Member Article

Food manufacturers urged to embrace digital

Food manufacturers are being urged to embrace digital to win new business by helping wholesalers and caterers adhere to strict EU law.

Foodservice companies are required to provide allergen and nutritional data on all products and one of their biggest challenges is combating the time burden associated with completing necessary tasks.

And Jon Shayler, chief operating officer at Erudus, a cloud-based software solution that contains data for more than 34,000 products, is calling on manufacturers to not only save time but to provide added value to their offering by going digital.

He said: “Suppliers are in the perfect position to ensure the entire chain of organisations involved in foodservice have as simple a process as possible.

“In order for caterers to provide the correct food information to their customers, they seek support from the wholesalers that supply them. Wholesalers then look down the line and ask the manufacturers for the information.

“Wholesalers are aiming to cut themselves out of the conversation by using software like Erudus. The data in Erudus is provided directly by the manufacturers and caterers can access it immediately on site. Therefore, wholesalers place significant value on a supplier who is already signed up and using Erudus.

“We have more than 1,200 manufacturers using Erudus and this number is growing daily. Many have commented to us that new wholesalers they do business with have it as a condition of trading, and already using the platform helps them stand out from competitors.

“The platform is continuing to grow in popularity and we have more than 80,000 caterers on board as well as close to 100 wholesalers.”

Erudus teamed up with Nielsen Brandbank in October in a partnership to revolutionise food industry data. This deal, Jon believes, will help make it easier for suppliers to make the decision to sign up.

“Manufacturers often supply both retail and foodservice,” he said.

“Brandbank takes care of the retail side of things, while Erudus focuses on foodservice. And for those manufacturers who are already using Brandbank, Erudus is available for a reduced fee and it’s as simple as clicking a button to share all product data from one to the other.”

One brand that has benefited from going digital is Farrington’s Mellow Yellow, which produces an award-winning range of cold pressed oil, dressings and mayonnaises from cold pressed rapeseed oil.

Duncan Farrington, founder, said: “Erudus allows us to send data to all our customers who are also users of the software with one click of a button. It is a great way to save on administrative time.

“It also provides product images and our quality accreditation certificates, which is a great feature.”

For more information visit https://erudus.com/.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sam Harris .