Supplier Price Tracker.
An app idea for restaurants.
Photograph supplier invoices and see which supplier is cheapest for each item over time.
What the search found
- Who pays
- Independent restaurant owner who buys from several suppliers
- The problem
- Owners say the same vendor charges more for the same item week after week, with new fuel surcharges and delivery fees appearing on invoices. They know they are being squeezed but tracking it means reading every invoice by hand.
- The gap
- The vendor comparison tools found are built for larger operations and pull pricing from distributor systems. Small independents get paper or PDF invoices and phone quotes, and nothing in the results handles a photo of an invoice from a small local supplier.
- Already out there
- Genius Food Purchasing geniusfoodpurchasing.com
Pulls pricing from distributors like Sysco and US Foods. It assumes electronic distributor data, not photos of small supplier invoices.
- Kitchify kitchify.com
Multi-vendor ordering that works with any vendor pricing format. It is aimed at ordering, not at tracking price creep on a phone.
- NxtEdge nxtedge.net
Real time vendor price comparison for food service. Enterprise flavoured and not built around invoice photos.
- Genius Food Purchasing geniusfoodpurchasing.com
- People asking for it
- Owners do you actually track when your distributors raise prices reddit.com
Owners ask each other how they keep track of supplier and competitor prices.
- How are you keeping track of vendor price changes reddit.com
Owner describes the same vendor and item creeping up week after week plus new fuel surcharges and delivery fees.
- Would you pay for bulk price tracking reddit.com
Owner compares a cash and carry price with a supplier quote and finds a large gap.
- Owners do you actually track when your distributors raise prices reddit.com
- The big assumption
- Owners will photograph invoices consistently enough for the data to be useful.
- Test it this week
- Ask three owners to send you photos of last month's invoices on WhatsApp. Transcribe them by hand and send back a one page cheapest supplier per item. See if they ask for next month.
Check your own market first.
This idea was checked for restaurants in general. Your city, your contacts and your buyers change what is open. Run the free search to see the gaps that fit you, or book a call to talk it through.
More ideas for restaurants
From the same search. See the full report, including the ideas we dropped because they already exist.
- Gap found
Phone Order Scribe
Records incoming phone orders and turns them into written tickets with items and callback number, so rushed staff stop mishearing orders.
- Gap found
Customer Allergy Log
A phone number lookup that shows a regular customer's allergies and preferences before staff take the order.