A Wigan meat supplier and Ecuadorian tuna merchant are running a trial of a new online wholesale ordering platform with 25 of their buyers.
Fine cooked meat supplier Kings and tuna supplier LMC Foods are rolling out the Platter ordering platform to three and 22 of their wholesaler customers respectively, as part of a three-month trial.
The paid trial of the online platform begins next month, with the two businesses agreeing to run a combined £1.2m of sales through it.
Platter was founded in 2021 by Jack Clegg, who has spent all of his career in food wholesale and foodservice, starting within the family business Cleggs Chilled Foods, then as a buyer, and for the past eight years in sales for large wholesalers. The platform – the first version of which was launched in June – aims to massively reduce the time spent sending and receiving orders between businesses.
“Buyers and sellers spend hours placing and inputting orders every day via phone and email, then get replies that are manual and long-winded,” said Clegg. “It can take 40 minutes per order over multiple days.
“Buyers are not able to do what they like doing – buying, finding new products, talking about prices. All they’re doing is placing orders. Meanwhile, suppliers are just inputting orders and not focusing on new sales.”
In comparison, Clegg said placing an order on Platter took around two minutes.
In July, Platter expects to fully integrate with the ERP system of at least one supplier, and integrate with a buyer’s ERP system by August. All Kings and LMC Foods buyers are predicted to be using Platter by September.
A second trial is running at the same time, which involves Platter and third-party finance company Mimo providing instant payments to suppliers, minus a small fee.
The ultimate ambition for the startup is to become the “all in one platform” for the wholesale sector, linking buyers, suppliers, their ERP and accounting systems, as well as transport companies and finance tools.
Platter is taking a slow and steady approach to growth, but expects adoption to spread quickly through the wholesale sector.
“When the supplier says to its 300 buyers you can order like this now – very suddenly you’ve got all these users. So very quickly that critical mass starts to grow,” Clegg said.
“Wholesalers are starting to use tech where they’d been stuck in the dark ages. The sector as a whole wasn’t young or tech-savvy – but that is changing and it’s changing quickly.”
No comments yet