Specialty Foods Distributor Manages Customer Orders with Silver Creek Software’s Visual Produce Solution

“Success in the produce business is all about analyzing your operations to capture every penny of the industry’s thin price margins. To do that, we need to be very precise when it comes to pricing, palletizing, loading and delivering each order.

Since 2001, Silver Creek Software’s capabilities and full-range of products continue to give us greater flexibility to maintain our promise to customers: ‘Quality you can trust, service that delivers.’”

Michael, Baldor Specialty Foods
It’s All About Managing Complexity

The number of details that produce distributors and wholesalers must manage would make the average business owner’s head spin. The fact that all of the complexity must be managed under a ticking clock of perishability adds an extra level of stress that can test the nerves of even the most detail-oriented individuals. As the import/distribution business changes, Silver Creek Software continues to update Visual Produce to meet new needs. Through customization and 24/7 support, Silver Creek helps companies like Baldor meet the challenges of today’s market—and anticipate challenges just over the horizon.

Smart Transportation

Silver Creek Software’s Visual Produce solution shows warehouse personnel how to assemble and load orders while accounting for a wide range of produce handling specifications. It allows the team to create unloading strategies based on the availability of delivery-site resources like loading-docks and forklifts. The program also optimizes delivery route efficiency. “The routing dashboards in Visual Produce allow us to load our 300 trucks each night with ease. There’s no need for additional software,” says Steve Tufo, Baldor’s transportation director.



“We continue to be impressed by the customization of Silver Creek Software,” Muzyk says. “Success in the produce business is all about analyzing your operations to capture every penny of the industry’s thin price margins. To do that, we need to be very precise when it comes to pricing, palletizing, loading and delivering each order. Silver Creek gives us the flexibility to maintain our promise to customers: quality you can trust, service that delivers.”

Baldor is the leading importer and distributor of fresh produce on the East Coast. One of the company’s main competitive advantages is the ability to execute three complex workflows with consistency:
  • Manufacture, price, load, and ship 6,000 perishable items with frequent seasonal changes in availability
  • Maintain precise inventory control in three regional warehouses with dozens of climate zones
  • Manage and monitor delivery to businesses that range, as Baldor says, “from small restaurants to large stadiums.”
For the past 15 years, Baldor has relied on Silver Creek Software’s Visual Produce ERP to accomplish these critical tasks. As the company has grown, Visual Produce has evolved with it.

Michael Muzyk, Baldor President, recalls how Baldor first partnered with Silver Creek in 2001 to better systematize the company’s complicated pricing structure.

“Every Baldor customer has different needs,” Muzyk says, “and every customer is extremely important to us, so one-size-fits-all pricing was never an option. We needed a system that had customizable pricing matrices built into it.”

To meet increasing demand for processed produce, Baldor founded a Fresh Cut facility that offers more than 500 unique items on a daily basis. The move into manufacturing made the company’s need for flexible pricing even more pronounced. “Visual Produce allowed us to get in the manufacturing business,” Muzyk says with a smile.

Staying Small While Maximizing Profit

Baldor stays ahead in a highly competitive market by showing sensitivity to customer needs. The company understands the space constraints and slowdowns that are a reality for their client base and offers partial cases as a measure of convenience.

Muzyk notes that “the way Visual Produce lets us do this level of customization adds transparency and flexibility that keeps our customers happy, no matter their size.”

About Silver Creek Software

Silver Creek Software was established in 1983 in Boise, Idaho. Silver Creek Software dedicates its business exclusively to our Visual Produce ERP solutions. Visual Produce is a financial management program that is customizable and designed to address the business needs of fresh produce wholesalers, distributors, packers, shippers, processors, brokers and growers.