Article
A Digital Partnership - How a Broadline Distributor's Technology Tools Saved an Operator Time and Money
As a young resturant owner/operator, I remember reading articles in Restaurant Startup & Growth about how important it was for independent operators to have a "prime vendor" distributor. Nevertheless, at my Southern California concept Cali BBQ, we had relationships with numerous food vendors who would compete for our business on price every other week.
Every company is now a technology company whether they know it or not. Business-to-business transactions are now accomplished digitally through text messages, email, direct messages and direct ordering online.
Whatever pricing advantages we enjoyed weren't worth it. Time has value, too, and my general and kitchen managers and I spent too much time trying to get the best prices possible for our products using this process. The more I read about the advantages of not using multiple vendors in this way, the more I realized how much time I was wasting.
Ultimately what convinced me to switch our inventory and ordering system was a young US Foods sales agent named Brad Newburg. Brad spent more time learning about our operational pain points than selling us on their services, products or prices.
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Our relationship with US Foods started in 2012, but really began to flourish when I realized how committed they were to helping us with digital hospitality solutions for our business.
They were so focused on new technology and put such a strong emphasis on online ordering that we made a formal commitment to purchase with them as our primary food vendor and have not looked back since.
Helping Restaurants with Technology
As you likely know, US Foods is a broadline foodservice distributor and service provider for nearly 300,000 restaurants and food operators. Their motto is "We Help You Make It" which, I found, is also their approach to technology.
Every company is now a technology company whether they know it or not. Business-to-business transactions are now accomplished digitally through text messages, email, direct messages, and direct ordering online. The time-saving factor is huge.
Before Brad began working with us, our prior US Foods sales representative traveled to our restaurant and spent a minimum of two hours with our kitchen manager inputting items from our order guide into their proprietary software. Then he or she would have to return later that week to do it all over again.
Now, our manager, Lisa Radford, can take a physical inventory with her iPhone, then input our entire order through an easy-to-use online portal for US Foods. Our management team receives a confirmation email and the food gets delivered overnight and dropped in our walk-in without anyone being on-site to check the order in.
Brad no longer works with US Foods, but our new representative, Gabriel Elizalde, also fits in perfectly with our team. On a weekly basis, he works directly with our management to help us as a restaurant operations consultant.
Gabriel doesn't have to do data entry, since so much of that work has been offloaded to technology. Instead, he can use his brainpower and situational knowledge about the industry to help make an impact on whatever pain point we are trying to solve.
A Bridge to a Digital World
Organizations like US Foods and RestaurantOwner.com can be your bridge to a new digital world by pointing you to the right services and digital tools. Chances are if you have a problem, there is something, or someone, online to help you.
Steve Hamlin, a district sales manager for US Foods, told me the company strives to always utilize technology to "Help Our Customers Make It more and more each day."
Technology like their online ordering platform and inventory management system has improved the work US Foods does by better ensuring accuracy, saving time, and creating safer, more seamless processes that don't require in-person interactions or stacks of paper.
"With the need for contactless interaction, our online ordering platform and inventory platform have cleared the way for safe interactions and seamless processes," said the US Foods sales manager. "We also offer online payments easily coordinated with your accounting software so all invoices can be viewed and paid online without the need of hard copies of invoices and/or checks being sent. Processing this way ensures accuracy and efficiency from delivery to payment."
With its CHECK Business Tools, US Foods partners with technology partners like Toast POS, restaurant website platform BentoBox, profit management system Craftable, to give restaurants a catered suite of digital tools.
The customizable CHECK Business Tools are centered around three core service categories, each with numerous digital solutions to choose from. The core services are: Drive Traffic, Simplify Staffing, Reduce Waste. What that means is more time and more money, two things every business owner strives for.
When we decided to switch point of sale companies from Aloha to Toast during the pandemic in 2020, we used US Foods' strategic CHECK partnership with Toast to get the best deal possible for our brand.
Is your primary food vendor one of your technology partners? What are they doing digitally to make ordering, invoicing, payments and servicing easier on you? If you don't have clear answers to these questions, maybe you should look for a different digital hospitality food vendor solution.
Can you recommend a technology that's helped your restaurant?
Email Shawn Walchef at [email protected] to start a conversation.
For More Information…
- Learn more about US Foods services at: https://www.usfoods.com/
- Follow US Foods on social media: @us_foods
- Subscribe to Shawn Walchef's Digital Hospitality Podcast: https://calibbq.media/podcast-episodes/
