When the LKG Group weighed up Odoo against the usual mid-tier names, Microsoft Dynamics and NetSuite, the decision came down to fit, speed and value. GD Donuts went live on Odoo five months from project start, a record timeframe for the investment group behind it. Today, orders from supermarkets, convenience stores, cafes and its own retail stores flow into one system that plans each day’s dough.
At a glance
The challenge
Fresh food is unforgiving. Donuts made today are sold today or tomorrow, and nobody is queuing for last week’s batch. So every morning’s production has to match demand that arrives through very different channels:
Supermarkets and convenience chains
Send purchase orders by EDI (electronic data interchange: the retailer’s system sends the order straight to the supplier’s system, with no email or phone call involved), each chain with its own format and rules.
Cafes and wholesale customers
Order through Ordermentum, the ordering platform many Australian cafes already use.
The group’s own retail stores
Sell through a Redcat point-of-sale system.
Before Odoo, much of that demand had to be gathered and re-keyed, and raw-material planning lived in spreadsheets. With high volumes, short shelf life and slim margins, slow or inaccurate planning shows up as waste or missed orders.
The LKG Group needed one platform to run the lot. They also needed a partner who could deliver it without the multi-year timelines the big-name vendors are known for.
Before Odoo
- Demand gathered and re-keyed from several channels
- Raw-material planning kept in spreadsheets
- Recipe quantities worked out manually
With Odoo
- Orders captured automatically from every channel
- Raw-material planning and bills of materials in Odoo
- Recipe mixes calculated automatically
Why Odoo and WMSSoft
The group evaluated Microsoft Dynamics and NetSuite before choosing Odoo. Odoo covered manufacturing, distribution, EDI and point-of-sale integration in one connected platform, with far less friction and cost. The deciding factor was capability plus speed to value.
WMSSoft backed that up with delivery: five months from project start to go-live, a timeframe the investment company behind the group considers a record for a business of this size.
How orders flow now
Five steps, one system, from the order arriving to the cost landing in the accounts.
Orders in
Every channel lands in Odoo automatically
Forecast
Demand projected from sales history
Plan
Manufacturing orders consolidated by product
Make
Recipes calculated, quality checked
Ship and cost
Labels, 3PL and real production costs
Orders in: every channel, one place
Retailer purchase orders arrive by EDI and become Odoo sales orders automatically, with default product settings so incoming orders map cleanly. Orders from one high-volume convenience chain are consolidated into a single sales order, keeping that account manageable. Cafe and wholesale orders flow in from Ordermentum, and retail store sales arrive from Redcat. The sales team no longer re-keys orders; it manages exceptions.
Planning: from demand to dough
Once every order is in one place, Odoo can plan production from real demand. A WMSSoft demand forecasting module projects requirements from sales history. Manufacturing orders are generated and consolidated by product ahead of each production date, so the bakery makes one efficient run per product instead of dozens of small ones. A daily dough report tells the team exactly how much dough to make for the day’s plan.
The shop floor: recipes without the maths
Bills of materials (the recipe, in a form the system can calculate with) live in Odoo with the precision recipes need, and the shop floor is fully digitised. Recipe mixes are calculated automatically, quantities default to the full planned amount, and quality checks are built into production. The right quantities are made consistently, without anyone reaching for a flour-dusted calculator.
Out the door: labels, shippers and logistics
Shipper labels and shipper reports are generated from Odoo, formatted to retailer requirements, and a 3PL integration handles distribution. Wholesale production reports and retail reports show the team what was made, for whom and how it performed.
Finance: real production costs
Labour is posted to analytic accounts (Odoo’s way of tagging each cost to the product line it belongs to), so production costs reflect the real cost of making each product, not an estimate. Accounting improvements since go-live have tightened month-end for the finance team.
After go-live: fifteen improvements and counting
Go-live was the start, not the finish line. In the months since, GD Donuts and WMSSoft have scoped and delivered around fifteen enhancement packages, each defined in its own statement of work. They include smarter manufacturing order generation, new production and retail reports, retailer label changes, the Redcat POS integration and consolidated EDI orders for a convenience chain.
The next phase extends demand forecasting with additional signals, such as weather, to sharpen how much the bakery makes each day.
The results
- Chosen over Microsoft Dynamics and NetSuite on fit, speed and value.
- Five months from project start to go-live, a record for the LKG Group.
- Orders from supermarkets, convenience stores, cafes and retail stores captured automatically in one system.
- Production planned from real demand, with manufacturing orders consolidated by product and a daily dough plan.
- BOMs and raw-material planning moved out of spreadsheets and into Odoo.
- A fully digitised shop floor with automatic recipe-mix calculation and built-in quality checks.
- Accurate production costing, with labour posted to analytic accounts.
- Around fifteen improvements delivered since go-live, with forecasting the next frontier.
What food manufacturers can take from this
Fix order capture first.
Planning can only be as good as the demand data feeding it. Getting every channel into one system made everything downstream possible.
Consolidate before you produce.
Grouping orders by product ahead of each production date turns a messy order book into an efficient production run.
Put the recipe maths in the system.
Automatic mix calculation removes a daily source of error and waste.
A fast go-live is a choice.
Five months is achievable when scope is clear and decisions are made quickly.
For the wider picture of what a food business needs from an ERP, from lot traceability to shelf life, read our guide to ERP for food manufacturing in Australia.
Frequently asked questions
Explore the modules behind this story
Odoo ManufacturingOdoo InventoryOdoo Integrations and EDIOdoo Accounting
Reference (Head of Transformation, LKG Group) available on request.
Delivered by WMSSoft. Odoo Gold Partner and Best Odoo Partner 2026 (ANZ).
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