3rdwave Food

3rdwave Food for Global Food Distribution: An Industry Overview and the Solution

The global food distribution environment is challenged by low margins, uncertainty in supply, undisciplined markets, long lead times, and a complex supply chain. In almost all instrances, companies overcome these challenges by managing in a "just in case" modality. Aggravating the already complex sourcing environment are highly demanding, large customers that constantly push responsibility for inventory and "just-in-time" delivery onto the distributor.

Compounding this challenging business environment are the demands of regulatory bodies responsible for food imports. While the safety of the food chain was always a priority of the regulatory agencies - Customs, USDA, the FDA, etc. - since 9/11, food importers have had increasingly enhance their compliance capabilities and secure their supply chains. These factors have impacted the abilities of food distributors to increase sales, improve profitability and optimize organizational efficiencies.

By removing many of the uncertainties in the global marketplace, 3rdwave clients can more successfully anticipate and meet their grocery, hospitality and food service clients' needs. By being able to clearly see every item in their shipments while in transit - whether moving or stationed on land, air or sea - our clients can confidently sell goods to their customers and accurately commit to delivery dates -- all due to 3rdwave's sophisticated data repository and the resulting levels of granularity and accuracy.

3rdwave Food has also allowed our clients to quickly and cost-effectively respond to ongoing changes and requirements made by various regulatory agencies. Our user firms that have undergone Sarbanes-Oxley compliance reviews and tax or corporate audits have been given excellent reports for the ease of the review, along with the accuracy and comprehensiveness of their data.

The global food supply chain can be a highly complex and unpredictable environment. 3rdwave Food gives our clients the leading business and technology edge to not only run their businesses well, but to do it even better and more profitably than they had originally envisioned.

To read more about how 3rdwave can help global food distributors, read our recent white papers.