As seen in the June 2024 issue of Supermarket News

Upstock announces big updates with Woolworths, AI automation

Upstock, the foodservice platform made by the creators of Xero, is rapidly transforming the FMCG industry by automating ordering, payments and logistics

Upstock adds Woolworths order automation

In addition to their popular Foodstuffs automation, Upstock now offers Woolworths automation for FMCG suppliers to receive and process all their supermarket orders in seconds, rather than hours. 

Prior to Upstock, FMCG brands needed to train full time staff to spend hours managing and processing orders from the major supermarkets. Now that work can be done easily, in minutes by any staff.

Brave Brewing owner Matt Smith explains, "Our Foodstuffs and Woolworths orders go through Upstock and get processed in seconds. It saves hours of data entry and eliminates errors and fulfilment mistakes. The monthly cost is well worth the time and errors saved. I wish I could get back the time spent loading orders on various portals."

When Waitoa Beer was facing the daunting challenge of managing the complexity of getting ranged and managing supermarket orders their Head of Sales and Distribution James Mobbs described the difference Upstock made, “It gives us a ‘seat at the table’ with the supermarkets. The smooth ordering process means we avoid embarrassing errors and mix-ups as we build a reputation as a high quality, reliable supplier able to compete with the big players.”

Upstock uses AI to convert paper orders to digital orders

In another major announcement, Upstock now offers the ability to add any PO (purchase order) to Upstock. It will then use AI (artificial intelligence) to automatically convert the PO into a digital order. This enables the automation of orders from any wholesale customer including Bidfood, Service Foods, Costco, Bunnings, Farro Fresh, and any others who place orders by PO. 

Most independent supermarkets and grocery stores around New Zealand use the Upstock app to stock their shelves, including Bin Inn, Boric Food Market, Moore Wilson’s, Campus & Co, Bellatino’s, Connings, among many others.

Franco Boric is Co-owner of Boric Food Market, “Before Upstock ordering was time-consuming. A lot of emails back and forth, opening spreadsheets, downloading documents, going into different portals. With Upstock on my phone, I just go ‘bang, bang, bang’ and it's all done in minutes.”

Convenience and service stations using Upstock

“We service nearly every service station in New Zealand. Prior to Upstock, around half of these customers had to have their orders manually keyed by my team, which was hugely time consuming and also generated keying errors.” explains Phil Huddleston, the General Manager of foodservice distributor Online Distribution Limited (ODL) which distributes confectionery, grocery, snack foods, drinks, automotive consumables and cleaning products to nearly every service station in New Zealand – including Z Energy, BP, Caltex, Mobil, Night and Day and a few independents.

Huddleston said almost all their customers now order through Upstock. “We service around 700 customers per week, with around 1,000 lines they could order from. With Upstock, our customers can now easily see up-to-date pricing and when items are out of stock. It’s so easy to communicate with customers, a simple message saves so many unnecessary phone calls and emails.”

Lower costs & higher sales

“We’re super proud Upstock is helping so many FMCG brands lower costs through automation and increase sales through our marketplace. It’s obviously been an insanely challenging few years, so to see so many of our customers growing thanks to Upstock is incredibly gratifying,” noted Philip Fierlinger, Co-founder of Upstock. 

Fierlinger added that Upstock has even bigger plans for the future, so stay tuned and keep up to date at www.upstock.app

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Caption – The Caker founder Jordan Rondel, a celebrity chef and world famous model, uses Upstock herself and had this to say about it, “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.”