There are over 260,000 restaurants and food outlets in the UK generating over £30bn of revenue on food and drink each year. According to COLLECTIVfood:

“The restaurant and takeaway supply chain is dominated by big distributors who typically take a 30-40% margin and charge a huge listing fee, pushing up prices and making it hard for quality suppliers to operate in this area… The supply chain that is old-fashioned, opaque and inefficient – orders are made over the telephone onto answer machines and even, sometimes, by fax.”

The ‘free to use’ for restaurants, COLLECTIVfood promises to ‘directly connect with hundreds of suppliers [that pay 10% net to COLLECTIVE], offering 1000s of quality products, on one easy-to-use platform’, and to be trustworthy enough for you cut ties with your suppliers in favour of saving time and money. One of the useful things is that the restaurant can review, track and manage orders on one simple interface, and settle all invoices in one monthly payment. We wonder how it will integrate with existing accounting technologies, obviously Xero API would be ideal.

We think there is some sort of error on their website as this is the criteria for joining as a Restaurant, surely this is for the Producer? Even so, this is the first mention of a non-GMO, natural and Organic requirement, the brand doesn’t seem to translate the following well in its branding and marketing:

  • That you are independently owned.
  • That you produce, rear or grow your own products, or you add-value to products that are from other independent producers or fisheries.
  • That you are not solely a wholesaler or distributor.
  • That you demonstrate a desire to produce quality products (often with external validation and certification such as Red Tractor, Soil Association and LEAF).
  • That you do not ‘mass produce’ your product.
  • That you limit the use chemicals preservatives, artificial flavourings, colourings or antibiotics (and there should be demonstrable efforts to actively reduce such products).
  • That you do not use synthetic growth hormones or GM products.