Restaurant supply management goes mobile

With over 60% of food consumers choosing to order via websites and mobile apps, or using their personal devices to make reservations in advance, it’s only logical that restaurants to turn to mobile themselves when it comes to ordering their own food supplies.  With that in mind, one revolutionary wholesale restaurant supply start-up is seeking to level the playing field for those independently owned restaurants currently at the mercy of the large food suppliers.

Cutting the fat on food supply waste

Food costs are one of the biggest expenses for a restaurant, making up to one-third of a business’s overhead.  With competition higher than most other industries, now more than ever independently owned restaurants are forced to be more creative in order to stand out from the crowd.  This is especially true when it comes to setting themselves apart in the area of what’s on the menu.  As a result, many have begun turning to ultra-seasonal ingredients as a way of standing out, taking advantage of England’s notorious short crop seasons.  Unfortunately, more often than not, for smaller establishments, these eclectic ingredients are not readily available due to the size of their orders, or by the time they arrive are no longer fresh, leading to food that ends up in the garbage rather than on the table.

Additionally, for independent eateries dependent on recipe experimentation it is difficult to project what may work from night-to-night.  Consequently, without knowing what they may need tomorrow, the ability to restock their inventory once the dust has settled after closing can provide a huge advantage for a business fighting for its survival. Unfortunately, for a smaller restaurant dealing with a larger wholesale food distributor, being able to order something late and have it the next morning is seemingly an impossibility.  The alternative, of course, is to turn to local food suppliers, however, the option for next-delivery is not always available.

Good food served fast

Independent restaurant owners face enough challenges of figuring out what their customers want while at the same time uncovering opportunities to increase their profits.  Whereas the vast majority of owners would prefer spending their time dazzling their customers with amazing food, sadly the task-heavy burden of handling the daily operational logistics tend to monopolize their time.  San Francisco based, Cheetah, aims to shake things up by helping save business owners both money and time through the help of its simple-to-use mobile wholesale food supply ordering and inventory management.  The company currently boasts a client roster of over 2,000 happy restaurants who combined have saved over 300,000 hours in order time thanks to its app.

Given its ability to facilitate orders virtually anytime on a mobile device, the use of Cheetah has proved quite effective in lowering the amount ordering time compared to using large supply services.  In fact, by eliminating the need to go through sales representatives and negotiate special prices users of Cheetah save nearly an hour and a half on the amount of time it takes to place an order than going the conventional route. 

Plus, the savings the financial savings restaurant owners enjoy are absolutely clear, thanks to Cheetah’s completely transparent pricing structure.  There is no markup on the supplies ordered, with the company instead opting for a simple delivery charge that has resulted in savings to its customers of over $15 million USD on over 95,000 orders delivered.

How Cheetah works

Cheetah makes the process of ordering quality supplies from different food distributors as easy as possible: they understand the importance of speed and organization. They shortened the process to four easy steps:

1. Sign-up with simple instructions. Registration takes 2 minutes;
2. Browse food catalog and add items to your cart;
3. Place your order and submit before midnight;
4. Receive your guaranteed next-day delivery.

Looking to the future, as Cheetah continues to develop the app will be able to maintain detailed records of past behavior in order to automatically adapt for future suggestions that will autoship through the help of machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Despite their best efforts and diligent planning, restaurants continue to fall victim to supply over-ordering, resulting in ingredients that are never consumed.  In fact, each year, humans waste approximately one-third of the food produced around the world.  Can this be solved with more efficient and smarter food ordering and inventory management?  With the help of apps, such as Cheetah, perhaps a healthier, more diverse, and environmentally-friendly food system will be on the menu sooner than we think.