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$5 Fuel Charge, are you all still paying one food dist?

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I was going over my invoices the other day When I realized one of the food invoices was over by $5. Sure enough, page after the workers signed for the orders on the top right corner is a small “5 fuel ch” on it. They just been adding in the fuel charge to the total to the invoice total every week. They manner in which they been tacking it on, got me pretty ticked off. All my other dist drop the fuel surcharge a while ago, are you all still paying one? When I told the Rep what Bs is this first tried playing stupid, when that didn’t work, he admits I wasn’t the first person to complain to him and not gonna be the last. Now I know I only have small acct with them but still “75k a year” I spend and for $5 I’m seriously thinking of dropping them, am I over reacting?
 
I currently order from 2 Food distributors & they both charge a delivery fee…one is $3 & the other one is 3.75. It is listed on the invoice very noticeable.
 
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Hey I just wanted to throw this idea out here once more as I did not get a good response the first time I posted a thread a while back. I am thinking about forming a buying co-op made up of indie pizza operations to help all of us with all of our purchasing needs. This would include all of our food and non-food items and larger equipment also. I have been in contact with a few distributors and vendors and so far they have all seemed to be interested in some sort of co-op volume discount. The way I would structure this would be to charge all members an initial membership fee and then a small monthly or quarterly fee to handle contract and pricing negotiations and admin paperwork. From what I have heard from others that have used this method in other co-op type buying groups is it can have a significant impact on your buying power. If we have 100 indie’s all spending $100k plus per year thats a possible ten million dollar food account for a supplier. We would have some purchasing power with this type of volume. Not to mention all the other non-food items and equipment purchases that we make. I feel if we can get a few dozen indie’s as a starting base this could move forward and be successful. Share your thoughts with me as I believe this could benefit all.
 
Years ago another independent pizzaria operator who used the same supplier bragged to me about refusing to pay the fuel charge when writing the check.

He was the typical “seasoned NY Italian” pizzaria owner who could rub two nickels together to produce $.09.

I politely nodded but inside was laughing my guts out. It’s like arguing the sticker price of a vehicle with a salesman who controls the freight and set-up charges.

If it makes you feel better, by all means change suppliers.
 
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Are you saving money by ordering supplies from this supplier compared to if you were ordering from the other suppliers in your area? If this supplier is giving you great pricing and service, then I wouldn’t fight over $5. If they are periodically raising the prices on your supplies and are sneaky about it, then I would consider looking for another supplier. Putting the deliver charge issue aside, if you are happy with their pricing and service, don’t let that $5 charge ruin your relationship with them.
 
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Yep it probally won’t ever disappear! They got it on there and there is going to always be an excuse to keep it.
 
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You know if you are really worried about the $5 fee, just slip an extra $.10 onto every pie you sell to make up for you. It is the price of business. You know you have to think about keeping the people that keep you stocked taken care of. I understand the idea you have with the banding together and everything. BUT what if every truck driver does the same thing to your business? How many days do you think your store could go without supplies? How much money would you lose? $5 helps keep the world spinning. They have the fuel and maintenance of the vehicles to think about, you have the food cost to think about. Not trying to stomp on your idea, hell I give my delivery guys discounts, coupons, and the occasional free pie. Sometimes they will drop the fee or pay it themselves for a pie.
 
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