Barilla, the world leader in pasta production, announced today that it has achieved 80% visibility into the entire lifecycle of its ocean and over-the-road (OTR) shipments, thanks to leading supply chain visibility provider FourKites®. The end-to-end transparency offered by FourKites allows Barilla to see exactly where its goods are anywhere in the supply chain, as well as when they’ll arrive at their final destination. In the face of military conflict in the Red Sea, disruptive weather events and supply shortages, this comprehensive visibility is critical for Barilla to achieve a resilient supply chain that ensures products get to customers in the most efficient way and with the best service.
Barilla has an intricate logistics operation that includes 30 production sites, 15 of which are in Italy and 15 abroad. Each week, the company moves more than 2,000 loads from Italy to over 120 countries via OTR and ocean shipments.
Armed with FourKites’ highly accurate, AI-enabled predictive estimated times of arrival (ETAs), Barilla’s customers can confidently plan their operations around scheduled deliveries. Not only are these ETAs updated in transit, but FourKites highlights incorrect planned transit times to ensure that shipments start — and stay — on schedule.
“Before we started using FourKites’ platform, we could only react to an issue when it was too late,” says Davide Busato, Logistic Competence Center Innovation Project Manager at Barilla. “Now, we react before an issue escalates into a major problem, which saves time while reducing transportation costs and fines. This, in turn, improves our relationships with carriers and customers.”
Ocean shipments are an important part of Barilla’s logistics operation and equal about 10% of its market. Barilla started its collaboration with FourKites by using the company’s OTR visibility and then expanded coverage to include visibility into all its ocean shipments.
“Freight forwarders had overseen Barilla’s ocean shipments, but it was costly and time-consuming because we had to manually check with carriers on the location of shipments,” continues Busato. “Adding FourKites’ ocean visibility to our setup was an obvious choice, and it’s paid off handsomely. Now, we don’t need to spend time hunting for answers and instead can focus on more important tasks like acting on the FourKites data to improve customer satisfaction.”
“With supply chains under enormous pressure due the conflict in the Red Sea and the drought in the Panama Canal, the need for highly accurate supply chain insights is imperative,” says Marc Boileau, Senior Vice President FourKites EMEA. “We’re delighted Barilla is using FourKites to identify exceptions early, so they can take action and prioritize work based on impact. We look forward to continuing our partnership with them.”
“Our goals with FourKites in 2024 are to track 90% of our shipments, reduce penalties with carriers by 5% and decrease inefficient communication with partners by 10-15%. We’re currently well on our way to meeting these metrics,” Busato says.
FourKites recently announced several enhancements to its next-generation ocean visibility platform, Dynamic Ocean®. By providing better context, clarity and control throughout every ocean shipment, these new features help FourKites users mitigate global disruptions; reduce costly fees such as preventable detention and demurrage charges; and exceed customer expectations.
Leading global supply chain visibility platform FourKites® extends visibility beyond transportation into yards, warehouses, stores and beyond. Tracking more than 3.2 million shipments daily across road, rail, ocean, air, parcel and last mile, and reaching over 200 countries and territories, FourKites combines real-time data and powerful machine learning to help companies digitise their end-to-end supply chains. More than 1,200 of the world’s most recognized brands — including 9 of the top-10 CPG and 18 of the top-20 food and beverage companies — trust FourKites to transform their business and create more agile, efficient and sustainable supply chains.
The Barilla Group Barilla is a family business, not listed on the Stock Exchange, chaired by the brothers Guido, Luca and Paolo Barilla. It was founded by their great-grandfather Pietro Barilla, who opened a bakery in Parma in 1877. Today, Barilla is renowned in Italy and around the world for the excellence of its food products. With its brands – Barilla, Mulino Bianco, Pan di Stelle, Gran Cereale, Harrys, Pavesi, Wasa, Filiz, Yemina and Vesta, Misko, Voiello, Academia Barilla, First, Catelli, Lancia, Splendor, Tolerant, Pasta Evangelists and Back to Nature – it advocates tasty, hearty and wholesome nutrition, inspired by the Mediterranean Diet and the Italian lifestyle. When Pietro opened his shop 146 years ago, the main aim was to make good food. That principle has now become the Barilla way of doing business, with more than 8,700 people working for the company and a supply chain that shares its values and passion for quality. The Group's commitment is to offer people the joy that good, well-made food can bring them, produced with selected ingredients from responsible supply chains, to contribute to a better present and future. Since 1987, a historical archive has been collecting and preserving the company’s 146-year history, now a resource open to all via the portal-museum www.archiviostoricobarilla.com, a testament to the journey of an icon among Made in Italy products and to the changes in Italian society.
