Forecasting for Fresh Food Procurement and Selecting new suppliers A Case Study of Baanklangnam Restaurant

Abstract

This study aims to reduce opportunity cost in sales and to provide a guideline for selecting new suppliers. The study found that the company experienced sales opportunity losses due to insufficient raw material orders. An analysis of the problem identified several causes: 1) Lack of knowledge about actual sales demand, 2) Changes in consumer behavior
regarding food choices, 3) Suppliers lacking the necessary raw materials for delivery, 4) The company has a limited number of suppliers for each type of raw material. The study utilized forecasting methods to predict sales and assist in
ordering raw materials. Data was collected over a 10-month period, revealing that the raw material with the highest opportunity cost was river prawns. Therefore, this raw material was selected for forecasting. Six forecasting methods were used and compared based on the lowest MAPE, MAD, and MSD values. The Time Series Decomposition method showed the lowest error and was chosen for forecasting sales and ordering raw materials. This approach successfully reduced sales opportunity costs. However, issues with sales opportunity loss persisted even after adjustments. To address this, the study increased the frequency of stock checks to twice a day and sought new suppliers. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) Analysis was employed to select suppliers by defining the weighting criteria for selection and using pairwise comparisons to find the most suitable suppliers for ordering raw materials.