How To Select The Best Food Suppliers For Your Café

With so many cafés popping up, competition in Australia’s hospitality industry is heating up. Whether you’re opening a brand-new café or are just looking to mix things up, having first-class café food suppliers can give you a distinct competitive advantage. Choosing café food suppliers that are the best in the business ensures you can deliver fresh and delicious food day after day, all while maximising profits.

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But, as any busy café owner or staff will know, choosing the right food suppliers can be a real challenge. Choosing the wrong supplier could leave you facing late or delayed supplies, food that isn’t fit for consumption or having to deal with low-quality produce that lowers the standards you’re trying to maintain. All this threatens the streamlined operation of your café, not to mention the reputation of your business and your bottom-line profits.

Luckily, we’ve pulled together a quick guide on how to choose the best of the best café food suppliers so you can stress less, feed more hungry mouths and grow your business faster than ever.

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1. Assess your needs

First things first; assess the needs of your café. And we don’t just mean the supply list – although that helps, too! But consider how you’re marketing and positioning your café. The needs of an upscale vegan café might be very different to those of a small corner café selling simple, traditional fare. For example, for the vegan café, fresh organic produce might be a priority. However, for the corner café, price and reliability will probably play a larger role.

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Either way, consider what is most important to you. Is it food quality? Flexibility? Reliability? Variety? Or is it all about the price? Of course, all these factors matter for cafés, but figure out what matters most to you and use that as your main criteria when assessing food suppliers for your café.

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2. Establish a budget

Next, create a budget. When building your budget, you want to take into consideration the price point of your menu items as well as all your overheads. Make sure that you’re not missing anything, as this will determine the budget that you have to work with.

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3. Research suppliers

Here comes the tricky part. Once you fully understand your needs, the food supplies you require, and your budget, you can start searching for suppliers. This phase can take time.

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You might already know some great suppliers or have a list of recommendations from your industry contacts. But it’s important that you research multiple suppliers thoroughly. Assess their strengths and weaknesses and see if they align with your business. For example, can they accommodate last-minute orders? Can they guarantee food quality? Ask all the hard questions before you lock in a supply deal.

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4. Check references and reviews

Before you do anything, be sure to check each supplier’s reviews and references thoroughly, even if you have been referred by someone you know. After all, what works for another business may not work for yours. 

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5. Negotiate a deal

Finally, once you’ve found some food suppliers for your café, it’s time to talk pricing. See if you can strike a supply deal with each supplier at a price that you’re comfortable with. You might need to lock in a deal for a set time period if you want to secure competitive pricing.

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6. Let Foodbomb find you top café food suppliers

Sourcing amazing wholesale café food suppliers can be incredibly time-consuming. And, even once you find the right suppliers, they may not be available to deliver the quantity of supplies that you require, or cater to your other requirements. Thankfully, there is another option.

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Platforms like Foodbomb offer cafés a new way to source food suppliers. Our in-house team of industry-trained experts can source some of the best café food suppliers in Sydney and Melbourne to meet your unique needs. 

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Our team can source high-quality food and packaging supplies easily, at affordable rates. Our platform also offers transparency around the pricing of supplies, so that cafes can maximise their top-line profits and operate more efficiently with minimal disruption. Ready to get started? Book an obligation-free call here to set your business up for success or simply create an account to start browsing hundreds of suppliers.

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