FoodByUs, the food wholesale marketplace serving the hospitality sector, is expanding into the $2 billion liquor market
Part of the company’s philosophy is to provide small to medium-sized hospitality businesses with a ‘one-stop procurement shop’ the company expects its customers to be able to access the buying power normally the preserve of much larger businesses.
The wholesale marketplace platform was founded by some of the founding team behind Menulog five years ago and now connects several thousand cafes, restaurants and catering companies with hundreds of wholesale food suppliers.
Since 2019, sales have grown by 600 per cent and co-founder and MD Ben Lipschitz says there is now a strong business case for expanding into alcohol which could add $48 million in revenue from existing customers alone.
“For the past 18 months we have refined our platform and features to service the entire supply side of any hospitality kitchen, but for a while now our customers have been asking us to include alcohol as a purchasing category,” said Lipschitz. “The more a business uses FoodByUs, the more insights they gain and the more time and money they save.
“Our research has shown that alcohol can make up at least 30 per cent of a restaurant’s total cost of goods. While that presents itself as a huge opportunity for our business to expand, it also ensures that we can continue to offer our existing and new customers a streamlined, online solution for ordering.”
Independent Liquor Group has signed up to the FoodByUs platform as a supplier and sees it as a great opportunity to expand its reach.
“With their buyer network and sales team, we can easily grow and increase our sales, with the added benefit of guaranteed payment meaning minimum risk,” said Ben Braun, retail services & sales manager.
Other liquor suppliers on board include Liquor Co-Op, National Liquor Wholesalers, Shorty’s Liquor, S&P Liquor, Monacellars, My Liquor Online, Booze Bud, and Akasha.
