Insights from the Booker Foodservice Show to help suppliers add value beyond the product and build stronger partnerships with their foodservice customers.
At the recent Booker Foodservice Show, our analysts had conversations with suppliers and manufacturers that pointed to a clear shift in what best-in-class foodservice partnerships look like. The value that suppliers can deliver is increasingly determined not by the product sold, but by what the business can enable around it.
Operators are facing less predictable demand, rising costs and stronger competition for consumer spending. While product quality and availability, and service and transparent pricing remain important, they no longer form the strongest grounds for differentiation.
Suppliers that cannot demonstrate consumer demand, operational efficiency or added value risk becoming comparable on price alone. As a result, they need to create a more defensible solution by helping customers capture demand, execute effectively and run their operations more simply.
Co-develop propositions that create demand
Our conversation with McCormick revealed how it uses its product expertise and supply chain network to bring Frank’s Red Hot from a recognised retail brand into relevant away from home propositions.
McCormick supplies McDonald’s with several unbranded sauces, giving it an established relationship and understanding of the operator’s needs. McCormick leveraged this to co-develop a breakfast offer including Frank’s Red Hot sauce that gave consumers a relevant and distinctive product innovation, while creating another route to sell the product.
Success with a major operator can build awareness and capture demand, but wider growth requires wholesale availability and support for sales teams to reach smaller operators.
Implication: Suppliers and manufacturers should identify the customers where their brand has a natural role, then involve operator and wholesaler teams early. Operators can validate the consumer need and practical execution, while wholesalers can assess demand, ranging, warehouse capacity and how the product will reach the wider market.
Make activations easier to execute
PepsiCo’s Doritos Loaded campaign shows how suppliers can extend support beyond the initial product or activation idea. Building on a viral TikTok trend of pairing Doritos with indulgent “Instagrammable” toppings, PepsiCo has developed a promotion that can benefit a wide range of small and large operators.
The Doritos Loaded campaign is supported by TikTok sponsorship, press activity, free point of sale materials and support packaging that help to create awareness and drive footfall, while reducing the cost and complexity of participation. This is helping to give consumers a desirable proposition aligned with social media trends, while creating more foodservice occasions for Doritos.
Implication: Suppliers should support the whole activation, not just provide the product. Campaign support, media, point of sale materials and free packaging can help operators convert an idea into sales consistently, whether they are large or small.
Connect expertise directly
Unilever helps to deliver support through a team of two development chefs to create valuable human interaction. These chefs work directly with operator chefs to explore how products can perform in finished dishes. Their conversations combine practical kitchen knowledge with technical and flavour expertise, helping both sides test ideas, overcome challenges and develop foodservice fit propositions.
This highlights that a proactive, visible chef team can differentiate a supplier by turning product expertise into practical support for operators and wholesalers.
Implication: Invest in these roles and raise their profile internally and externally, while connecting them with regional field sales teams that can engage individual sites and wholesaler sales teams. Regular chef-to-chef conversations, product demonstrations and workshops can then embed the relationship at a kitchen level.
Remove operational friction
Not every supplier service is designed to stimulate demand directly.
Booker’s energy brokerage service combines advice and contract sourcing with ongoing support, helping operators resolve supplier problems, reduce administrative pressure and manage complex and unpredictable costs.
Its used cooking oil service manages collection and compliance documentation, and provides operators with a rebate and processes the waste for biodiesel production.
This combines operational, commercial and sustainability value, demonstrating how wholesaler support can reduce administrative cost and complexity, ensure compliance and have a positive impact on the environment. This particularly valuable in reducing the operational burdens on independent and small group operators.
Implication: help operators to identify recurring costs, compliance challenges and execution challenges and then focus on the problems they are well placed to solve. The strongest service will be able to demonstrate time and cost savings, rather than adding another layer of support.
Build a partnership around customer problems
The clearest lesson from the Booker Foodservice Show is that product, service and expertise should work together. Suppliers need to decide which customer problems they can solve, build the capabilities to address them and show the added value.
The right approach will vary by customer. While national operators may justify direct collaboration, bespoke products and supply chain alignment, smaller independent operators may be reached better through wholesaler ranging, marketing and practical support. In each case, transparent communication, shared data and early discussions around pricing, availability and risks can help both sides plan for multiple outcomes.
Moving from supplying products to solving problems can help operators better capture demand and run more efficiently. For suppliers, it can support greater product sales, stronger retention and deeper customer relationships. Explore IGD’s free-to-read Foodservice Fundamentals and Winning in Foodservice articles for further guidance on building stronger foodservice partnerships.
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