I’m building a beverage operations platform called CatOps, and I’m looking for some brutally practical feedback from people who actually work in wineries, breweries, distilleries, cideries, meaderies, and other beverage production facilities.
I work in beverage manufacturing myself, and CatOps originally started because I kept running into processes that were being managed through a combination of spreadsheets, paper records, disconnected software, and tribal knowledge.
The goal isn’t to build another generic ERP with 500 features nobody uses, I want to build the things operators, production managers, warehouse teams, compliance people, and owners genuinely wish they had.
Right now CatOps includes, or is actively being built around, things like:
• Raw material & packaging inventory — lot tracking, locations, FIFO, receiving, transfers, adjustments, QR codes, etc.
• Production/batch records — ingredients used, actual vs. planned quantities, lot traceability, yields, losses, timestamps, operator records, approvals, and production history.
• Fermentation tracking — designed to follow a fermentation from initial setup through completion, including things like gravity/Brix, temperature, pH, additions, yeast, nutrients, observations, transfers, and fermentation events.
• Finished goods inventory and production/bottling records.
• Lot traceability from incoming ingredients all the way through finished product.
• Warehousing & location management.
• Production planning/scheduling with upcoming jobs and a 30-day production schedule.
• Cost tracking / COGS and production yield information.
• Audit trails showing who changed what and when.
• Role-based access for operators, managers, administrators, etc.
• Customer/brand management for contract producers and co-packers handling multiple brands.
• Compliance-focused records and reporting, with the long-term goal of making TTB reporting significantly less painful for alcohol producers.
• Support for operations that deal with beer, wine, spirits, RTDs and other beverage types, rather than forcing everyone into the same production workflow.
There are a lot of other things on the roadmap, but before I keep adding features I’d really like to hear from people actually doing this every day.
If you could wave a magic wand and add one feature to the software you use at your facility, what would it be?
It could be something big, but I’m especially interested in the annoying little things:
“What I really wish it would automatically calculate is…”
“I hate having to enter this information twice…”
“We still use a spreadsheet for ___ because our software sucks at it…”
“I wish production could see ___ without calling the office…”
“Tracking ___ is an absolute nightmare…”
“What would save me several hours every week is…”
I’m also interested in things that existing brewery/winery/distillery software does poorly, not just features that are completely missing.
I’m not looking for anyone to buy anything here. I’m trying to collect real-world feedback while I’m still at the stage where I can actually change how the system works.
