Procurement & supply chain.

Client

Feedem

Sector

Contract catering & food services

Region

South Africa

System

Procurement & supply chain platform

Scale

1,000⁺ sites · multi‑region

Built on

CloudCore VNext · Microsoft Azure

Results

1,000⁺ sites covered by the platform

4 tiers management dashboards (unit → manager → district manager → operational manager)

3‑way invoice match: PO · goods received · invoice

Auto‑activated scheduled supplier price changes on effective date

~30k / mo supplier invoices AI‑pre‑allocated; humans review exceptions

Best‑buy auto‑comparison across approved suppliers at order time

Buying food for every kitchen at the best price

1. Standardised product catalogue — Every ingredient Feedem purchases is recorded as a material in a centralised catalogue, classified by unit of measure, GL code and category. Each material can carry multiple branded variants from different suppliers, so "cooking oil" resolves to specific products with their own SKU, supplier code and package configuration. A retirement village kitchen and a school feeding programme both order from the same controlled list — preventing duplicates and ensuring spend reporting, recipe costing and stock valuation all reference a consistent master dataset.

2. Category management — Materials are organised into a hierarchical category tree where each category can nest under a parent. Procurement managers can add, rename, re-parent or deactivate categories without disturbing the items beneath them. A regional buyer drills into "Dairy" to compare UHT milk pricing across suppliers while head office reviews total spend per category across more than a thousand sites.

3. Regional supplier structure — Suppliers are organised the way Feedem actually works with them: a national relationship, then regional branches (because the Cape Town branch of a national distributor offers different pricing and delivery schedules from the Johannesburg branch), then specific accounts per branch with their own vendor codes, rebate terms and banking details. Every change to a supplier's details is recorded in a history log.

4. Contract pricing with scheduled increases — Every product from every supplier has a price with an effective date. When a supplier notifies Feedem of a price increase, the new price is loaded with a future start date alongside the current price, so the buying team can see both side by side and adjust menus or budgets before the change takes effect. On the effective date, the system switches over automatically — no manual updates, no risk of someone ordering at an old price.

5. Price change audit trail — Every time a supplier's price list is updated — whether submitted through the portal or captured by procurement staff — every line-item change is logged: old price, new price, rebate percentage, effective date, who approved it. A dedicated Price Changes Report filtered by date range and supplier shows exactly what moved and when. For an operation buying across sites in every province, even a 2% unnoticed price creep on cooking oil has a significant financial impact. The audit trail makes creep visible and traceable.

6. Buying manual — A searchable comparison tool where procurement staff can look up any product and instantly see every supplier that offers it, at what price, in what pack size, what the per-unit cost works out to, and what the per-kilogram cost is. The cheapest option at each level is highlighted in green; more expensive alternatives appear in red with the deviation in rands visible on hover. This is the tool buyers use during negotiations and the reference dietitians use when specifying products for therapeutic diets — they see the better alternative before placing the order, not only after.

7. Site-level ordering — Each site creates its own procurement request, selecting products from approved suppliers at their current contract price. The system pre-populates supplier and pricing data from the site's allocated region suppliers, so a retirement village kitchen sees only the products and prices applicable to its region. Requests can be copied from previous orders to speed up routine weekly purchasing.

8. Purchase orders with approval routing — Shopping lists become formal purchase orders that flow through an approval process. The system evaluates whether approval is needed based on configurable rules — if not, it auto-approves and moves forward immediately. If approval is required, the system notifies the approver and holds the order until they sign off. The dashboard highlights orders that suppliers have not yet acknowledged and orders that are only partially fulfilled.

9. Electronic order transmission — For suppliers whose systems support electronic ordering, purchase orders are transmitted automatically. The system packages the account code, delivery date, PO number and every line item, then sends it directly into the supplier's system. The supplier confirms receipt and returns a tracking reference. If the transmission fails, the system queues an automatic retry.

10. Email order dispatch — For suppliers who receive orders by email, the system checks whether auto-sending is enabled and either dispatches the email directly or routes it to a staff member for review before sending. The supplier can view the order online, download the document, and click an "Accept Order" button — with the acceptance date and time logged back into the system. This closed loop gives Feedem proof that every order was received and acknowledged.

11. Best-price enforcement — After every purchase cycle, the system automatically compares what each site actually paid for every item against the cheapest available price from any approved supplier in that region. The comparison works at two levels: the package price (what you pay per box or tin) and the normalised material price (what you're actually paying per kilogram, regardless of how the supplier packages it). The deviation is calculated in rands and as a percentage, then multiplied across the full order quantity so management sees the total financial impact, not just a unit-price difference.

