A contract on paper and a different reality in the kitchens
Head office spent months agreeing a produce contract, a dry goods contract and a meat supplier across the group. The prices are good and the specifications are tight. Then the invoices come in. One site is still buying chips from the local wholesaler it used before it joined the group. Another sends the kitchen porter to the cash and carry every Friday. A third has a head chef who prefers a different butcher and has quietly kept the account open.
None of this is malicious. Each purchase has a reason that made sense on the day: the delivery was short, the cut was wrong, the chef trusts the other product. But added up across the estate it undermines the contract, the specification and the recipe costing that depends on both.
Why off-contract buying keeps coming back
The main cause is that ordering is still done the way each site always did it: phone calls, supplier portals, text messages to reps and a notebook in the office. Head office has the contract. The site has the habits.
- Site teams do not have one place that shows what they are allowed to order and from whom.
- The approved product list lives in a spreadsheet that was emailed once and not updated.
- Short deliveries leave the kitchen needing something today, and the nearest option wins.
- Nobody sees off-contract spend until invoices are processed, often weeks later.
- New head chefs arrive with their own supplier relationships.
The quiet cost of leakage
Off-contract purchases usually cost more per unit, but the price difference is only part of it. If the group's supplier rebates depend on volume, every case bought elsewhere counts against them. Recipe costing assumes the contracted product, so GP reports drift for reasons that are hard to spot. Specifications suffer too: a different chip, a different burger patty or a different cheese changes the dish a guest ordered at another site last week.
There is also traceability. When an allergen or recall question comes up, head office needs to know which supplier's product is in which kitchen. Unknown suppliers make that question much harder to answer.
How we put the contract into the ordering itself
- We load your approved supplier list, product codes, pack sizes, contracted prices and specifications into one catalogue, maintained by purchasing.
- Each site orders from that catalogue on a tablet or phone, grouped by supplier, with delivery days and cut-off times shown so orders go out in time.
- Orders are sent to suppliers by their preferred route: EDI, email, their portal or an integration with your purchasing system if you already have one.
- If a site needs to buy off-contract, it logs the purchase with a reason such as short delivery, quality rejection or emergency, and a photo of the receipt.
- Invoices matched to sites are checked against the catalogue, and lines from non-approved suppliers or at non-contract prices are flagged to purchasing.
- A weekly leakage report shows off-contract spend by site, supplier, product and reason.
| Reason given | What it usually points to | Who acts |
|---|---|---|
| Short delivery | Supplier fill rate problem | Purchasing with supplier |
| Quality rejected | Specification or supplier issue | Purchasing and exec chef |
| Ran out | Par levels or ordering habits | Area manager with site |
| Chef preference | Specification disagreement | Exec chef decides |
The point is not to police chefs. It is to make the approved route the easy route, and to turn the exceptions into information purchasing can use in its supplier conversations.
What purchasing and the sites get
Site teams order faster, because they are picking from the right list with the right pack sizes rather than remembering which rep to text. Purchasing sees orders as they are placed, not weeks later on an invoice, and has a record of short deliveries to take back to suppliers. The exec chef can see where the specification is being ignored and why, and decide whether the spec or the site needs to change.
Does this sound like your estate?
- Invoices arrive from suppliers head office has never heard of.
- Sites still order by phone and text to reps.
- Supplier rebate targets are missed without a clear reason.
- Recipe GP differs between sites that sell the same dish.
- Nobody can say which suppliers are in which kitchens today.