Asia Express Food Closes the Execution Gap Between SAP and Logistics Operations.
Asia Express Food is a family-run business based in the Netherlands that is a leading European importer of Asian and African products. Founded in 1991, with over 4500 products and sellers speaking 10 different languages.
From paper-based workflows to Neptune-powered digital applications, Asia Express Food shifted its real-time execution from reactive to proactive, showing what’s possible when mid-market food and beverage companies fully embrace the SAP ecosystem to digitalise their food supply chain.
The Challenge: Where SAP Data and the Warehouse Floor Didn’t Match.
As with any food and beverage logistics company operating a busy inbound warehouse, there is the potential for manual processes and execution gaps. SAP for the food industry has been a staple part of tech stacks in all sizes of businesses. Despite this, running SAP as its core ERP, Asia Express Food was relying on paper, email, and ad hoc coordination to execute day-to-day warehouse operations. The truth was that there was a huge gap between what SAP knew and what was happening. It is like following a cookbook with the wrong ingredients. The information didn’t match.
It’s an age-old truth that handling receipts, whether personal or business, can become overwhelmingly difficult, with scattered pieces of paper clogging work surfaces. Asia had this exact problem. Inbound goods receipts were handled manually. Warehouse staff individually validated shipments against paper templates and then re-entered the same data into SAP, resulting in slow, error-prone processes with no real-time visibility.
Shelf life (THT) compliance posed an even higher risk: discrepancies between supplier-declared dates and deliveries were discovered only after goods had been accepted, leaving buyers no opportunity to intervene.
To add a final complication, dock scheduling was a constant battle of slot management. With 24 loading docks and no structured system in place, Outlook and phone calls became their solution. Just like with the paper receipts, the company was operating on coordinated improvisation; a reactive situation that didn’t scale.
Asia Express Food needed to deliver quick wins, without sacrificing the ability to build more complex applications over time. Asia Express Food needed Neptune.
“Neptune acts as the execution layer connecting SAP to warehouse operations, reducing errors and eliminating delays”
The Solution: Digitizing SAP Warehouse Execution with Neptune in Just Four Days.
Connecting directly to SAP ECC, with a clear forward path to S4/HANA, Asia Express Food partnered with Neptune Software to build a digitalised warehouse execution layer through Neptune’s Digital Experience Platform (DXP). Rather than replacing the SAP ecosystem they already relied on, Neptune extended it, putting real-time SAP data directly into the hands of warehouse teams through intuitive mobile apps built with custom code.
To solve the paper problem, they built a Neptune application that digitises inbound goods receipts. Instead of manually re-entering information into SAP, warehouse staff can complete structured digital forms at the point of receipt. The result: no more paper piles, discrepancy errors, or time wasted on re-entry. Instead, data is captured in an accurate, real-time process.
Alongside the new goods receipt process, Neptune introduced automated shelf-life (THT) validation. The system compares supplier-declared shelf-life data against each delivery, and immediately notifies buyers of any discrepancies. Gone are the days of accepting non-compliant stock. Quality control shifted from reactive to proactive.
Perhaps the most defining proof point was the speed of delivery. The first Neptune application moved from idea to production in just four days. For mid-market food and beverage businesses that cannot afford long implementation cycles, Neptune Software’s DXP approach – accelerating SAP mobile app development without bespoke code – is a decisive advantage.
Asia Express Food have not stopped there, with a dock scheduling solution now in development. Using this application, suppliers will self-register for delivery slots. The system will auto-assign one of the 24 docks using live SAP data. The old-style ad-hoc coordination has been eliminated entirely.
The Result: Fewer Errors, Proactive Compliance, and a Safer Path to S/4HANA.
Asia Express Food’s investment in Neptune Software was for a reason; digitalising their food supply chain created a huge impact on their business. Inbound processing errors are down, processing times themselves have been cut, and quality control is proactive.
They are seeing 10 to 50 automated shelf-life alerts generated every day before non-compliant stock enters the warehouse.
The S4/HANA migration planned for October 2026 carries reduced risk too: Neptune apps continue to function without change, securing a smooth transition and protecting the investment already made.
For mid-market food companies navigating the pressure to do more with less, Asia Express Food is proof that the right SAP ecosystem software, Neptune DXP, can deliver results at the speed the business demands.
business through a modern Neptune App, with results delivered via API straight to the heating oil web shop. Short-term changes, like blocking a product or restricting a region, can be made with a single click.
The app also ensures that customer orders placed through telesales and the Coop heating oil web shop are automatically matched to the right tank farm and freight forwarder, and that any changes to contracts or scheduling are reflected immediately.
On top of that, features like dummy forwarders for special shipments and easy list upload/download options make day-to-day operations noticeably more efficient and flexible.
