“We have a lot of single source dependency, and work to identify matches and find suppliers that can produce similar guest experiences,” Waterman said. “Our culinary team has dedicated resources toward that, and the process could sometimes take months or even a year to fine-tune and create a match that will taste the same coming out of different plants.” Whereas most of the operators we spoke with were ramping up the number of distributors they work with daily, this strategy doesn’t work for everyone. Auntie Anne’s and Cinnabon’s parent company, Focus Brands, is working on streamlining the number of distributors and suppliers its partners with to manage fewer SKUs and simplify the company’s supply chain. “The reality is that any one of our brands alone does not have significant purchasing power,” said Anissa Mandell Chance, senior vice president of supply chain at Focus Brands.“So you really have to depend on leveraging the aggregate spend across all brands in order to bring that benefit. The way we do that is by doing more with less; instead of having too many suppliers, products and SKUs, we … look at how we are able to get more products with fewer suppliers, which enables us to manage our price outline more effectively.” Chance said that she and her team are able to negotiate as a portfolio, rather than as individual brands so they can, for example, negotiate a contract for chicken with both Moe’s Southwest Grill and Schlotzsky’s at the same time. Focus Brands is in the midst of a multi-year plan to simplify its supply chain, and will be working on decreasing its number of suppliers by 2025. The company is also working on a supplier score card to look at multiple aspects of the supplier’s relationship, including pricing and overall quality to help improve or reevaluate partnerships. Relationships with suppliers are the backbone of any restaurant’s supply chain success, whether you’re a national chain or a small independent restaurant. Each of the experts interviewed for this
story stressed the importance of having a close relationship with their suppliers, especially now when macroeconomic pressures make it challenging to get ingredients at reasonable prices. Smoothie King, for example, works with its distributors to create automated reports and predictive analytics to know exactly what each distributor has for each item and can react (and purchase) accordingly. “We look at our distributors not just as suppliers but as partners,” Mayrand said. “If you leverage these relationships, maybe you will get more preferential treatment versus somebody who just sees it as a transactional relationship.” Panera similarly stressed the importance of close relationships with suppliers, and even utilizes these relationships to help manage increased costs. Before the pandemic, Panera started rethinking its relationships with suppliers and began developing secondary and tertiary relationships as backup in case things went south (as they did in 2020 and 2021).The team has since been able to identify issues within the supply chain, like product availability, consistency and quality and tweak these items based on constant conversations with suppliers. “We’re always looking for feedback from suppliers and looking at how we can improve quality and resiliency or lower costs,” Waterman said. “There’s no magic bullet. It requires constant monitoring, communication, and agility. We can’t anticipate everything that comes at us, but we can try to stay ahead of the curve and have a plan.” “We’re always looking at how we can improve quality and resiliency or lower costs. There’s no magic bullet. It takes constant monitoring, communication and agility.” Gregg Waterman Panera Bread
Inside one fast-casual brand’s journey to build its own supply chain 55 min
Powered by FlippingBook