Bringing operational control to goods receiving at a meat wholesaler

Business: Wholesale meat merchant

Location: Johannesburg, South Africa

Size: Part of an owner-led group spanning indoor golf, restaurant, coffee shop, deli, 3 butcheries, and wholesale

Primary service: Operational Control and Visibility

Secondary service: Cashflow Recovery

Engagement mode: Review and Assess

Status: Handed Over (Phase 1)

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A wholesale meat business in Johannesburg brought us in to tighten operational control over goods receiving. The process is now fully documented, the control gaps identified, and an optimised design is ready to put in place.

What was the problem?

The business was growing, but too much of how it ran lived in a few people's heads. The owner wanted the operation tightened and made to stick, starting at the point where stock comes in the door, because that is where money quietly leaks. Receiving worked, but nobody could say with confidence that every delivery was received, recorded, and paid for correctly.

What did we find?

• One person both owned and signed off receiving, so there was no independent check on changes or escalations. Growing key-person dependency.

• Short-delivery credit notes and price checks lived on paper and WhatsApp, not in the system of record, so nothing reliably linked what was owed back to what was received.

• Nothing recorded what was ordered, and at what agreed price, before a delivery arrived, so the team could only ever check part of the picture.

• The same received-against-invoice check was repeated by up to three people, tying up management time while no one clearly owned the control.

What did we do?

• Documented and mapped the whole receiving process end to end, exactly as it runs, replacing knowledge held in individuals.

• Ran a structured operational review across process, workflow, systems, finance, and control, and pinned down the root causes above.

• Designed the improved version with a single clear owner, a separate senior sponsor, defined measures, and a handoff that no longer stalls on one person.

What is in place so far?

The leadership team now has one shared, documented view of how receiving runs and where the control gaps sit, plus an optimised design ready to walk through and implement. This is the first process in a phased plan to bring the same operational control and performance visibility across the wider operation.

This case study is anonymised. If you would like to hear more about the business behind it, get in touch.

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