Case Study: Kodiak Cakes builds a lean procurement function and sharper commodity risk management with Vesper

Kodiak Cakes cuts commodity research time in half with Vesper

Kodiak Cakes, a fast-growing food manufacturer, faced the challenge of managing a complex and expanding ingredient portfolio with a very small, three-person procurement team. This team was responsible for strategic and operational procurement as well as commodity risk management, a function typically handled by a dedicated department at larger companies. To effectively protect margins and compete on price, they needed a tool to close this capability gap, leading them to the Vesper platform.

Vesper provided Kodiak Cakes with AI-powered commodity forecasts, cost models, and the Copilot feature, which together acted as their ad hoc commodity risk management team. The solution enabled the team to create insightful dashboards for leadership, build should-cost models for benchmarking and negotiations, and align their sourcing calendar to market conditions. As a result, the team earned greater trust from leadership and finance, saved significant time on research and preparation, and established a data-driven foundation for building their procurement function from the ground up.

Kodiak Cakes