b'MAJOR TAKEAWAYSIts largest investor is a farmers union in North Dakota, which helped the company purchase an 18-wheeler rig to make two runs per month, hauling produce and ingredients and making stops along the way to pick up more, such as grits from an Amish I fantasize about using technology tocommunity in Kentucky. The track inventory, Simon says, but its still a human process. Since the company makesrig allows the company to cut everything from scratch, it relies on tight recipeout middlemen like freight management and yield tracking for inventorycompanies, brokers and control and uses back-office software to help. But employees still need to manually count, measuredistributors. and weigh inventory. Anthony and Mount agree that tracking inventory through the supply chain is more difficult in foodservice than retail or other industries.Anthony says that Five GuysMount agrees that even in Starbucks, limited menu makes it easiertracking an item like flavored syrup is incredibly difficult due to the amount of to link every menu item to acustomization customers can do with recipe that in turn is linked totheir beverages. Were not there with our inventory, so depletions go backalgorithms yet, but were getting there. to the purchasing department.Panelists also all agree that the coronavirus The company also sources allpandemic has generated a host of new ingredients through one suppliersupply chain challenges, from sourcing PPE in most countries in which itand cleaning and sanitizing supplies, to operates, except local produce. forecasting inventory needs for items like masks.'