Stone Brewing & Flock Freight:
The road to delivering supply chain magic, together
Forecasting
Here’s how Stone Brewing and Flock Freight plan for the future
- Develop accurate forecasts over an 18-month horizon, ensuring a disciplined monthly review cycle
- Manage material master data and maintain demand planning data
- Monitor key performance indicators such as forecast accuracy and bias
- Collaborate across teams to manage new product launches
- Build a clear path for short term and long term organizational needs
- Integrate market intelligence into the pricing strategy & educate customers
- Review shipper pricing contracts & spot market rates
- Prepare for market fluctuations and industry seasonality
- Plan product enhancements that consistently improve the customer and carrier experience
Suppliers
A strong supply base is essential to keep both businesses running.
- Identify, evaluate, and choose suppliers for raw materials and components
- Manage supplier relationships and negotiate contracts
- Ensure compliance with quality and regulatory standards
- Coordinate with suppliers to source materials that meet forecasted production volumes
- Cans, Bottles, Kegs
- Malt (Bagged and Bulk)
- Hops, Special Ingredients, Chemicals
- Boxes, Paperboard, Labels
- Crowns, Pallets
- All other specialty items as needed
- Develop accurate forecasts over an 18-month horizon, ensuring a disciplined monthly review cycle
- Manage material master data and maintain demand planning data
- Monitor key performance indicators such as forecast accuracy and bias
- Collaborate across teams to manage new product launches
- Build a clear path for short term and long term organizational needs
Planning
Supply planning is based on sales and the forecast, so that products remain consistently available to meet customer demand.Production planning includes two key areas:
- Brewing: Manages production schedules based on fermentation times for optimal brewing.
- Packaging: Focuses on targeting specific days on hand to ensure a steady supply of finished goods.
This dual approach efficiently converts raw materials into final products.
Building, maintaining, and improving the AI-powered freight pooling technology that creates Shared Truckloads at scale.
Customer-specific protocols are created to ensure service KPIs are met.
Integrating unique requirements into Flock’s tech, like appointments and food-grade safety, ensures goods are moved safely and arrive on time.
Customer Relationships
- Stone sells their product to distributors. Distributors in every state ensure Stone’s beer reaches each retailer. The retailer ultimately sells beer to the end consumer.
- Stone’s sales team collaborates with distributors to secure commitments from both large and small retailers so that the product is widely available across the US.
- Scaling Flock’s customer network enables better Shared Truckload matches through compatible commodities, like food-grade items, and shipments that pick up or deliver at the same facilities.
- Flock builds relationships with shipping locations to accommodate customer requirements like appointments.
Shipping
This is where Flock Freight comes in as a strategic shipping partner, optimizing Stone’s internal transfers and outbound distribution shipments to meet their budget and service KPIs.
When Stone tenders a shipment to Flock through their TMS, it enters this process. For shipments that don’t fill an entire trailer and can’t be optimized with other Stone shipments, they will be pooled into Shared Truckloads.
Flow
Because Stone brews and packages to order, their operations are designed to support both product integrity and customer satisfaction, ensuring every shipment meets quality standards from production to delivery. This results in varying order sizes, all of which Flock routes through the most optimal mode.
Because Stone brews and packages to order, their operations are designed to support both product integrity and customer satisfaction, ensuring every shipment meets quality standards from production to delivery. This results in varying order sizes, all of which Flock routes through the most optimal mode.
Flock shipping modes leveraged by Stone
Flock provides Stone with several options to move their freight depending on the load requirements. Together, we take a holistic approach to their transportation program, optimizing for lower costs, best service, and fuller trucks.
Shared Truckload (STL):
Used for mid-sized shipments or less frequent lanes, helping Stone reduce cost and maintain quality by sharing trailer space with other Flock shippers. Through STL, Stone maintains truckload-level service, only paying for the trailer space they use, and avoiding the risks associated with LTL.
Multi-Stop FTL:
Enables Stone to consolidate multiple of their own orders and serve multiple distributors on a single route, improving efficiency while maintaining delivery timelines.
Full Truckload (FTL):
Primary mode, used for high-volume, direct shipments to distributors.
Sr. Transportation Manager, Sapporo-Stone Brewing
Customer First Mindset
Stone’s customers are distributors who rely on timely, consistent deliveries to meet demand in their local markets. Stone prioritizes meeting their customers’ needs while ensuring the product is transported within strict
quality guidelines.
Flock serves brands that depend on timely and secure deliveries. Committed to meeting strict delivery standards and following customer SOPs, Flock ensures reliability at every step. They take a proactive, solution-oriented approach to resolving issues, addressing challenges with efficiency and care.
Consumers
The end customer is the key driver of Stone's supply chain, influencing production, inventory, and distribution. Ensuring product availability and a smooth purchasing experience is critical for satisfaction and loyalty. Stone works with Flock to deliver beer to distributors on time, keeping retailers stocked so customers can always enjoy their favorite brews.
You share a beer, we share a truck.
About Sapporo-Stone Brewing
Now one company, Sapporo-Stone Brewing is among the 15 largest breweries in the U.S. and operates production facilities in Escondido, CA and Richmond, VA plus seven Stone Brewing tap room and bistro locations. Sapporo-Stone's long list of environmental efforts includes a LEED Silver Certification, world-class water reclamation and creative uses of spent grain. To find Sapporo and Stone beers, visit find.stonebrewing.com and sapporobeer.com/find-sapporo. For more information visit stonebrewing.com and sapporobeer.com.