Receiving deliveries and settling accounts

12. Delivery verification — When goods arrive at a site, the system presents the original purchase order and the team captures what was actually delivered against each line — received quantity, lot code, expiry date and storage bin assignment. Lines can be split for products arriving with different expiry dates or batch numbers. The system explicitly warns staff not to rely on the invoice and to physically count or weigh every item. For a retirement village receiving fresh produce daily, this is the checkpoint that catches short deliveries before they become disputes.

13. Document identification — Every supplier document — invoice, credit note or supporting file — is digitally uploaded and classified before it can enter the allocation workflow. Invoice numbers are validated in real time to prevent duplicates for the same supplier. The document is rendered inline alongside an allocation summary showing account, quantity, totals and VAT for every linked transaction.

14. Invoice matching and allocation — Supplier invoices are matched against both what was ordered (the purchase order) and what actually arrived (the goods-received record). If everything lines up, the system approves the allocation automatically and moves it to export. If there are deviations, it routes to a reviewer — and if the reviewer rejects it, the system notifies the capturer and loops the invoice back for correction. Negative deviations appear in red, positive in amber, so reviewers see problems at a glance. No invoice gets paid without verification.

15. Retail and service invoice allocation — For non-food expenditure — cleaning supplies, equipment hire, kiosk purchases — a separate allocation process routes invoices through capture, review, district manager approval and operational manager approval before export. Each level can approve, send back for recapture or terminate the invoice entirely. This multi-tier chain ensures non-procurement spend is scrutinised at progressively higher authority levels.

16. Product issue reporting — When stock arrives with quality defects — spoiled produce, damaged packaging, incorrect products — site staff raise a product issue directly against an invoiced delivery. They enter a claim quantity per line with a mandatory written reason, attach supporting photos, and the claim flows to the relevant supplier contact automatically. A Product Issue Summary tracks every raised issue with its credit request number, creation date and current status.

17. Credit claims — When goods are rejected on delivery, returned due to quality issues, or a supplier overcharges, the system detects the deviation during invoice allocation and calculates the exact monetary difference per line. Credits are categorised as either price deviations (the invoiced price differs from the contract price) or quantity deviations (the invoiced quantity differs from the received quantity). Each credit flows through its own lifecycle — pending, submitted, reviewed, credited — and must reach a final state. The system won't let a credit claim disappear into someone's inbox.

18. Allocation summaries — Every invoice and credit note allocation flows into layered summaries that show financial commitments at site, cycle and batch level. Summaries separate in-progress from finalised allocations and break down every GL account with its debit, credit, VAT and nett total. These summaries ensure that across 1,000+ sites, every cent of food cost, cleaning supply and service charge is classified, balanced and audit-ready before it leaves the system.

Knowing what's in every storeroom

19. Stock cycles — Each site runs on a defined replenishment cycle tied to the financial calendar. Every cycle tracks its status from incomplete through current to complete, recording who initiated and finalised it and when. The stock cycles view displays each period's stock-take date, stock-take amount and financial totals, and head office can filter by status to quickly isolate cycles that remain open across the entire unit hierarchy.

20. Storage locations — Physical storage is modelled as a hierarchical tree of stock bins within each site — a walk-in fridge sits beneath a main storeroom, a dry store beneath a pantry. Every stock transaction references an exact physical location rather than just a unit-level bucket. This structure means when a stock count reveals a variance, the system can pinpoint which bin it occurred in.

21. Physical stock counts — Regular stocktakes where site staff count everything in the storeroom, walk-in fridges and dry stores. For each item, the system knows the expected quantity from the ledger and compares it to the actual count. The variance is calculated both in units and in rands, and each line records who counted, who confirmed, the batch number and the expiry date. Variances are classified as matched, write-off or adjustment, with a mandatory reason for any discrepancy. Across all sites, patterns in stock variances reveal operational problems — waste, theft, poor portion control — before they become financial crises.

22. Storeroom tracking with full transaction ledger — Every product at every site has a running balance. Every movement in or out is recorded: goods received in, stock issued to the kitchen, transfers between sites, manual adjustments, write-offs. The ledger tracks both quantity and value with a running weighted average cost per unit, so at any moment the system knows not just how much of something is on hand but what it's worth. Stock that has been reserved for an approved transfer but not yet physically moved is earmarked separately so it isn't accidentally used elsewhere.

