Establishing and maintaining a solid relationship with your suppliers is essential to the success of your restaurant chain. It affects the quality of your food, sourcing, everything that makes your concept unique for your customers and franchisees.
Good relations with your suppliers can help you obtain competitive prices and reduce your material costs. What's more, a solid agreement with your suppliers ensures on-time deliveries and makes it easier to deal with unforeseen circumstances.
The relationship with your suppliers must be a key element of your strategy. Taken over the long term, this relationship can become a real competitive advantage:
By maintaining good relations with your suppliers, you can improve your restaurant's performance. This will guarantee its long-term success.
How to choose the best suppliers?
Selecting suppliers suited to your restaurant's needs is the first step in establishing a quality relationship. Selection criteria can include :
From the outset, you need to define your expectations in terms of product quality, time and, of course, payment. In the event of a problem, such as product quality or late delivery, discuss it quickly. Be sympathetic and find effective solutions.
It is therefore important to communicate with your supplier on the following points:
Prior negotiation is necessary to establish conditions that suit you and your suppliers.
In the food service industry, a mercurial is a document that groups together suppliers to establish a fixed price for certain products. These prices are "guaranteed" and do not vary due to competition between suppliers or market fluctuations.
To set up a price list for your restaurants, it is necessary to create a document detailing the essential information for inventory management:
This document will be used to keep track of prices negotiated with suppliers. When introducing a new recipe, it is easier to calculate its cost using this sheet.
Establishing a price list for products such as dry goods and frozen foods is generally easier, as their prices fluctuate less rapidly than those of meat, fish or fruit and vegetables.
To begin with, identify the products you want to include in your price list and discuss them with your suppliers.
It's crucial for restaurateurs, purchasing managers or controllers to keep a close eye on locked-in prices. Even if suppliers commit to maintaining certain prices, unforeseen increases can occur due to economic factors, as we have recently seen. It is therefore essential to monitor these price variations in order to react quickly and maintain profitability.
Using inventory management software that centralizes all this data can be highly advantageous. It allows you to update the price lists on a regular basis and manage the profitability of each dish in real time.
To optimize your supplier relations, it's crucial to respect agreed payment terms. These terms, regulated by law, vary according to the type of food product.
For example, the lead time is different for perishables and beverages. Always check the invoice for this essential information.
If you find it difficult to pay your invoices on time, we recommend that you talk to your suppliers to find a mutually acceptable solution.
If there's a problem with a product or delivery, it's crucial to report it promptly to your supplier. This can include:
Adopt an honest and open attitude when discussing these issues with your suppliers. This will encourage your suppliers to give you the help you need.
By integrating these management practices, you can expect to build a solid relationship of trust, fostering effective, lasting collaboration.
To maintain a good relationship, plan regular exchanges (email, videoconference, telephone, in person). Organize weekly or monthly meetings to review or reassess the terms of your collaboration.
At Yokitup, we've developed a complete solution to improve communication and collaboration with your suppliers, ensuring a smooth and efficient supply chain.
Yokitup automates the ordering process by generating order recommendations based on your restaurant's specific requirements and your suppliers' logistical conditions (delivery days, packaging, carriage paid, etc.). Also available as a mobile application, orders can be sent directly by email, SMS or WhatsApp, simplifying your workflow.
When receiving goods, staff can easily check deliveries and record the quantities and references received directly via Yokitup's stock management application. In the event of incomplete deliveries or defective products, a credit note request can be created automatically. Your request can be accompanied by photos to document the problems encountered.
This helps prevent billing errors and ensures more accurate, transparent management.
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