COVID-19 urges the food industry to adapt

During these unprecedented times, COVID-19 has completely changed our daily lives. The way that consumers are shopping to get those essential food items such as milk, bread and cleaning items has changed due to lockdown and social distancing measures being put into place. Many more are turning to online deliveries to get what they need but encounter long waits for deliveries, face long queues outside the supermarket and some empty shelves due to panic buying and stockpiling. 

Food distributors/retailers, such as supermarkets, are seeing increased demand due to the shelves being cleared more quickly than normal. Barclaycard has announced that during March consumer spending on essential items, such as milk, soared and spending was up by 21.3%. In the week before lockdown was implemented (16-22 March) supermarkets saw a massive 49% rise in spending as the nation prepared to spend more time at home and stocked up their cupboards. 

To keep up with demand they are placing more orders with their suppliers who are under heightened pressure to fulfil. A recent report in Retail News Weekly states that there could be another wave of stockpiling in the coming weeks. Are you a supplier to the big-name supermarkets? Did your business systems cope with the increased demand from your distributors? Will it cope with future demand? 

EDI

A complete end-to-end solution like EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) receives all your data messages from each trading partner, maps them, passes them straight through to Dynamics 365 Business Central and creates a sales order, debit notice, remittance advice, etc. as appropriate. Simply log in to the EDI Portal and see all pending and successful transactions, and report on orders, invoices and any other frequently used documents. By seamlessly linking with Dynamics 365 Business Central EDI helps keep you in the loop and in control.  

We work with Aldi, Booker, Booths, Asda, Morrisons and many more retailers to help you make cost savings, allow you to dispatch late orders quickly, eliminate data entry mistakes and expand your business.  

For further information on how we can help you please visit our food and beverage industry page.

References: 

1. https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/finance/consumer-spending-on-essential-items-soared-in-march-says-barclaycard/604076.article 
2. https://www.talkingretail.com/news/industry-news/supermarket-spending-grows-21-coronavirus-measures-take-effect-16-04-2020
3. https://www.retail-week.com/retail-voice/supply-chain-efficiency-vs-resilience-meeting-the-demands-of-covid-19/7034500.article
4. https://www.retail-week.com/grocery/coronavirus-online-grocery-shopping-to-receive-huge-boost-this-year-due-to-lockdown/7034736.article 
5. https://www.retail-week.com/grocery/data-grocery-supply-chains-stretched-by-a-second-wave-of-stockpiling/7034721.article