Inventory Forecasting for Perishables: A Practical Framework

Perishable distribution has two hard constraints: product shelf life and uncertain demand.

A useful forecasting framework combines:

- baseline demand from recent order history,
- seasonality and campaign weighting,
- lead-time volatility buffers,
- spoilage tolerance thresholds by SKU class.

Forecast quality should be judged by service level and waste rate together, not by forecast error in isolation.