Coming back...with What's a Food Distributor

I've been away from writing for some time. It seems the last time I had a chance to write was prior to my vacation in Hong Kong. That was in May and it is now September...make that October. Time sure flies when you're having fun...or working.

So, what have I been up to recently? Let's talk about my last project and what I learned.
I finished about a month ago at a food distributor in Chicago. What's a food distributor? I'm glad you asked because prior to this project, I didn't even know such a business exist but it is all very logical if you think about it.

It seems that resturarnts needs to obtain food of decent quality and consistent prices. Now, your nice, top of the line famous bistro down the street might have the chef walk around the farmer's market every day at dawn to pick up the freshest and nices produce. However, the reality is that most of resturants in America don't have that luck (I'll touch upon this notion later). Rather, most resturants in America order from a food distributor. Food once order are then delivered directly to the resturant.

As a distributor, the there several very important components to your busy. One of the key is order entry with managing the supply chain usually next. Think about it this way, the orders taken by the company determines demand and supply for products. This in turn allows the distributor to think about routing, delivery, services, promotions, marketing, etc.

I was fortunate enough to get a peek under the hood of this large distributor. To say the least, the ordering processes is much more complex than most people think.

Think about a local resturant that you visit. Think of all the items on their menu. Now, think of all the materials that is required to make something as simple as a hamburger. We need buns, the meat, sauce, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, etc. Each of these products have multiple choices. You can buy plain buns or maybe french rolls as buns. You can get organic lettuce from your local farmer or a larger supplier three states away. Each resturant, depending on the market it is competing in, will choose different products. Similarly, the distributor much determine which product to have on its order entry list for people to choose. Do you offer the one pound patty or the 1.3 pount patty? What about 90% lean or 95% lean? As choices increases, so does the complexity of offering each of these choices. Each item has to be priced to be sold. Keeping track of the orders, changing prices, and updating the order catalogy for new products becomes challenging very quickly.

This is part of the work that I was able to participate in. By understanding the order entry processes and looking at potential bottlenecks, our team was able to devise solutions to help the company.