When you’re in the food industry–whether a restaurant or a retail store–a strategic variable that will ensure success and profits is to diversify your inventory, especially by including discounted foods or close-coded food closeouts from a reputable food broker.
By tapping into this market of offering excess food inventory and nearly expired food items, restaurants and retailers are able to keep their business profitable and competitive by becoming more resilient to supply chain issues while being able to offer a wider range of products at discounted prices. An added-value benefit is the issue of sustainability. Your company’s commitment to offering (and using) close-coded or even expired foods also helps minimize food waste and ultimately maximizes your profits.
In this blog, we’ll further explore the importance of using a food broker to help diversify your inventory by purchasing closeout foods.
The Many Benefits of Purchasing Closeout Foods
- Supply Chain & Market Resiliency – The one thing the past few years has taught everyone in the food industry is that it’s good to have a diverse supply chain. Having a single supplier for key food items gives you no alternatives, leaving your business vulnerable to a single point of failure. Food products imported from overseas can be particularly susceptible to these kinds of supply chain challenges. In addition, by diversifying sourcing operations, restaurants and food retailers can better respond to unpredictable consumer demands, providing restaurateurs with cost-effective (and profit-inducing) menu alternatives with the flexibility to meet challenging seasonal or market demands.
- Major Cost Savings – Working with closeout food buyers presents a golden opportunity to procure products at significantly reduced prices – (once again “profit inducing”). In diversifying your inventory through excess and closeout inventory, retailers are able to achieve higher profit margins. Alternatively, food operators can elect to pass these savings on to consumers, attracting new customers and satisfying existing customers with exceptional price/value offerings.
- Access to New & Specialty Food Items – Diversifying your food supply network can have benefits that go way beyond the bottom line. As professionals and executives in the food industry know, consumer tastes are diverse and constantly evolving. Buying closeout foods provides retailers the opportunity to experiment with new products and brands without having to make a substantial investment in cost or volume. It will also keep food selection fresh and exciting, helping restaurants and retailers foster a loyal customer base.
- Reducing Food Waste – Minimizing food waste is not just an environmental concern when it comes to the food industry – it’s also a financial one. Overstocked food items, or those nearing their expiration date, are often discarded, costing millions of dollars a year in excess food inventory. Businesses in the food industry incur costs for storage and labor (someone has to move the goods), which includes expenses to transport expired or close-coded food for “disposal.” Purchasing closeout foods helps to curb (or even eliminate) food waste, while the sustainability effort is often appreciated by a business’s customer base, helping to foster a positive brand image.
Find the Right Closeout Food Distributor
By diversifying your food inventory through the purchase of excess foods, liquidated foods, close-out foods, or even expired foods, retailers and restaurants can experience numerous benefits. Not only does it help alleviate supply chain issues, but it also has huge cost-saving benefits, allowing retailers to respond quickly to ever-changing consumer demands while playing a role in mitigating food waste.
Marvell Foods has an extensive network of buyers who rely on them to connect their business with the unique opportunities provided by the closeout food market, including grocery stores, restaurants, hotels, big box stores, airlines, food banks, and various state and federal government institutions.
If you’d like to discover the benefits of working with one of the nation’s leading food brokers to purchase excess food inventory, close-coded or expired food closeouts, contact Marvell Foods today.
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