Rainforest picks Manhattan tech to revamp planning

Rainforest Distribution has selected Manhattan Active Supply Chain Planning as it overhauls planning across its food and beverage distribution network in the eastern United States.

It aims to unify demand planning, forecasting and replenishment, consolidating work currently spread across multiple tools into a single platform.

The decision is part of a broader effort to modernise end-to-end planning as the business scales. Growing supply chain complexity has increased the need for a shared view of demand and inventory across teams.

Planning shift

Manhattan Active Supply Chain Planning is a cloud-native product from Manhattan Associates. Rainforest Distribution plans to use it to improve coordination between planning and execution across its network.

The platform is expected to provide real-time visibility into service levels, cost and capacity, and enable faster responses to changes in customer demand as the company moves away from legacy planning tools.

Rainforest Distribution operates distribution centres handling refrigerated, frozen and ambient products. It positions itself as a distribution partner for emerging and high-growth brands, supplying national chains, regional grocers and independent retailers.

In food and beverage distribution, stock availability and shelf-life constraints increase pressure on forecasting accuracy and replenishment decisions. Refrigerated and frozen operations also require tight capacity planning across warehousing and transport, because temperature-controlled storage and delivery resources have fixed limits.

Rainforest Distribution expects the new approach to raise service levels and better align planning decisions with execution across distribution and transportation.

"As our business continues to scale, the complexity of our supply chain has increased exponentially," said Alexander Ridings, CEO of Rainforest Distribution.

"We needed a modern planning solution that could keep pace with that growth, give our teams a single, trusted view of demand and inventory, and help us serve customers with greater reliability. Manhattan Active Supply Chain Planning gives us the unified, intelligent platform we were looking for to align our planners, our operations, and our strategic growth ambitions," Ridings said.

Technology stack

Manhattan Associates said its planning product is designed to align planning and execution around a shared strategy, reduce silos and support enterprise-wide decision-making.

The system runs on Manhattan Active Platform, a microservices-based architecture that adapts in real time to changes in demand, labour, orders and capacity, according to the vendor.

Manhattan Associates also said Rainforest Distribution will use AI-driven insights for forecasting. The companies did not disclose implementation timelines, commercial terms, or the scale of deployment across Rainforest's distribution sites.

Manhattan Associates sells supply chain and omnichannel commerce software and is listed on Nasdaq under the ticker MANH.

"Rainforest Distribution operates in an environment where agility, accuracy, and responsiveness are critical," said Stewart Gantt, executive vice president of global services at Manhattan Associates.

"We are excited to partner with them on this transformation to help them unlock new levels of efficiency and build a more resilient, data-driven supply chain," Gantt said.

Rainforest Distribution said the planning platform will be central to a more unified approach to balancing service levels, cost and capacity as it expands its network and customer base.