How Food Supply Network Connects Buyers and Suppliers Of Food Products. Food Supply Network is an online platform that connects buyers and suppliers of food products in South Africa and beyond. From manufacturers and distributors to buyers, such as restaurants and hotels, Food Supply Network creates a platform for closer collaboration for all players in the food supply chain, through the integration of the major software systems. The company was founded in 2016 by Gert Steyn, who also serves as the company’s CEO.
The company enables restaurants, dark kitchens, industrial caterers and even retail outlets access to live pricing, stock levels and online order processing from their key suppliers. Food Supply Network has created a marketplace in which restaurants conveniently have access to suppliers in the industry. It is now a go-to place for the hospitality industry when sourcing products. Brand owners list their products and supply chain making it easy to identify the products that the client is looking for and the suppliers that can deliver to the client’s location.
The platform provides a user friendly ordering system with live pricing and stock availability that allows clients to order from all their suppliers in multiple sectors with a single login. The client’s current pricing, payments and fulfilment agreements with the client’s suppliers stay in place; the company just streamlines the communication.
Brand Owners are great at marketing and Distributors are great at logistics. Most Distributors sell products of multiple competing brands and cannot represent each brand equally. Food Supply Network gives Brand Owners access to tools to market directly to buyers without undercutting their supply chain, they can receive all orders from clients in a consistent format and increase accuracy with client side approvals.
The company has an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system that constantly evaluates the buying behaviour of every buyer with every one of the client’s products and dynamically adjusts buyer specific rewards and promotions (within set parameters) to minimise the chances of the buyer switching brands. This will affect the long term change in buying behaviour and get access to valuable data with a brand loyalty program direct to buyers irrespective of which distributor they use.
The company has managed to secure an investment of an undisclosed amount from Naspers Foundry. “We’re extremely excited about our partnership with Naspers Foundry. Naspers brings unparalleled global experience, marketplace expertise and extensive networks to the table. Its capabilities complement our own, as well as those of our existing partners at Venturen, which also participated in this round. Naspers shares our vision of optimising the local and global food supply chains in an industry that still relies on manual processes.” said Steyn in a statement.
