Coverage in Slice Magazine...
As Best Ugly Bagels was expanding, they struggled to cope with the logistics of getting their Montreal-style bagels between their kitchens and retail outlets across Wellington and Auckland, along with all their wholesale and supermarket customers. It was causing problems both internally, and with customers – it was getting ugly.
Mike Lawrence, Brand Manager at Best Ugly, says in the past they used docket books and email to manage orders, causing increasing problems keeping track of wholesale orders and deliveries. Writing off missing orders was costing the business time and money.
Then they discovered an app called Upstock, created for foodservice buyers and suppliers, that changed everything.
Mike explains, “Before Upstock, everything was manual. Docket books, email chains, notes on papers from phone calls. A lot of moving parts and we would just lose visibility of orders. We would literally have boxes of bagels go missing.”
“Upstock allowed us to simplify our processes. It’s like having an extra staff member.”
Upstock is the latest tech startup by the team who created Xero. Philip Fierlinger co-founded Xero where he was Head of Design. He made Xero famous by creating “Beautiful Accounting Software” which completely transformed the accounting industry.
With Upstock, Philip teamed up with Duncan Ritchie, also from Xero, to transform the foodservice industry.
Upstock is an app that automates everything for foodservice suppliers: sales, ordering, payments, and logistics. It uses AI to instantly convert emails, PDF files, even handwritten scribbles into digital orders. It connects to Woolworths and Foodstuffs to automatically process supermarket orders, instantly creating invoices, packing slips, and production reports with no effort.
As Hassan Dia co-owner of Alamir Bakery describes it, “Upstock is one of those things that once you try it you wonder what life was like without it, less admin, less stress and new customers just come to you!”
It’s truly remarkable when a celebrity chef and world famous model is glowing about an app that automates supply chain logistics. Jordan Rondel, star of the Great Kiwi Bake Off and founder of The Caker, ran a bakery in Auckland that expanded into selling make-at-home cake kits available at specialty stores and supermarkets.
“It was never really my job to do this side of the business. But now that it’s so streamlined I actually really enjoy doing it. It's just so easy.”
“The details of all our stockists were a mishmash. We had a spreadsheet, but it was hard to update. Just knowing when and what stockists ordered, that was a real mess too.”
“Now with Upstock, it's all in one place, so it's awesome.”