23. Stock issues to the kitchen — When stock is issued from the storeroom to the kitchen, the system distinguishes between three scenarios: production use, a bin-to-bin move within the same site, or a transfer to another site entirely. Each follows its own approval path. Reservations hold the stock against the ledger until the issue is completed, and a printable issue document lets the kitchen sign off on physical receipt.

24. Internal stock transfers — When one site needs supplies from a central warehouse or another Feedem site, they submit a transfer request. These flow through a full lifecycle: created, submitted, approved, in transit, waiting for acceptance, accepted, completed. The sending site's stock goes down, the receiving site's goes up, and the accounting codes track the cost movement. Receiving managers accept inbound transfers from their task list.

25. Manual write-offs — When stock is damaged, expired or otherwise unusable, the system records the write-off against the ledger with a mandatory reason. Management is notified automatically by email. The reason text is permanently attached to the ledger entry, so any subsequent audit can surface exactly why and by whom the stock was removed.

26. Opening stock balances — When a new site comes online or stock arrives outside the normal procurement process, the system provides a manual take-on facility. Staff enter the product, quantity, batch number, expiry date and value, and the system creates the initial ledger entries that seed the storeroom's opening position. The system prevents take-ons from being added to a unit whose current cycle is already closed.

Retail operations alongside the main kitchen

27. Retail and kiosk pricing — Many of Feedem's sites operate a tuck shop, coffee shop or deli counter alongside the main feeding operation. The system manages selling prices for these retail items separately from procurement costs, tracking invoice amounts, base prices, unit prices, rebate percentages and margins across multiple units of measure. A preview screen shows the full price breakdown before a line item is committed to the invoice.

Seeing the whole operation

28. Four-tier management dashboards — Four dashboards reflecting Feedem's management structure. The unit dashboard shows unaccepted purchase orders, email failures, pending goods-received verifications, incomplete orders and best-buy performance for a single site. Each tier above aggregates further: managers see top-spending units and suppliers charted across day, week and month periods; district managers compare clusters of sites; operational managers get the widest lens with alerts and rankings across entire regions. KPIs recalculate automatically in the background so the numbers are always current.

29. Negotiator reports — Procurement negotiators generate detailed reports showing current versus proposed pricing for every product from a supplier — including effective dates, availability status changes and rebate percentages — downloadable as a PDF. This is the evidence they take into contract discussions.

30. Supplier self-service portal — Approved suppliers get their own external login where they can view their accounts, review price-list change proposals, import updated price lists by uploading files directly, and add notes to individual product prices. When a national distributor needs to notify Feedem of price changes across hundreds of products, they do it through the portal rather than emailing spreadsheets. Submissions flow into Feedem's internal review and approval process automatically.

31. Accounting integration and batch export — Every purchase, stock movement, credit note and invoice is coded to a general ledger account. At period end, the system batches transactions into numbered export files carrying supplier name, payment type, transaction date, invoice number, PO number, debit, credit, VAT, GL code and document type for every line. Each entry traces back to the original purchase order, delivery record or invoice — eliminating thousands of manual journal entries per month.

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The power of automation: end-to-end order fulfilment

The depth of the system's automation is best illustrated by how purchase orders reach suppliers. When a Feedem site approves a purchase order, the system doesn't simply generate a document for someone to email or fax. For suppliers that support electronic ordering, the purchase order is automatically transmitted as a B2B order. The system packages the Feedem account code, requested delivery date, PO number, every line item with quantities and units, and sends it directly into the supplier's system. The supplier's system confirms receipt and returns an order reference and a tracking link — so Feedem's procurement team can follow the order's progress through dispatch and delivery without leaving their own system or re-entering a single piece of data.

This means a site manager can raise a procurement request in the morning, it gets approved by their regional manager by lunchtime, and the order is already sitting in the supplier's dispatch queue that afternoon — with no manual handoff, no re-keying, no risk of transcription errors, and a full audit trail linking the original request through approval, the electronic order, and eventually the goods-received verification when the delivery arrives.

At Feedem's scale, this kind of automation isn't a convenience — it's what makes the operation possible at all.

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The commercial logic

Feedem promises its clients — retirement villages, corporates, schools, hospitals — that outsourcing their food operation gives them access to Feedem's expertise and economies of scale. This system is how those economies of scale are actually delivered day to day.

When you're buying food for kitchens across South Africa, the difference between every site achieving the negotiated best price and sites casually using a convenient but more expensive local supplier is the difference between a profitable contract and a loss-making one. The best-price deviation analysis doesn't just flag this after the fact — it quantifies it per item, per site, per supplier, per rand, every cycle.

The system turns "we buy better because we buy bigger" from a sales promise into a measurable, auditable, daily operational reality.