Fulcher’s uses 450 to 500 ingredients, raw materials and more in the 40 to 60 prepared seafood meals it manufactures and sells to consumers through retailers and restaurants.

Results:

•             Double production without hiring new employees
•             Accurate, real-time inventory enables on-time production & delivery
•             Stress- and hassle-free food safety audits
•             8% drop in overuse and more accurate costing boost margins

When the pandemic first shutdown restaurants, Fulcher’s sales and production doubled in just three months.  Rather than hire five new employees to handle the admin overload, Fulcher’s scaled up with Mar-Kov batch control to manage everything associated with twice the production.

Mar-Kov was the only option when the alternative was hiring, onboarding and then training five fulltime admin [clerical] employees as Fulcher’s ramped up to 10/11 weekly shifts from six.

When Chaz Fulcher and his sister/business partner Christina Fulcher-Cahoon launched their prepared food business in 2016, they relied on the pens and spreadsheets that had served the family business so well for generations. As the business grew, Chaz needed instant access to accurate, current data to order raw materials and ingredients, schedule production and meet food safety compliance requirements.

HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point), FDA FSMA (Food Safety Modernization Act) and SQF (Safe Quality Food) certification are mandatory from a regulatory perspective and a pre-requisite with 80% of Fulcher’s customers.

Every year, Fulcher’s Seafood faces eight scheduled audits as well as random audits. Fulcher’s team uses Mar-Kov reports to get the detailed data they need in minutes instead of hours. The reports tell them which company supplied an ingredient, when it arrived, which batch it went into, when the finished product was shipped and to which customer.

Instant access to precise, detailed information is crucial because if auditors identify an issue, companies like Fulcher’s have three to seven days to resolve it, otherwise their certification may be pulled or the plant could be shuttered.

“Thanks to Mar-Kov’s detailed tracking, we also decreased overuse by 8% – which allowed us to maintain our margins without increasing or prices with gives us a competitive edge with customers,” says Chaz.