How to Choose Restaurant Suppliers

Why looking for new suppliers?

Let’s start by understanding the common signs suggesting you should look for new food suppliers:

• You cannot find the right assortment of ingredients in your supplier’s product catalog.

• You find the pricing unreasonable and are searching for some better deals.

• You are not satisfied with the product and looking for a food supplier with better quality goods

• You are not 100% happy with the timing of delivery service, or too many order delivery errors from one or more of your suppliers.

• You want to build and maintain relationships with multiple suppliers for your core ingredients

• You just opened a business

Criteria for Choosing Restaurant Suppliers

Building a good supplier relationship is one of many other factors which contribute to the decision-making process beyond quality and price.

1. Quality

The quality of your ingredients plays a role in the success of your menu. It is important to ask your food suppliers about the life-cycle of ingredients in order to prioritize food safety to protect your customers and your reputation.

Certain products (including seafood, canned foods, dairy products, game animals, wild mushrooms, or eggs) are more likely to carry dangerous pathogens and must undergo strict shipping and handling requirements. These requirements are regulated by the FDA Food Code. It’s highly recommended to make sure that your suppliers comply with them.

While restaurants are allowed to purchase their food supply from different sources like wholesalers, producers, farmers markets, or grocery stores, signing a contract with a supplier is a great way to make sure your vendors set and meet quality standards.

Here you can read more about quality certifications, grades and quality labels.

2. Assortment

It helps to have suppliers with broad and diversified assortments to reduce the chances of a chaotic ordering schedule and to find all the things you need on a regular basis. However, this does not mean completely ruling out more niche suppliers with those quality ingredients which make your offerings more unique and keep customers coming back for more. Diversification is key.

Most restaurants deal at least with one full-line supplier. Although these types of suppliers might not fit all your requirements in terms of ingredients, they usually dispose of all kinds of restaurant supplies such as napkins, disposable cutlery, containers, toilet paper, cleaning products, or kitchen equipment. Especially when looking for premium products, working with specialized cheese, seafood, poultry, or meat suppliers can be a good choice. Also, partnering with a local farm that can grow specific products for your restaurant can be a great strategy to step up your menu.

3. Price

For many restaurateurs, the ideal price usually represents the best compromise among quality, cost, and service. Research has shown that buying in bulk can help restaurants save money - although the amount saved varies depending on the item, a 10% larger package can translate to a 5% decrease in the unit price (source: the Balance).

At the same time, purchasing seasonal ingredients can also help you save money as prices fall with demand peaks. Serving a seasonal menu is also a good practice considering that they generate 26% more orders (source: Restaurant Insider).

4. Sensorial aspects

Buyers can request a test sample to evaluate the sensory characteristics of the ingredients, before purchasing from suppliers (not all the time, but most of the time). Requesting samples is a common practice, and many wholesale suppliers agree on subtracting sample cost out of your first order or let you pay for the shipping only. Alternatively, you can check on local grocery stores or websites offering freebie samples.

Why not, smell, taste, and look at the appearance of different product samples? Organizing a tasting session with your restaurant team is a great chance to review products from suppliers. You can also download evaluation forms for different products online and research specific tasting guidelines.

5. Packaging

It’s always good to think about the packaging in which you receive your products. Does it preserve quality and ensure food safety? This mainly depends on the material and technology implied in the packaging and shipping. If you want to reduce the environmental impact of your packaging, you can also decide to look for suppliers using eco-friendly packaging.

When choosing to expose products in the front of house, you should also keep an eye on the packaging design and choose one that fits your brand.

6. Origin

Whether you are ordering directly from local producers or from a large wholesaler, understanding where your ingredients come from can affect your decision-making process. Suppliers can certify the origin of their food and you can use this information as a selling point of your menu.

7. Health

Depending on your type of restaurant, you should also keep in mind the ever-growing trend of healthy eating and consider working with suppliers whose assortment includes ingredients like superfoods, natural, or allergen-free products.

8. Logistic

Consider choosing suppliers whose delivery times make it easier for you to run your business. Getting food delivered at your restaurant doorstep and ordering from a more flexible supplier are perhaps the best options to look at.

Not a rule of thumb, but you should check the distance of your suppliers’ establishments from your restaurant as a factor that can potentially impact your workflow. At the same time, effective relationship management and clear communication from both sides can overcome any last-minute problem in terms of ingredients availability.

9. Finance

Upon making an agreement with a supplier, restaurants often look for establishing extended credit terms. These include net terms (meaning, how long you can wait to pay) and payment methods such as cash or check on delivery, net invoices, direct debit, and other types.

It is generally in your suppliers’ interest to come up with different credit terms, mainly depending on how long you’ve been operating and the risk of bankruptcy they associate with your business. Also, note that, especially if you are a new restaurant, this does not necessarily mean that the more you are willing to order from a supplier, the more flexible their terms will be.

Before choosing your suppliers, make sure that they provide clear and accurate reporting - it is a good practice to avoid ordering too much or too little in the long term. Also, although there are limited possibilities for restaurants in terms of return policy, make sure that you also check on this aspect.

10. Sustainability

More restaurants and customers these days are conscious of the environmental impact of food. Looking for sustainably produced food entails checking on different indicators such as carbon footprint, water usage, food miles, or animal well-fare.