How Daily Harvest Really Approaches Supply Chain & Logistics | Manifest 2025
At Manifest 2025, we talk with Wesley Williams, VP of Supply Chain at Daily Harvest, about the biggest supply chain challenges and strategies for 2025. Instead of chasing the latest AI trends, Daily Harvest is doubling down on fundamentals like ERP, transportation management, and materials resource planning (MRP). Learn how supply chain leaders are making the most of their existing technology while preparing for long-term innovation and scalability.
⏳ Important Timestamps:
- 0:00 - Welcome & introduction from Manifest 2025
- 0:47 - Meet Wesley Williams, VP of Supply Chain at Daily Harvest
- 1:30 - How Daily Harvest manages end-to-end supply chain operations
- 3:02 - Key takeaways from Wesley’s panel discussion at Manifest
- 4:20 - The importance of supply chain as a strategic initiative
- 6:00 - Daily Harvest’s philosophy on partnerships & collaboration
- 7:27 - Best audience question: What would an ideal supply chain look like?
- 8:45 - Why critical thinking is more important than new technology
- 10:22 - What supply chain technologies Daily Harvest is actually investing in
- 11:30 - Focusing on ERP, MRP, and transportation management systems
- 12:45 - Making existing supply chain infrastructure more efficient
- 14:00 - Why Daily Harvest is prioritizing optimization over new investments
- 15:35 - Closing thoughts & how to connect with Wesley Williams
Special thanks to our sponsors TGW Logistics for making our Manifest coverage possible. To learn more about TGW head here: www.tgw-group.com.
#manifest2025 #supplychain #retailtrends #dtc
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Transcript
Hello, everyone.
Speaker A:This is Omnitalk Retail.
Speaker A:I'm Anne Mazinga.
Speaker B:And I'm Chris Walton.
Speaker A: once again live from Manfest: Speaker A:And we want to give a quick shout out before we introduce our next guest to our partner at tgW Logistics.
Speaker A:At TGW Logistics, you can revolutionize your retail supply chain with TGW Logistics.
Speaker A:Their experts tailored warehouse automation solutions to your needs, ensuring you have the edge.
Speaker A:Work with TGW before your competition does.
Speaker A:Discover more@tgw-group.com all right, now let's introduce our guest.
Speaker A:Today.
Speaker A:We have Wesley Williams, the VP of supply chain for Daily Harvest.
Speaker A:Wesley, welcome to omnitalk and thanks for joining us.
Speaker C:Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker A:How's the show been going so far?
Speaker C:Wonderful.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Day two, Pretty active day.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:This is my second interview.
Speaker C:I've had a panel already.
Speaker C:Yep.
Speaker C:Had a panel yesterday.
Speaker A:Checking all the boxes.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Great.
Speaker B:You've been busy.
Speaker B:When did you get into Vegas?
Speaker C:So I actually had booked my flight for Sunday afternoon, forgetting that it was Super Bowl Sunday.
Speaker B:Oh, wow.
Speaker C:Yeah, so I actually.
Speaker B:That's not the worst thing in the world.
Speaker C:I moved my flight up Sunday.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And kind of had just like a relaxing day so that I could watch the game, be here for it.
Speaker C:Nice.
Speaker C:Wow.
Speaker B:Extra time in Vegas.
Speaker B:Man, you're holding up good.
Speaker B:You're holding up good.
Speaker A:Well, Wesley, let's start with getting to know you a little bit.
Speaker A:Let's talk about your role at Daily Harvest.
Speaker A:And for those who might not know Daily Harvest, if you don't mind just kind of explaining.
Speaker A:Explaining what it is too.
Speaker C:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker C:So I'm the vice president of supply chain at Daily Harvest.
Speaker C:I lead end to end supply chain.
Speaker C:So quite a few things fall into that purview.
Speaker C:We'll start with the planning, the sourcing, the purchasing, manufacturing, and all the logistics functions.
Speaker C:Distribution, fulfillment, transportation, parcel.
Speaker C:And so I've got a whole team of individuals, like a wonderful team up underneath me, as well as an analyst who helps us significant amount to make sure that we are actually delivering on all of our objectives.
Speaker C:So we're at Daily Harvest.
Speaker C:And Daily Harvest is a digitally native brand.
Speaker C:I always say that, but what that really means is we used influencer marketing to really grow the brand.
Speaker C:But we are a frozen food manufacturer.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And so primarily fruits and vegetables.
Speaker C:Smoothies are far and large, like our largest category.
Speaker C:But we also do other things like in the grain space and pastas, really expanding into more of Those savory foods as well.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker B:So what, what doesn't fall under your purview if you're end to end supply chain?
Speaker B:I've always wanted to ask somebody that, like, is there anything that doesn't fall under, under your hospice?
Speaker C:Food safety and quality assurance.
Speaker C:I work very closely because I.
Speaker C:Manufacturing.
Speaker C:Got it.
Speaker C:Research and development, recipe research and development, regulatory.
Speaker C:Those things right there are not under my purpose.
Speaker B:So end to end with caveats.
Speaker C:Correct.
Speaker B:Okay, got it.
Speaker C:All right.
Speaker B:So you were on stage earlier today, right?
Speaker C:I was, yeah.
Speaker B:So what did you share with the audience?
Speaker B:What were some of the key takeaways you hope the conference took away from what you shared?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So today we talked about like supply chain as a strategic initiative.
Speaker C:And so it was really.
Speaker C:Today was a fireside chat with my CEO Ricky Silver.
Speaker C:Yeah, so it was great, just the two of us up on stage.
Speaker C:And we really talked about a lot about the design of our supply chain and how we try to use that as a strategic advantage.
Speaker C:We talked a lot about the philosophy that we have around, you know, in being able to use supply chains.
