There are lots of decisions to be made when it comes to buying edible oils and fats for your manufacturing company. 

How do you go about beginning to tackle these choices, and make the best moves for your business?

It’s helpful to start the decision process with a little feedback-- peer feedback that is. Understanding what's important to your procurement peers when they buy bulk oils can be helpful. What factors did they look at? What influenced their decisions?

Your peers have been in your shoes and they can provide insight that no one else can– they often hold the key to helping you make the best decisions.

Professional development is about always learning and growing in your role.

Education allows you to improve, and can help achieve your goals the job that you’re already in. It also sets you up to have a better chance at promotions in the future.

Education comes in many forms though. Once in a steady career, classroom education becomes less of a norm, as self-directed learning takes its place. While self-directed learning can mean many things, like webinars, seminars, industry conferences, etc., reading industry books is one of my favorite tools.

Books are great way to stay on top of your self-training all year round and direct your own growth.

The 7 titles below are top rated procurement and purchasing books available on Amazon, written for professionals just like yourself. Explore and enjoy!

I was at Target the other day, buying socks.  They were $4 per pair (when did socks get so expensive, right?).  

They also had a had a pre-packaged set of 4 for $10.  I bought the set.  Why did I make that choice?  Well, they were the same kind of socks and the set was cheaper (for each pair of socks).

It's nice to pay less money for the exact same product.

A similar situation also applies to the bulk oil that you buy.  You can get the same sort of quick and easy savings on oil, without changing a thing about the actual oil that you're buying.  It all has to do with how much oil you're buying.

Change how much you buy, save money.

As a food service sales rep, your can use your industry knowledge and trust to make more sales. Your customers care about low cost, convenience, and receiving a consistent quality and taste.

By helping your customers do true packaging and price comparisons, you can become an advisor for their oil needs. As a natural result, you will make more sales.

This article was originally posted in 2015, and is being re-published in preparation for the new year.

Last year, I ran a half marathon. But I didn’t just go out and do it. I made a 16 week plan of the runs that I was going to do every day, and how I was going to build up to my 13.1 mile finish.

Professional goals are no different than personal goals like these, but professional goal setting often falls by the wayside. It’s important do strategic goal setting, both for your job and for your department -- especially if you manage other people.

Your professional goals also need a plan-- a course of action, or a list of small daily steps you’re going to take to help accomplish these goals. Here’s how to plan for improvement in 2015.

Setting goals is an important step to improving.

There are, of course, a number of different kinds of goals. You have personal goals for your life, and you have professional goals for your job. But they’re always entangled, some taking priority over others depending on the day.

The best way to achieve all of them is to lay them out separately, prioritize them, and then make a plan for how you can achieve every one.

Here’s a smart framework for purchasing managers to complete your goal setting for 2015-- not just for your job but also for your life.

Who you should buy your olive oil from is always a big question-- usually one that restaurant owners and chefs approach in an effort to cut their costs.

But who you buy from doesn’t just determine how much you spend. It also affects how easily you can bring inventory in, store it, access it and a whole slew of other affects on your business.

That being said, it’s important to buy your olive oil from the right kind of supplier. One that fits your needs and can provide real value to you-- not just the lowest price.

Safflower oil is being used more and more in food manufacturing in recent years. Many natural products are being made with safflower and/or sunflower oil.

As a result, many consumers are asking the question: Is safflower oil GMO or non-GMO?

Good question. We’d like to help answer it for you.

There are many different grades of olive oil available. Each each one represents a different level of quality that corresponds to the way that the oil was produced.

But rather than tell you, I’d like to show you. Below is a short slide share presentation that guides you through the process of how the different olive oil grades are made. Click through to read about the process.

The packaging you choose for your raw manufacturing ingredients affects how smoothly and efficiently your production process will run.

If you’re debating between drums or totes, there are 3 parts to decision, and they have to do with how your packaging and production team will interact. If you consider these 3 components thoroughly with your team, you’ll almost automatically walk away with a smart decision.  

The price of olive oil is going up this year. In short, global production is down by 25%, which is causing oil prices to increase around the world. If you use olive oil as a food manufacturing ingredient, this change affects your business and your profit margins.

You probably want to bring your cost of ingredients down -- not up -- right?

This is a common concern and is more challenging to achieve in poor olive harvest seasons. It requires you to look closely at your buying strategy and make some tough business decisions.

If you’re a sales rep for a food service company, selling olive oil can be a challenge. It’s a premium item, and it’s typical for customers to have lots of questions about the product. This can affect your ability to simply make the sale.

But, it’s also a great staple item for you to set up with your accounts, and it can add up to a steady commission over time.

To be able to make the sale, you’ll need to be an olive oil expert.  

It’s no doubt that private labeling is a growing and profitable phenomenon for food service distributors. The private label industry as a whole has posted a 6% year-over-year sales growth, as more consumers are turning towards private labeled brands.

What does this means for food service distributors? If you haven’t created your own private label line, you’re missing out on branding and sales opportunities.

Sometimes you just need a little pick-me-up during your day; a reminder that today is awesome.

Like with all jobs, if you work in the world of bulk oils, sometimes it's easy to forget that you work in a really cool industry.  The food industry is awesome.  And just in case you feel kind of blah this morning...

Here are 3 infographics that will remind you why olive oil is so great.  Be inspired!  

If you have customers that would enjoy these, share away!

As most purchasers already know, an RFQ is a "request for quote".  Why do these RFQs benefit manufactures?

The real benefit comes at the end, when a supply contract is signed to cover the companies ingredient needs over the period. An RFQ is a simple, great way for manufacturers to get the lowest bulk oil price possible and reap a number of other benefits in the process.

In fact, we see 3 major benefits that manufactures get from doing an RFQ for their annual volumes, and signing a contract for their ingredient needs.  But first, we'll review what an RFQ is.