Tessel Foods makes chilled meals for supermarkets in five countries. Orders grew faster than the plants could follow. We spent nine months with the operations team to make the network flow again, without building a fifth plant.
Client
Tessel Foods
Sector
Food manufacturing
Year
2025
Duration
9 months
Lead partner
Henrik Aas
Team
4 people
Lead time
21 → 9 days
Orders on time
from 78%
Cash freed from stock
in six months
/The situation
Four plants, one planning sheet. Each plant planned on its own, from a shared spreadsheet nobody fully trusted. Lines waited for ingredients, finished meals waited for trucks, and customers waited for both. The board was weighing a fifth plant.
/Where the days went
One order, from purchase to shelf.
21days
Work on the order
6days
Waiting
13days
On the road
2days
Measured on 120 orders in March 2025, then on 120 orders in March 2026. Each square is one day.
/What we did
Nine months, three steps.
Diagnose
Weeks 1 to 3
We worked night shifts on the lines, followed one order from purchase to shelf and measured where the 21 days went. Thirteen of them were waiting.
Decide
Weeks 4 to 7
Three options went to the board: a fifth plant, one planning team for all four, or both. We recommended the planning team first, with the numbers to back it.
Deliver
Months 2 to 9
One planning cell for four plants, a fifteen-minute stand-up every morning and a single plan the lines trust. We hired and trained the team that runs it today.
/The numbers
Before and after.
Lead time
Before21 days
After9 days
Orders on time
Before78%
After96%
Days of stock
Before41
After24
Overtime hours a week
Before1,900
After1,150
“They asked the questions we had avoided for two years. Six months later we had a plan the whole company believed in.”
IS
Ingrid Solberg
CEO, Tessel Foods
Listen to Ingrid Solberg
Ingrid said
0:42 · voice note from the steering committee
Cold store, Bergen plant
Planning workshop, week 5
The first morning stand-up
/On this case
Henrik Aas
Lead partner
Marta Vos
Pricing and sales
+2
Two consultants
On site, three days a week
/Next case
A new hub network that paid for itself in 14 months.
Holm Freight
·
Strategy
·
2024
Read the case
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