We have been awarded a two-year supply contract with a total value of up to £17m by wagamama, the award-winning chain of pan-Asian noodle restaurants, with significant benefits to both parties.
3G has been supplying wagamama since 2002, however the new and enhanced contract involves providing wagamama with a tailored logistics solution for the supply and distribution of a wider range of products to the restaurant chain across chilled, frozen and ambient temperature profiles.
This has led to 3G supplying products across more categories, including fresh & frozen fish & seafood, dry goods, ambient bespoke stocks, sauces and gyoza, ice creams & sorbets, bespoke frozen desserts and fruit coulis. In addition, 3G now also distributes all beers, wines and soft drinks to wagamama restaurants, maximising the efficiency of the entire supply chain from E-ordering to a consolidated delivery service.
wagamama worked very closely with 3G during 2009 to review its existing supply chain with the aim of reducing the number of suppliers delivering to each of wagamama’s 66 UK restaurants, as Ben Smales, Managing Director of 3G Food Service & Seafood Solutions explains:
“I am delighted to announce this new and increased contract with wagamama, which follows our successful management buy out in November 2009. We have recently made some significant investments and developments within our business which have produced a flexible and low-cost ordering and distribution system that enables us to tailor our services specifically to wagamama’s needs. For example, we have reshaped our delivery vehicle fleet to provide greater flexibility, invested in state of the art logistics planning and vehicle tracking software and introduced cross-docking procedures to maximise efficiencies.
“Also, our regional distribution centres are now serviced by our newly opened National Distribution Centre in Hull, which features additional available capacity across all temperature profiles: chilled, frozen and ambient. wagamama is the first Group Account to benefit from all of these investments, however we anticipate that the magnitude of the efficiencies and savings that can be made will be of great interest to other groups which operate between 10-100 sites.
“We have consistently demonstrated our capabilities and passion to wagamama over the past 7 years and with the new structures and processes in place are already facilitating wagamama’s restaurant stock replenishment and improving service levels. Furthermore, our customer service goes beyond providing an efficient and flexible distribution system: we also support customers with a specialist new product development resource. For example, we’ve continued our successful development plans with wagamama and have recently developed and launched exciting new products that feature on the current wagamama menu, such as delicious Chilli Squid and their new Baked Vanilla Cheesecake, with many other live development projects under way.
“At 3G, we are always keen to evolve our business and the new systems we have introduced will help us to offer an even higher level of service to both wagamama and other key customers, whilst also highlighting 3G’s uniqueness in the food service market. Integration of new manufacturers to 3G has been seamless and is supported by utilising our overnight fleet to backhaul over 40 full container loads per year from key suppliers in the UK, as a direct result of the wagamama contract.”
3G commenced supply of the new products in November 2009 and following a phased rollout, assumed responsibility for all deliveries in March 2010. Now that full rollout has been successfully achieved, 3G is distributing almost five times the amount of cases per drop than was previously delivered.
Simon Chester, who joined wagamama a year ago as head of purchasing, comments on the new contract:
“Our objectives were clear; it was essential that we needed to consolidate the distribution of much of our frozen and ambient supply chain, including not only our beers and wines but also many core food ingredients.
“By achieving this, the benefits that presented themselves were as follows:
“Firstly by reducing the number of actual companies delivering goods to our restaurants, we removed the complexity of ordering and receiving deliveries. Therefore our operations teams can spend more time focusing on our customer requirements instead of handling paperwork, PODs and managing stock.
“Furthermore by consolidating deliveries we reduce the cost of each delivery and lastly; we have been able to reduce the number of loads being delivered to wagamama by 800 per year; capitalising on backhauling opportunities wherever possible too.
“At the end of the tender process, 3G were in a strong position. It was clear that their strategy reflected our objectives and they had a good reputation with our operations teams for strong customer service built up over the years.
“The end result was web based electronic ordering, 5 fewer companies delivering and invoicing wagamama each week and a reduction from 5 to 2 deliveries per week per restaurant for the afore mentioned categories. Implementation is always a challenge, but the 3G operations team did a fantastic job of managing the change and with their continuous focus on supply chain efficiencies, I look forward to building and maintaining a sound relationship going forward.”