Food broker: Should you use one?

Author: John Coorey

If you have excess stock of food, you’ve come to the right place. A good Food Broker will follow the below process:

1. Understand your current situation

There can be a lot of reasons why you have excess stock of food. Sometimes it’s a cancelled order. It could be a discontinued line. An incorrect label. Or it could simply be that you just have too much supply. Whatever the reason, don’t worry – you’re not the first, and you’re certainly not the last to have this challenge. Food brokers see this all of the time.

2. Determine what is the food status

There is a big difference between food that is “best before” and food that is listed as “use by”.  Best before means that the food is still good but it now might be a different colour or may have a funny odour, but can still be ok to eat.

Use by is very different. It means that the food must be thrown out after the use by date, because it is not safe to eat or drink.

So even if your food is getting close to the best before date or the use by date, just let us know. We have many potential buyers of short dated food in very large quantities.

3. Find out if there are any restrictions

Sometimes it’s important for you to protect your brand, and so you might specify that the food broker must sell the excess food stock only in international markets.

Or sometimes you might be OK for it to be sold in your country, but exclude your existing clients.

Whatever your restrictions, just let us know and we will comply with your request.

4. Perform discreet market research to understand your current market conditions

You need to speak with a variety of people, in different states, to find out what is happening in the market.  This helps you to find out if the price varies across state boundaries. There are a lot of reasons why people might not buy your excess stock line.  One buyer might say the market is lousy, another buyer might not have any space left in your category, another buyer might like your product but their manager wont approve it.  Another buyer might keep you hanging for two weeks, and then say that they are not interested.

In my twenty years of experience, I can safely say that I have seen everything (at least twice!)

5. The food broker then chooses the correct excess stock buyer

The challenge with excess stock buyers is sometimes you can get the wrong one that is not a good fit for your brand. For example, you might have a premium brand and you don’t want to be seen in discount retailers. Or a retailer comes along with the right price, but the wrong payment terms.

It is so important to ensure there is good alignment, and that’s what a good food broker does.

As you can see, this is a complex process. My company has been buying and selling excess stock for over 20 years. As a food broker, we can manage the whole process for you from start to finish. When you work with Coorey and Co, we professionally design your product’s email template, write a compelling sales message and discreetly approach the market.

Shortly after that, we will provide you with a report on the state of the market, the price we believe it will sell for and how long it will take to sell.

In most cases, after we present you with the report, we then make you an offer to buy your whole excess stock parcel.  If this is not possible, we will provide you with specialist advice on the best way to sell your excess stock at the maximum price in the fastest possible time.

If you would like to use our food broker service, please let us know and we will get started straight away. Click here to tell us about your excess stock.