Today’s post is written by Heather Powell, Director of Major Accounts and Special Projects at SafeSourcing Inc.

Reminder of what proprietary foods are: those which are not standardized under regulations and may contain primary ingredients and some generic additives. For examples, energy drinks and custard powder which contain starch, dextrose, flavor and color. These foods can be made from milk or milk products, from carbohydrates, with or without a basis of milk, from meat, fish, or eggs, from vegetables, fruits, or nuts, and sometimes from fatty substances.1

So why would you expose your proprietary food item to potentially be copied or even the recipe stolen?

You will have the opportunity to grow your business, your bottom line, and depending on how hands on you are with your product will be added time. Some people have the opportunity to take out parts of their proprietary recipe to bid. What are the most expensive items you purchase to make your product? Are there items that have pricing tied to a market index? Do you just go to a wholesale club or foodservice provider for your ingredients?

Looking at your spend and looking at your savings opportunity may open the opportunities for you to engage suppliers in a bid. In many summer salads, mayonnaise is a key ingredient. Do you have a flavor profile preference? Do you prefer a specific brand? Did you know that you can take your specific requirement to bid? Many of the major manufactures of mayonnaise have participated in online request for quotes through SafeSourcing and our clients have received an average of 20% savings from their preferred brand or flavor profile of mayonnaise.

Determine your item(s) you want to take to market and the volume or quantities you will need, be prepared to have the discussion of a 1-year agreement with no price increases versus a 2- year agreement with an index escalator/de-escalator percentage added. You will also need to provide current pricing, purchase history, invoices, or past contracts to your e-procurement company. Where do you store your item(s)? How often is it shipped to your location? Is freight included or added to your pricing? All of these details will make sure your needs, wants, and expectations are met throughout the process.

In the final part, part six of this series, the author will provide the details of why it is important to test and sample the proprietary product before signing that final contract. Meanwhile, SafeSourcing can assist you in exploring your procurement solutions for your proprietary product on our “Risk Free” trial program for RFPs and RFQs, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.  We have an entire customer services team waiting to assist you today.

We look forward to your comments.

References:

1. www.quora.com/What-is-proprietary-food

Today’s post is by Dave Wenig, Vice President of Sales and Services at SafeSourcing, Inc.

For those keeping score at home, this is the fourth installment in the Baseball Season and eProcurement series. In the previous posts in this series, we highlighted some examples of how SafeSourcing customers have achieved and enjoyed hitting singles and doubles in their online Request for Quote (RFQ) Events. A triple is an Event that creates savings between 15% and 19.99%.

In the past, we had reviewed a couple of different examples for each. In today’s post, we’ll focus in on one interesting example of a triple. In future installments of this series, we’ll focus on Home Runs and Grand Slams.

Today’s example is one that many might not think of when they consider eProcurement or reverse auctions. Often, when considering categories for eProcurement, many of our customers first look to indirect spend items with many focused on supplies. While those are great items and reducing the cost of copy paper and other suppliers is fantastic, there are many more opportunities that are often left out of consideration.

One great example of this type of overlooked item is prepared chicken salad. Because this is an item that will vary in style, taste, and quality from supplier to supplier, many of our customers would not consider sourcing their prepared chicken salad using SafeSourcing’s RFx tools to reduce costs. That said, one of our more experienced customers did just that with really incredible results. This customer, a retailer, had a very large annual spend in their chicken salad that they utilize in their foodservice offering. Their savings was an incredible triple that generated a triple with their current supplier and some alternatives. What that meant was that not only could they have gone elsewhere if the samples from the competitor were of the right perceived quality, they could also get that savings from their current supplier and not change a single thing other than the price they pay. That is exactly what any customer would want to happen in this scenario. This proves that even if the item can’t be defined as precisely as a ream of copy paper can, the process and the tools used by SafeSourcing will reduce your costs. This customer knows that’s true and has over $650K in savings to remind them.

By the way, after this particular Event, the incumbent supplier also called SafeSourcing to reduce their costs and they were successful in that as well. So far, that customer has hit a double and a home run.

There are many results like these and there are interesting stories including great savings dollars behind each. In the next entry in this series, things will get pretty exciting as we look at some examples of Home Runs.

Contact SafeSourcing, Inc. if you’re interested in learning more about how RFQ Events can help your company advance the bases and achieve savings.