

Where else this approach works

The same combination of ERP, eCommerce integration, manufacturing and traceability can support growing product businesses managing multiple sales channels and increasing operational complexity.