Overview

When Thrifty® Ice Cream was acquired out of Rite Aid’s bankruptcy, the new ownership team faced a hard deadline: stand up a fully independent ERP and inventory operation before the end of August 2025. With Saber Consulting’s Clint Berry leading the transition, Thrifty moved off Sage X3 and went live on QuickBooks Desktop + Fishbowl in two weeks, stabilizing a $50M annual food manufacturing business without interrupting production.

The result: a modern, food-ready inventory and manufacturing system delivered at less than half the annual cost of their previous ERP, with faster onboarding and far stronger lot/expiry control.

About Thrifty Ice Cream

Founded in 1940 in Southern California, Thrifty Ice Cream has been a beloved West Coast brand for decades and now manufactures from its facility in El Monte, California.

After Rite Aid’s Chapter 11 process, the Thrifty Ice Cream manufacturing brand was sold to new owners in 2025, creating the need to operate as a standalone company for the first time in its history.

Today, Thrifty distributes broadly through grocery and distribution channels and is expanding beyond its historic California base into retailers like Albertsons, Kroger, and WinCo.

About Saber Consulting

Saber Consulting Group is a professional business solutions partner specializing in systems integration, data transformation, and change management, with deep operational leadership experience. Learn more at Saber Consulting.

Challenge

Thrifty’s carve-out came with compressed timelines and high operational risk:

  • Non-Negotiable Cutover Deadline: Sage X3 access tied to Rite Aid’s bankruptcy meant Thrifty had to be fully off the legacy ERP by August 31, 2025.
  • Cost Pressure: Remaining on Sage X3 was projected at more than $100,000 per year—unacceptable for a newly independent business.
  • Food Manufacturing Requirements: QuickBooks alone lacked critical controls for a perishables environment, including lot and expiry tracking and robust manufacturing workflows.
  • Standalone Operations for the First Time: Since 1940, Thrifty had never operated independently, so core processes—financials, BOMs, inventory, and order management—needed to be rebuilt quickly.

Solution

Clint and the Thrifty team executed a rapid two-system strategy:

QuickBooks Desktop for financials: Migrated essential master data and chart-of-accounts activity without getting bogged down in deep historical conversion.

Fishbowl for manufacturing and inventory:

  • Implemented full inventory control with lot/expiry tracking, food-grade traceability, and multi-warehouse visibility (production site + off-site raw goods staging).
  • Rebuilt and validated BOM structures and manufacturing workflows.
  • Leveraged Fishbowl’s flexible parts vs. products model for aliasing and customer-specific items.
  • Adopted costing workflows aligned with operational needs (FIFO/LIFO/AVG supported).

Implementation milestones:

  • Aug 7, 2025: Fishbowl selected and purchased.
  • Aug 23–24, 2025: On-site cutover weekend with full data extracts, UOM setup, and conversion.
  • Aug 25, 2025: Go-live for a live food manufacturing environment.

“We did a full cutover… a $50 million food-based manufacturer in basically two weeks.”

Clint Berry, Saber Consulting Group

Results

ERP cost reduced by more than half: Legacy Sage X3 projected run-rate exceeded $100K per year. The new stack (Fishbowl + QuickBooks Desktop) came in at less than 50% of prior cost—delivering 50%+ annual systems savings while gaining more capability.

Go-live in 14 days for a live manufacturing plant: Full manufacturing and inventory operations cut over in two weeks. Deadline met with time to spare versus the August 31 requirement. Production continuity maintained during the transition. “This was the fastest implementation I’ve done, and the fastest training to get users effectively utilizing the system,” said Clint.

Food-ready inventory control restored immediately: Lot and expiry traceability enabled from day one. Multi-location visibility between manufacturing site and off-site raw goods warehouse. Reduced reliance on external food-safety systems as processes moved into Fishbowl.

Faster onboarding, lower learning curve: Users ramped quickly thanks to intuitive UI versus Sage. “The learning curve is very shallow compared to Sage and other ERPs,” Clint noted.

Why Fishbowl

Thrifty’s team needed speed and depth—Fishbowl delivered both:

  • Manufacturing Built for Real Operations: Robust BOMs and configurable workflows.
  • Traceability for Perishables: Lot and expiry tracking from day one.
  • Tight QuickBooks Desktop Integration: Cost-effective ERP stack without compromise.
  • Business-First Design: Rapid training and day-one productivity.

Clint summarized it simply: “Fishbowl was a better overall system with less cost.”

Looking Ahead

With core operations stabilized, Thrifty is exploring next-phase improvements including preventive maintenance tracking, streamlined food-safety recording within existing workflows, and potential e-commerce and shipping integrations as their direct-to-consumer channel grows.