If you own a restaurant or bakery, you may be wondering what the best place is where you can buy bulk or wholesale oils from. Restaurants that use a lot of oil often struggle with this; finding competitive sources that deliver easily to your facility can be a challenge.
We’ll tell you the four most common places to order your oil from, and how they may (or may not) fit into your business.
1. Your Food Service Supplier
This first option is the easiest choice. Your food service supplier (like Sysco, US Foods, or an industry-specific supplier like Dawn Foods) will supply as many ingredients as possible to you. They will also deliver them to your door at regular intervals.
You'll be able to order a combination of many different ingredients that will all ship to you together. Because of that, you can often order only a case or two of each particular item. You won’t have to hold too much inventory at one time, and you’ll only bring in what you need for a week or two. With this type of supplier, you're committing to a long-term relationship with repeat deliveries.
Ideal For: This type of supplier is ideal if you bring in lots of different ingredients, and you only need a few cases at a time. It's also ideal for facilities that have limited storage space.
2. A Large Ingredient-Specific Supplier
This type of supplier will specialize in only a few items, and order minimums are much higher than you would find with your typical food service supplier. Centra Foods is a great example of this-- we only carry 15-20 different ingredients (all of them oils), and the minimum orders are one pallet or about 300 gallons.
This means that to work with an ingredient-specific supplier, you need to be using quite a bit of that one item that you’re looking to purchase. In addition, you need to have the storage space to store all of that inventory.
This type of supplier is "higher up on the food chain". This means that they're often the ones that are actually supplying your food service supplier as well. As a result, pricing for your products is probably going to be lower than from your local distributor. But that's not the end of the story! You'll pay more for shipping from this supplier than you might from your food service supplier – the pallet will be traveling directly from their facility to your location which is often across the country
Example: Centra Foods
3. A Wholesale Distributor
A wholesale distributor works somewhat like a food service supplier. Most often they specialize in a particular industry, like natural, organic foods or bakery ingredients. They may not be located near you, but they can still provide delivery by the pallet or as a mixed case of goods.
Example: A good example of a wholesale distributor would be Azure Standard in Oregon, a company that supplies organic ingredients to small businesses around the western half of the US.
4. An Online Store
If you only use a few cases of a particular ingredient (like olive oil), sometimes an online store is the easiest and cheapest way to go. There are often a number of different brands and varieties sold on retail online stores-- both individual stores and mass stores like Amazon. Sometimes, those may even come with free shipping.
Ideal For: This is ideal for small businesses or restaurants that use just a case or two at a time. This is especially helpful for rural small businesses/restaurants that may not have a local wholesale store, and their local grocery chain is much to expensive for bulk volumes.
Example: Centra Foods has an online wholesale Amazon store where we sell our Bella Vina olive oil by the case. This is the same oil, shipped from the same warehouse as our bulk quantities. However, it comes with free shipping and if you only use a case or two at a time it's very easy to set up routine deliveries from the wholesale store.
How To Figure Out Where You Should Buy From
The best way to figure out what type of supplier you should be working with is to first determine how much of an ingredient you'll need. Also, you should decide if you have the storage space to be able to store a pallet. If you do, calculate how quickly you will go through the inventory.
Here are some pallet calculations to help you figure that out:
Once you make decisions on all of the questions above, rule out any supply channel that’s too big or too small for you. From there, you’ll need to get a price quote on each remaining option. Doing a full cost analysis will help you figure out what's option going to be best.
Remember to consider not only delivered prices, but also ease of deliverability and if you'll have access to your own account manager to help you along the way.
Want help? An account manager can talk you through it and either give you pricing or point you in the right direction.
If you're a restaurant owner or buyer, we want to hear from you! Tell us in the comments below where you prefer to buy your bulk oils from.
Topics: Small Businesses Advice
