o9 Goes Live at Hormel Foods to Modernize Planning Across the Company’s Global Supply Chain Network

Integration of AI-powered digital platform is latest investment by Hormel Foods to drive continuous improvement and strengthen end-to-end supply chain operations

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--o9, a leading software company that is powering enterprise planning and decisioning models across 30-plus industry verticals with its groundbreaking, AI-powered Digital Brain platform, today announced the successful go-live of integrated Demand and Supply Planning capabilities at Hormel Foods Corporation. The integration of the AI-powered digital platform is the latest investment by Hormel Foods, a Fortune 500 global branded food company, to strengthen operational efficiency and enterprise-wide planning discipline across its global supply chain.

The o9 program was delivered in collaboration with Accenture through five phased go-lives between March and December 2025, spanning more than 70 sites across dry and refrigerated networks.

Hormel Foods operates one of the most complex supply chain networks in the global food industry. The company manages thousands of distinct supply items to produce thousands of unique products, reaching consumers worldwide. Its portfolio includes iconic brands such as SPAM®, SKIPPY®, JENNIE-O®, APPLEGATE®, HORMEL® NATURAL CHOICE®, WHOLLY®, and PLANTERS® spanning refrigerated foods, shelf-stable grocery products, deli meats, ethnic cuisines, and plant-based offerings. Perishability, seasonal demand spikes, capacity constraints, and multi-tier distribution flows introduce structural complexity across every planning horizon.

With o9, Hormel Foods is leveraging AI and machine learning driven forecasting to model key demand drivers while expanding touchless forecasting capabilities that reduce manual overrides and improve forecast accuracy for seasonal demand. The platform also enables system-recommended inventory transfers and optimized truckload grouping based on weight, volume, and stackability constraints, strengthening coordination across the supply network. By translating demand signals into synchronized supply, inventory, and deployment decisions, planners can evaluate trade-offs earlier in the planning cycle, improving visibility and alignment across Retail, Foodservice, and International segments.

“Every day, we balance moving thousands of products across multiple channels and storage environments,” said Will Bonifant, Chief Supply Chain Officer, at Hormel Foods. “By connecting demand, supply, and inventory decisions in one streamlined platform, we are shifting from reactive problem-solving to more proactive, data-driven planning. We believe this will strengthen our ability to operate consistently, serve customers more reliably, and ultimately, drive additional growth across our brand portfolio.”

“Hormel Foods operates at a level where planning precision directly impacts performance,” said Chakri Gottemukkala, Co-founder and CEO of o9. “By going live with the o9 Digital Brain platform, Hormel has replaced disconnected tools with a unified enterprise model that links demand signals to supply, inventory, and deployment decisions. This foundation enables stronger operational rigor, faster cross-functional alignment, and the agility required in a market defined by volatility and change.”

“We are partnering with Hormel Foods on the company’s strategic, growth-oriented pivot from a supply-led value chain to a demand-driven value chain,” said Adheer Bahulkar, Global Supply Chain Lead for Consumer Industries and client account lead for Hormel Foods at Accenture. “As part of this reinvention, we are building a strong data foundation for Hormel and helping our client use AI, data and analytics to power its planning process and solution. All this is underpinned by strong change management to help Hormel’s supply chain planners pave the way for sustained growth.”

To learn more, please visit o9solutions.com.

About o9 Solutions

o9 Solutions is a leading Enterprise Knowledge and AI-powered platform helping companies build Agile, Adaptive & Autonomous Planning & Execution Models for transforming enterprise decision-making in environments of rising volatility and uncertainty. Whether it is improving forecast accuracy, matching demand and supply and driving collaboration across the multi-tier supply chain to improve resilience at optimal costs and inventory, or optimizing new product and commercial initiatives to drive revenue growth and margins, decision-making processes from long-range to tactical to execution horizon can be made faster and smarter and connected on o9’s Digital Brain Platform.

o9 brings together game-changing technology innovations — such as innovative enterprise knowledge graph modeling, big data analytics, advanced algorithms for forecasting, demand/supply balancing, scenario planning, real time learning, collaboration, generative and agentic AI, easy-to-use interfaces and cloud-based delivery, and innovative management methods — as well as organization, process and change management best practices to transform decision-making speed and intelligence. For more information, please visit www.o9solutions.com.