E-pub: Buying more time
When a computer novice was invited by Hall & Woodhouse to trial its Freshnet e-purchasing system, she helped tailor it to meet licensees' needs - and has become a firm convert.
In common with many experienced and successful licensees, when the 21st century began Claire Darroll-Brough had never touched a computer keyboard. Yet among her fellow Hall & Woodhouse (H&W) managers she has quickly become an expert in the brewer's e-purchasing system, not only training others but giving advice on how it could work better and helping to improve the system from the licensee's point of view.
Claire has run the Empress of Blandings in Copythorne, Hampshire, for the past couple of months after making a great success of her previous H&W pub, the Halfway Inn on the Isle of Purbeck, following a career in hotels, restaurants and as a tenant licensee.
The Empress is strongly food-led, with a 70-30 split - although Claire is hoping to lure back some of the local drinking trade to even that up a bit - and she is very much aware of how important purchasing is for a catering business.
"Ordering can be a nightmare if you don't get it right," she says. "Avoiding shortages is very important in a food-led pub. Telling people that the dish they came in for is not available is not good enough."
Yet she admits to being "a huge sceptic" when H&W proposed the introduction of the Freshnet web-based purchasing system - and that she should be one of its pioneers. "I had never touched a computer in my life," she says. "But Freshnet was great with me. It just gave me a computer and told me to play with it - which I did.
"It was daunting at first but I treated it as a detective story that I had to solve. I set about exploring the website, just kept pushing buttons really. I learned by trial and error and the support was fantastic. I could always phone up Freshnet for help.
"Now I've even bought my own computer - I love it!" says Claire.
In a way she was the ideal guinea pig to test the system. She was able to approach it purely from the licensee's point of view. And her criticisms and ideas for improvements have been valuable in developing Freshnet as an efficient way for pubs to buy in food.
"When we started in 2000 Freshnet was very much on trial," she explains. "As a publican I prefer to buy things in a certain way which meant I was involved in redesigning the site to make it fit the way a licensee actually works."
For instance, Claire was used to ordering fish by the number she needed, rather than by the kilo, which was how it was priced on the website. So a way was found to enable the licensee to place an order for a number of fish within a certain weight range, so the total price averages out about the same.
On Claire's advice the site has also been reorganised to include different types of similar produce, such as the many varieties of lettuce, on a single web page.
She has made sure it is possible, too, to make special requests - such as keeping the heads on whole plaice on the bone - and to include delivery instructions if, for instance, you don't want a large consignment arriving during a busy lunchtime.
Many licensees would still feel wary of dealing with a machine rather than a human being but Freshnet attempts to provide the flexibility you'd expect when ordering over the phone.
If you realise you've made a mistake once you've gone offline a traffic light system enables you to see whether the supplier has opened your order. If it is still "red" you can go back in and change it yourself, if it is "amber" you need to contact the supplier and they can make the alteration on the system themselves. "Green" means your goods are already on their way.
E-purchasing can also be more flexible than traditional ordering methods. You can, of course, go on the website at any time and add to your shopping basket, which is handy, as Claire points out, if you think of something and want to ensure you don't forget to order it or you have had a run on a product and stocks are dangerously low.
Freshnet's original speciality was in providing restaurants with fresh, local ingredients at the best value, setting a base-price. That service is also available to H&W managers, something Claire describes as "the biggest benefit".
"Our chef wants to see what's on the market that morning and what's a good price. That determines what goes on our specials board - the dishes that we want to make a good GP on. That's very easy to do with this system.
"Fresh vegetables, for instance, can vary a lot. But if the price goes up, we know about it before we order and we can switch.
"As an ex-tenant I like to look after the pennies and beforehand I might have phoned up three butchers to get the best price - imagine the time it took to negotiate a price like that."
The system holds regular orders in its memory, which also speeds things up, especially, as Claire has found in the past few weeks, when you are taking over a new pub. She also believes it means that there is less chance of mistakes being made.
"When someone is taking an order over the phone, you never know when they have mistranscribed what you have asked for until the delivery arrives. This way there is a clear record of every order."
Freshnet continues to evolve to meet the needs of licensees and is proving a success at managing supplies to pubs. The H&W managed estate now orders more than 90 per cent of its food - plus its dray orders - through the internet and as remaining suppliers come on board that should soon hit 100 per cent.
