You must ensure that your supply chain is solid. This includes sourcing, procuring raw materials at negotiated rates, accurate inventory management, and adapted logistics.
Anaïs Adlerfligel
16
May 2025
Franchisees are looking to your expertise in this area. It's one of the main reasons they may have sought out your franchise in the first place. Let’s examine the importance of sourcing and centralising supplies for franchises. By focusing on product quality and what makes a product unique, franchisors can offer a distinct competitive advantage to their franchisees. As a restaurateur aspiring to develop a franchise, you fully understand the crucial importance of offering high-quality culinary products while effectively controlling your costs and margins. The key to your success here lies in optimal supply chain management and cost reduction without compromising quality. With Inpulse, you can more efficiently manage your inventory and increase profitability, while maintaining strict control over product quality.
To ensure the efficiency of the supply chain within a franchise, it is crucial to understand the inherent franchise business model. This model revolves around an agreement between the franchisor, who owns the brand, concept, and know-how, and the franchisee, who may manage single or even multiple units under the franchisor's banner, in exchange for royalties. This partnership involves strict adherence to the standards and guidelines established by the franchisor, including food safety and product traceability. Furthermore, the franchisee benefits from the franchisor's support in implementing optimised management practices for inventory, orders, and supplier relationships.
Mastering sourcing constitutes a real competitive advantage for your franchisee. This involves sourcing and mastering your know-how to guarantee the quality and uniqueness of your offer. Consequently, this also implies rigorous inventory management to avoid food waste. Good stock level management allows for taking demand fluctuations into account and minimising losses. Using inventory management software enables precise quantity tracking and anticipating future needs based on past sales. Inpulse offers an overview of available stocks and helps predict future orders based on past sales.
If they come to you, it's to find differentiated products that they couldn't order elsewhere. You can develop specific references with your chosen suppliers, such as sauces, breads, or particular meats. Thus, creating your own packaging (branded and pre-portioned) will ensure the quality and homogeneity of your dishes. The management of ingredients and supplies is therefore a key element for the success of your restaurant or catering business. Teams must be well-trained to manage stocks and reduce waste. Good staff training on stock management procedures and the use of management tools is essential to ensure maximum efficiency and minimise losses.
Another important challenge is adapting the offer to local specificities. Demand can vary significantly depending on regions, seasons, or local events. This may mean opting for local suppliers while ensuring the quality and traceability standards required by the franchisor, as well as complying with various regulations. For example, choosing labelled or British quality products can strengthen communication around your brand. This can also reinforce the perception of quality and environmental responsibility among customers.
Pizza Cosy, for example, committed to sourcing from a local tomato producer for its entire network of franchisees. Similarly, Les Burgers de Colette offer carefully crafted recipes exclusively prepared with fresh and 100% French products. National suppliers can propose local suppliers to meet these challenges. Using organic products and supporting organic sourcing can thus attract environmentally conscious customers. The choice of local suppliers not only reduces delivery times and transport costs but also supports the local economy.
The more your network grows, the more you can benefit from economies of scale. To do this, you need to structure your network's purchases. Optimising franchise supply involves more than just centralising purchases and negotiating prices with suppliers. This approach implies adopting advanced technology for stock tracking and management, accurate demand forecasting, and effective supplier relationship management to ensure quality and continuity of supplies. Accurate demand forecasting helps adjust orders to avoid surpluses and shortages, thereby improving customer satisfaction.
Limiting the number of suppliers will allow you to ensure the quality and traceability of your differentiating references, guarantee reliable and fast deliveries, and foster a relationship of trust and proximity. This is essential for optimising the supply chain in a franchise. On average, franchisors limit themselves to five main suppliers. Depending on the size of your network, you can transition from implementing supplier price lists with negotiated rates and conditions, known as a central referencing unit, to a central purchasing unit. These central units are crucial because they play a key role in providing the necessary resources for the proper functioning of the business. Close relationships with a limited number of suppliers also allow for better product quality management and smoother communication.
The central purchasing unit is responsible for sourcing and negotiation with the collective power of a head office to obtain the best price on referenced products for franchisees. It also allows each franchisee to have a supply logistics adapted to their needs, and enables the franchisor to offer products specifically designed by the head office (these products developed by the franchisor can also be offered by suppliers without going through a central unit). Furthermore, centralising everything on a single tool saves time and ensures better inventory management. Centralised management also allows for standardising processes and ensuring uniformity of products and services offered by the entire network.
Franchisees are looking for an easy-to-operate concept. You must do everything to simplify their supply management, and this involves centralisation.
Using software like Inpulse allows you to gather your price lists, link them to your recipe sheets, and offer your franchisees a single tool that centralises supplier orders. From an operational perspective, you can easily duplicate the know-how and offer it to a new franchisee thanks to Inpulse.
And from a data perspective, all supply flows are centralised for deep analysis:
Access to this data is essential for leverage in annual negotiations with your suppliers, but also for rationalising your flows. For example, you can find the right delivery frequency or re-evaluate certain products that may have increased too much due to inflation. Optimising supply chain management also reduces costs, meets demand, and guarantees better product quality while minimising waste and promoting sustainable development.
In conclusion, optimising the supply chain for a franchise in the catering sector requires a strategic and well-structured approach. By mastering stock management techniques, establishing strong partnerships with suppliers, and using advanced technological tools, you can ensure efficient and sustainable supply management. This will not only allow you to meet your customers' expectations but also strengthen your franchise's competitive position in the market.
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