Speaker C:A strategic, strategic initiative.
Speaker C:Excuse me, it takes a lot of buy in.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And so we really talked about how we try to set the stage and try to like convey the importance and give context like across the business to be able to get these buy in.
Speaker C:So we kind of talked about our philosophy and our approach there and we really spent a lot of time today talking as well about how we lean into partnerships, how right at the scale of which we are, a lot of companies are in the same boat as us.
Speaker C:And so you know what comes naturally just through networking events like this, meeting other people, talking to supply chain leaders.
Speaker C:You hear we're all dealing with a lot of the same issues and so really trying to lean into.
Speaker C:We refer to it internally as supply chain as a service.
Speaker C:We don't charge for it, but like, you know, it's for us.
Speaker C:How can we take our knowledge and information, how can we transfer that in a meaningful way?
Speaker C:So hey, look, maybe I've already built out a, a model to solve for this problem that you're telling that you've built out.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker C:Send me your data.
Speaker C:You know what I mean?
Speaker C:Like, let me see if we can easily plug and play that it for you and help you understand something and then in the future, hopefully you can scratch our back.
Speaker C:And so we've really, we talked a lot about that today.
Speaker B:And you guys are solely digital native or do you wholesale as well?
Speaker C:No, so we, we were, we started out that way.
Speaker C:But we're in, like, more traditional retail channels today.
Speaker B:Typical brand evolution.
Speaker C:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker C: today you can find us around: Speaker C:You can find us in their stores.
Speaker B:Got it.
Speaker B:It was just the two of you on stage?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Just the two of you.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:No moderator or anything?
Speaker B:Just the two of you holding court?
Speaker B:Just talking.
Speaker B:Did you take questions or what?
Speaker C:We did.
Speaker B:We did take questions from the audience.
Speaker B:You must, right?
Speaker C:It was engaging.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:But, you know, what was the best question you got?
Speaker B:Do you remember?
Speaker C:Oh, yeah, no, the best question we got was actually, I think it was a question around, like, if you could build, like, your ideal or utopic supply chain, like, how, what would that look like?
Speaker C:Was, like, really a question, you know, and so it was talking about, you know, what technologies, what, like, how would you design the system?
Speaker C:And so actually, I thought Ricky took the question.
Speaker C:I thought he did a phenomenal job.
Speaker C:Oh, really?
Speaker B:The boss Answering the supply chain question.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And so he and Ricky used to be our chief supply chain officer before he became CEO.
Speaker C:So he and I have, like, a really great relationship.
Speaker C:I really benefit from, like, his understanding of our supply chain.
Speaker C:And so.
Speaker C:But he was really talking.
Speaker C:He kind of answered a little differently than the way it was proposed.
Speaker C:And he started talking about, like, the most important thing.
Speaker C:And what I can't stress enough is critical thinking.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And so he was saying, like, you can invest in all the things that you want to invest in the world, but if you're not really strong in the fundamentals and in the basics, right?
Speaker C:Like, you got to invest in the people, you got to help them understand.
Speaker C:You got to teach them to think critically and how they approach that.
Speaker C:So I thought that was a really good answer.
Speaker C:You know, you hear a lot of people talking about AI, right?
Speaker C:And, like, thinking about, like, how it's gonna change the world, you know, but, like, at the end of the day, those things are great as long as the people that are using them understand how to use them.
Speaker C:And if they can't understand how to do their job effectively without it, I don't really want to talk about AI at this point.
Speaker C:We need to get our basics right.
Speaker A:Well, Wesley, let's close the interview with this question.
Speaker A: really help you go forward in: Speaker C:Yeah, you know, I would actually say that we're not looking at anything that's, you know, machine learning.
Speaker C:We're not looking at.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Nothing groundbreaking.
Speaker C:We're really trying to get, like, the tried and true technologies right for ourselves.
Speaker C:So as we continue to evolve as an organization.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Erp, Transportation Management system, like, we've.
Speaker C:We've got those things.
Speaker C:We're leaning more so right now into, like, the materials resource planning.
Speaker C:Like, the MRP functionality is one that we haven't robustly filled out.
Speaker C:And so we're trying to just implement the technologies that are really basic to supply chain and like, the fundamental for us in order to be able to do our job effectively.
Speaker B:Okay, so Wesley, would you say essentially what you're saying is like, trying to do better with what you've already got?
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And we.
Speaker C:Look, we don't have that a lot so far, and we don't have the mrp.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:We.
Speaker C:We built an MRP through Google Sheets, you know, functions and operates that way.
Speaker C:But now I don't think that counts.
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker C:So, like, you know, it's.
Speaker C:We've got it, but we don't really got it, you know, so.
Speaker C:Yeah, no, but it's.
Speaker C:I think that's a really good way to say it, like, trying to do better with the things that are at our disposal.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Right, right.
Speaker A:And what you've learned, I imagine, throughout.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:And look, you know, like, you're sharing with other people.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:And like, we're.
Speaker C:We're not in a position or a phase right now, if I'm being honest.
Speaker C:And it's not unique to Daily Harvest, but, like, finance has changed and shifted.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And you have to be much more strategic about how you're managing cash.
Speaker C:And so I don't have, like, the more expensive budget that I would want to go invest in some of these things.
Speaker C:That's okay.
Speaker C:You know, like, we work with what we have and we do the best to be effective.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker A:All right, well, that closes us out.
Speaker A:Thank you so much to TGW Logistics for making all of our coverage here at Manifest possible.
Speaker A:Stay tuned.
Speaker A:We have so much more to come.
Speaker A:A big thank you, though, to Wesley for stopping by and taking the time today.
Speaker C:A pleasure.
Speaker A:And until next time, be careful out there.
Speaker C:Thank you.
