When Ruminate set out to create "healthy and happy cows through better nutrition", they quickly learned that great product outcomes depend on operational precision: having the right raw materials in the right place, in the right quantity. And, as Co-MD Jack Tarrant puts it, they "nailed that out of the park by getting good systems and good software behind it."
To make that happen, Ruminate teamed up with Consult, an Unleashed Implementation Partner in New Zealand led by Joanna Monteith. Joanna has been helping businesses adopt and embed cloud systems for decades — from app advisory, to implementation, to ongoing support. And for Ruminate, it’s been a long-term relationship: "We’ve been using Joanna for 8 years… [she’s] a very valuable part of our management team."
An implementation that started from scratch
From day one, Jack knew inventory would be critical, based on prior experience in manufacturing. So the implementation wasn’t a "light touch" project it started from scratch, with Consult helping put the foundations in place and ensuring the team could run confidently once live.
Joanna’s approach is straightforward: get on site, understand how the business operates today, protect what needs to stay, and be clear on what needs to change. From there, Consult support the heavy lifting — cleansing and importing data, setting up bills of materials, training the team, and being on site through go-live.
Daily margin visibility (and the traceability to move fast)
As Ruminate scaled, the goal wasn’t simply "better reporting", it was being able to track volume and margin daily, make changes quickly, and maintain traceability across what changed, when, and why.
That visibility became especially valuable when pricing pressure hit. Ruminate’s farmers wanted a single delivered price, but freight charges changed depending on location, which meant the "delivered price" could shift daily. So Ruminate, leaning in to Unleashed, made the call to average freight costs, spread them across tonnage, and give customers clarity: "We could confidently go up the drive and say your price is this."
The stress test you can’t plan for
Then came the moment that proved why cloud systems matter. Ruminate was hit by a major flood, "1.8m of water", wiping out documentation, and leaving Jack without power for weeks. But because their processes and access were systemised, they could hand over quickly, get a rep operational on the South Island, and keep production moving, "an actual key benefit I’ve never even thought of."
But resilience was only part of the story.
The foundation that keeps giving
Eight years in, Ruminate isn't just managing inventory. They're manufacturing for other businesses too. A third of their production now runs on behalf of other companies: brands that can't manufacture to Ruminate's standard, so they outsource it. Jack puts it plainly: "I put that down to good stock management systems and software."
What started as a necessity has become a competitive advantage. And it compounds. Better systems supported better product quality. Better product quality opened a new revenue line. And when disaster struck, those same systems kept the whole operation moving from a different island.
If you're still weighing up whether to invest early in inventory infrastructure, have a watch of the Ruminate story. For them, that decision, made from day one and built properly with Consult, is still paying off.
