The Silent Killer in your Supply Chain, Shelf-life: Issue 15

If you’re handling products that expire, you already know: shelf life is not just QA’s problem, it is a supply chain landmine.

Where it bites you:

• BBD per channel: Walmart wants ≥ 8 months, another retailer insists on 10.

• Raw material expiration: powders, drinks, s, all ticking clocks.

• Finished goods expiration: what you thought was inventory suddenly turns into write-off.

So what is your mechanism to make sure it does not happen? And more importantly, how do you measure if you are succeeding, by percent write-offs or absolute dollars?

The real-world trade-offs

Take a simple use case:

You produce a product with 12 months shelf life.

• D2C can handle 6 months left.

• Retail demands 9 months left.

• Amazon is different again + all your distributors

…and for multi-unit packs, one short-dated item drags down the shelf life of the whole product.

Now what?

• Which channel do you prioritize?

• How do you weigh OTIF penalties vs. write-off exposure?

• Do you transfer to another market or relabel, and does the math justify the cost?

This is where most spreadsheets collapse. The trade-offs are too many, too interdependent.

Hard truth

If your items, lots, and BOMs are not unified, any PO proposal you are looking at is just guesswork dressed up as a solution:

Supply-optimized planning means:

• Demand by SKU × channel × time

• BOM explosion for assemblies (multi-packs, bundles, displays for retail)

• Shelf-life gating (≥ 6 months at assembly or ship, channel-specific)

• FEFO logic across warehouses

• Lead times, MOQs, case packs, vendor calendars, and payment terms baked in

Miss one of these and you are overbuying the wrong stuff while failing your shelf-life promises.

What success looks like

• 12-month visibility into where lots will actually clear or die.

• POs that are feasible: right SKU, right time, right qty, not theoretical coverage.

• Exception handling when constraints make it impossible (expedite, alt supplier, or promo short-dated stock).

• Write-offs measured in dollars trending down because you did not just model demand, you modeled time.

One takeaway for you

Next time you review your supply plan, stop and ask yourself:

👉 “On how many layers am I shelf-life aware?”

• Raw materials: Do I track expiry of inputs before they even hit production?

• Work-in-progress: Do I account for shelf life as products move through blending, filling, or assembly?

• Finished goods: Do I enforce customer- and channel-specific BBD rules before shipping?

• Bundles and packs: Do I check that the shortest-dated unit does not compromise the whole product?

• Warehouses and transfers: Do I evaluate whether relocation, relabeling, or re-channeling is justified by remaining life?

See you soon!
-Leon