Competitive Bidding

[mrkona]

Aloha!

I was wondering how often you all have your vendors participate in competitive bidding for main ingredients (if you do that). If you do, is there a process that you have found to be the most efficient and beneficial?

Is there a specific time of the year that would be the best to ask your vendors to do this?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[mrkona]

Bump?

 

[Kris]

We used to have 2 vendors and they would give pricing and based on that we would order. It was VERY time consuming Over the years we have had a lot of vendors come in wanting our biz and would get price sheets from them.

What I have found is at the end of the day it all evens out…basically. One may charge less for flour but they will rip you off on some other product like paper towels.

We have since left both vendors and now use one we are trying to build a relationship with. The more money I make the more money they make.

As long as your not getting ripped off try building a relationship with your rep.

BTW good ol Nick was the one who clued me in on this.

Kris

 

[pizzapirate]

I agree with Kris. From time to time you need to re-evaluate the prices but I think it is better to build a strong relationship with one vendor or else you get salesman just shifting prices around on different products.

 

[mrkona]

Thanks for the replies!

I have built a very solid relationship with our primary vendor over the past five years, but there have been some things coming up lately that are leading me to the decision to see what else is out there… Some of the stuff is less about the cost, but more about how product is handled, order/delivery schedule, availability, etc…

I guess it will just come down to putting all of my ingredients into an excel sheet and sending out to a few companies to see what they come up with.

Mahalo!

 

[pizzapirate]

mrkona:

I guess it will just come down to putting all of my ingredients into an excel sheet and sending out to a few companies to see what they come up with.

Mahalo!

Unless you are going to get some kind of cost plus pricing contract, getting quotes is of little use. Once any company gets you to commit they can start playing with prices at any time. I would just suggest you try working things out first because you are going to have issues with any company – just different/new ones.