MuscleFood is an award-winning online retailer of high-protein foods, gourmet cuts, lean meats and ready meals with no added water, salt or other additives. The company follows a customer-focused, goal-oriented strategy, offering complete meal plans tailored to each customer’s diet and exercise regime. As part of its growth strategy, MuscleFood restructured its board and shareholding structure and took on investment to support its expansion. By reviewing and refining its target audience, the company grew its average order size by 45%, alongside a rapid increase in order volumes.
MuscleFood operates a temperature-controlled Distribution Centre in West Bromwich for finished goods, and a manufacturing site in Castle Donington for fresh and frozen ready meals.
Due to this rapid growth, MuscleFood engaged The Supply Chain Consulting Group (SCCG) for a new, larger distribution centre (DC) and operational facility to accommodate rising demand. SCCG’s warehouse design consultants were asked to review current layouts, processes and systems across all sites and recommend a scalable solution.
MuscleFood needed a new facility capable of supporting a fast-growing customer base and a 45% increase in average order size, while maintaining service levels across its temperature-controlled and ambient operations. Balancing manufacturing at Castle Donington with distribution from West Bromwich added further complexity to material flow and capacity planning.
SCCG began by gathering 12 months of production and sales volume data, alongside future growth projections, to establish material flows, storage requirements and work area needs. Working closely with MuscleFood, the consultants carried out detailed on-site reviews to understand operational and IT requirements, and mapped future material flow needs against the new strategy.
The team evaluated layout, automation and semi-automation options, along with alternative picking methodologies including zone picking and goods-to-man, and how each could apply to different product ranges. SCCG also provided facility size requirements, design options, budgets and implementation costs, including 3PL costs for comparison against an in-house distribution centre.
SCCG’s consultants delivered a high-level implementation project plan and phased business transition plan, agreed with MuscleFood through a joint workshop. Detailed CAD drawings helped the business visualise how to reduce in-process replenishment, improve pick rates across multiple pick faces through zone management, smooth goods-in workload, and reduce on-hand stock and service costs.
The Supply Chain Consulting Group specialist consultants provided a high-level implementation project time plan and phased business transition plan, holding a workshop to agree the preferred solutions. The consultants produced detailed CAD drawings, which helped us visualise how we could reduce in-process replenishments, improve pick-rate for zone management for multiple pick faces, smooth workload in goods-in, as well as reduce on-hand stock and service costs. – MuscleFood Operations Director
By combining data-led capacity planning with practical warehouse design options, SCCG gave MuscleFood a clear route to a distribution centre built for its next stage of growth, supporting a 45% increase in average order size without compromising service or cost efficiency.