Solutions, Selections, & Service: Close To Home

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Working with too many suppliers will stretch your team thin. There isn’t enough time, attention, or employees to go around. When working with multiple organizations, you can’t develop the strategic, trusting relationships you need to build partnerships for the future. The relationship often remains transactional when you need a partner most.

On the flip side, by working with too few suppliers, you risk being overly reliant on them. When these suppliers are in another region, severe weather, labor and supply shortages, seasonality, and other uncontrollable circumstances can impede delivery and delay your manufacturing schedule. Your schedule could be halted if you don’t have alternate supply sources.

A national dressing and sauce manufacturer needed to reduce lead times and better manage its inventory of critical ingredients. During the pandemic, juggling the demands of ingredient sourcing, allocations, shipments, and inventories, became challenging for their team. They didn’t have the warehouse space to purchase large quantities of key ingredients, and finding the less-than-truckload amounts required was virtually impossible. So they called Skidmore Sales.

The conversations started with sourcing a few ingredients that had become hard to find. Skidmore was able to secure the right quantities of the necessary ingredients to keep the company running.

After working together for a short period of time the ingredient list grew. A warehousing and logistics plan was developed that ensured the company could have inventory nearby. With this plan, Skidmore moves more than 4 million pounds – from 27 different suppliers- for the customer annually. Their ingredients are within 30 miles of the customer’s manufacturing location. The company’s procurement director commented, “We can now back up to [Skidmore’s] doors, load our trucks, and head back. We have the ingredients we need the same day. It removes so much of the stress and noise every day.”

Typical of Skidmore, a customer care team was assigned to the customer’s account. This team consists of an Account Manager, Sales Support Specialist, Customer Service Representative, Procurement Specialists, and a Document Administrator, all familiar with our customers’ needs. From request to delivery, the Account Manager takes personal ownership to lead this expert team, ensuring someone is always available and ready to help our customer.

Food manufacturers need trusted partners that understand their needs. Skidmore sales has long-standing relationships with the industry’s best ingredient manufacturers. You can leverage our buying power to get the hard-to-find ingredients in the quantities you need. We can source what you are looking for even when supply is tight.

Skidmore has nearly 20 warehouses and distribution centers across the US. Our tailor-made warehousing plans ensure your Ingredients will be in your vicinity – ready when you need them.