Ventura Foods
The Challenge
Ventura Foods — over $2.5 billion in revenue — managed new product development through a legacy RPG mainframe and largely manual processes. Sales staff entered basic notes triggering manual approvals spanning up to a year per product. Management discovered some products were significantly less profitable than expected, and manufacturing location decisions were quietly eroding margins.
What We Built
A modern web-based workflow application built on Laminar's proprietary workflow framework, tracking the complete product development lifecycle — from initial sales entry through approvals, manufacturing decisions, and packaging — across facilities in the U.S., EU, and Mexico. Location-based logic helps teams evaluate which manufacturing site is optimal for each product based on logistics, capacity, and cost.
The Outcome
Ventura gained end-to-end visibility into new product profitability before products reached full production. The application continues to be enhanced as business requirements evolve.
The Intelligence Opportunity
Where AI Takes This Further
Dynamic margin modeling simulating manufacturing location decisions in real time, demand forecasting based on historical sales and seasonality, and ingredient cost sensitivity analysis. What started as a workflow tracker becomes a manufacturing intelligence system that actively improves margin decisions.