Case Study: SunWest Foods achieves real-time business insights and streamlined plant operations with Aptean Food & Beverage ERP

SunWest Foods Blends Silos of Data into Real-Time Business Knowledge

SunWest Foods, California’s second-largest rice and wild rice producer, was struggling with a patchwork of disparate systems that forced repetitive manual data entry (sometimes up to ten times), slow and error-prone reporting, inconsistent processes across facilities, and inflated inventory to cover uncertainty. Those issues hampered real-time decision making—especially in volatile commodity markets—and created operational bottlenecks and customer service problems.

SunWest implemented Aptean Food & Beverage ERP built on Microsoft Dynamics NAV to create a single, centralized system across purchasing, production, distribution and finance. The solution eliminated re‑keying, cut admin time by about 80% (freeing roughly 30 staff hours per peak day), enabled executives to run reports in minutes, improved inventory visibility and lot traceability, supported smarter commodity buy-sell decisions that generated new revenue, and delivered more accurate, timely operations and financial controls.

Sunwest Foods

Heather Schroeder

Vice President, Finance and Administration