Ripple Foods is a startup on a mission. That mission? To make plant-based foods and beverages that are better for people and better for the planet than their traditional counterparts. To that end, the company focuses on unlocking the nutritional power of yellow peas to create sustainable dairy alternatives without sacrificing taste or nutrition.
Founded in Berkeley, California, in 2015, Ripple makes its drinks—milks, protein shakes, and half-and-half—from protein-rich yellow peas, an ingredient chosen for its eco-attributes. Those attributes include low water consumption during cultivation, an area where yellow peas have a big edge over many alternative options, according to the manufacturer. The company says producing almond milk requires 87% more water than Ripple, and producing dairy milk uses 86% more.
That sustainability message has resonated with consumers, and Ripple has expanded its sales across the U.S. But as it continued to scale up nationally, the company realized that to sustain that growth, it needed to enhance its transportation and logistics operations through greater shipment visibility, advance reporting, and automation.
At the time, Ripple was using a legacy transportation management system (TMS) supported by multiple disconnected tools and manual processes. Perhaps not surprisingly, that setup created inefficiencies across its operations, including repetitive data entry, fragmented systems, and limited visibility into shipments, carriers, and costs. Those problems affected the business, since time was lost to manual processes and reporting lacked reliability. As Ripple continued to grow, it became increasingly clear that these inefficiencies were not, well, sustainable. So the company went looking for an alternative solution—one that would offer not just the visibility and reporting capabilities it sought, but also ease of use and a speedy implementation.
A SMOOTH TRANSITION
After evaluating its options, Ripple implemented Corsair TMS software from Greenville, South Carolina-based Rygen Technologies. As Ripple had hoped, the implementation process proved to be fast and flexible, according to the partners.
Ripple now uses Corsair TMS as its central platform for managing transportation operations, including shipment execution, carrier management, reporting, and inbound freight documentation. These capabilities are used daily by the supply chain, logistics, and operations teams, enabling more efficient and informed decision-making, the partners say.
On top of that, Corsair is fully integrated into Ripple’s day-to-day operations, serving as a single source of truth for all shipment-related data and workflows. This centralization eliminates the need for multiple systems and ensures consistency and accuracy across the organization, according to the companies.
SOLID RESULTS
By all accounts, the project’s results have proved to be exactly what Ripple was hoping for: “We needed a more advanced and integrated platform to support real-time visibility, stronger reporting, and data-driven decision-making,” Allyn Carfagna, associate director of logistics solutions at Ripple Foods, said in a press release. “With Corsair, we’re able to provide more timely delivery insights to our sales teams and customers, uncover actionable freight analytics, and manage costs more strategically.”
And that’s just the half of it: Since implementing Corsair TMS, Ripple has also achieved significant operational improvements, including a staffing realignment equivalent to approximately 7.5%, according to Rygen. That’s partly because with automation and streamlined workflows, responsibilities that previously required multiple resources are now managed efficiently without additional headcount.
In addition to the efficiency gains, Ripple has realized measurable cost savings, including an estimated 5% reduction in its average cost per shipment, quarter over quarter. That’s largely because increased visibility into lanes, carriers, and shipment performance has enabled more informed, data-driven decisions, improving carrier selection and consolidation strategies.
Looking ahead, Ripple plans to expand its use of Rygen’s software capabilities, including deeper analytics, expanded automation, and continued refinement of the inbound and outbound freight processes.
