United Natural Foods, Inc. Partners With Buyer's Best Friend To Create World's First Unified Reordering System
Opens Doors for Local, Specialty and Artisan Brands: Stores can reorder from Direct Vendors using iUNFI scanner app.
San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) - United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI) the largest organic, natural & specialty food distributor, has partnered with Buyer's Best Friend (BBF), the largest direct vendor network and catalog, to extend their technology leadership with the world's first unified ordering system.
Grocery chains can order from direct vendors via iUNFI, as easily as distributed brands, saving buyers time and making it easier to work with specialty, artisan and local brands.
"Consumers want more local and artisan brands, but for grocers and other buyers, it can be difficult to manage dozens, let alone hundreds of direct vendor relationships," said Adam Sah, CEO of Buyer's Best Friend. "We built Buyer's Best Friend to bring new and artisan brands to a wider audience. Partnering with the industry leader is the best way to bring thousands of amazing up-and-coming brands into the hands of millions of consumers."
"Many iUNFI customers have asked for direct vendor support, and we are excited to partner with BBF to bring our customers this value added solution," said John Raiche, Vice President Marketing of UNFI. "This application delivers a high level of productivity for retailer buyers."
For direct vendors, the new platform solves real logistics problems that impact sales and becomes a potential step towards being distributed.
"This is an industry-changing solution that solves real problems for thousands of direct brands. Reordering direct is now part of the same process as distributed, saving reps and brokers across the country from having to constantly check store shelves," said Cory Baehr of CBI Imports in Los Angeles. "I will no longer have to worry about my direct brands falling out of stock."
No new technology or training is needed for either the vendors or buyers. BBF and iUNFI handle all the complexities behind the scenes. Until recently UNFI has only made iUNFI available to select stores. All that will soon change when UNFI begins to sell the iUNFI devices later this summer. For customers with their own iPhones they will be able to simply download the iUNFI app from Apple's App Store for free. Customers will be able to scan product using the iPhone's built-in camera or purchase a scanner that fits on the iPhone from UNFI. For smaller orders customers can just use the touch screen. The BBF solution will be available this Fall.
Onboarding of direct vendors is similar to the process of joining BBF, which is quick, painless and inexpensive. No separate coding is required for the iUNFI scan guns, which immediately understands the direct vendor bar codes. Orders then flow to direct vendors via BBF's patent-pending technology, which makes order processing as easy as reading email.
The partnership also enables buyers to order from the BBF network of over 109,000 SKUs and 1,700 brands, and enables new brands to gain access to BBF's network of 3,000 accounts that order direct.
ABOUT UNITED NATURAL FOODS:
United Natural Foods, Inc. (http://www.unfi.com) carries and distributes more than 60,000 products to more than 23,000 customer locations throughout the United States and Canada. The Company serves a wide variety of retail formats including conventional supermarket chains, natural product superstores, independent retail operators and the food service channel. United Natural Foods, Inc. was ranked by Fortune in 2006 - 2010 and 2012 as one of its "Most Admired Companies," winner of the Supermarket News 2008 Sustainability Excellence Award, and recognized by the Nutrition Business Journal for its 2009 Environment and Sustainability Award.
For more information on United Natural Foods, Inc., visit the Company's website at http://www.unfi.com.
ABOUT BUYER'S BEST FRIEND:
Buyer's Best Friend (http://www.bbfdirect.com) is the world's largest catalog of wholesale specialty products, with over 109,000 SKUs from 1,700 companies. BBF's patent-pending technology is used by over 3,000 buyers to easily discover and purchase new wholesale brands online, over the phone and in person. Buyer's Best Friend was co-founded in 2010 by a specialty food broker and a senior engineer from Google.
SOURCE: PRWeb
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