Editor’s note: This story is part of Cleveland Inno’s debut Under 25 program, a platform to recognize rising innovators under the age of 25 who are making big moves with their companies across Northeast Ohio.
The Covid-19 pandemic forced many industries to re-evaluate their business strategies, and the food industry was no exception.
Aaron George, the COO and co-founder of SupplyNow, said that the company at first went through some adversity because of pandemic-related restrictions.
Before it became SupplyNow, George helped run it as food-to-door delivery service PastryNow, which was just finding its footing as a company delivering baked goods to college students at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
But once the pandemic hit, those students went home.
"Unfortunately, we lost all of our customers because they were forced to go back home overnight," George said. "The pandemic forced us to sort of go back to the drawing board and actually think through what problems we were trying to solve."
Shortly after the students left, George realized the company had to find a new clientele.
"We started talking with restaurants, chefs, managers about what they needed, and we wanted to do something more essential," George said.
Those conversations revealed a common thing that hospitality professionals needed help with: food procurement.
"We wanted to be at the forefront of procurement, automation, and the best way we could do that was starting off with an industry as volatile and difficult as food service procurement," George said.
Procurement took hours, involved different vendors, and with the weekly fluctuation of ingredient prices, could prevent vendors from making informed purchases.
“Chefs wear many hats during the day. They must dice onions, manage their sous chefs, and depending on the restaurant, even clean,” George said. "We started doing was tinkering around and figuring out what's the best way to go about procurement."
SupplyNow introduced a subscription-based marketplace with all the vendors in one place. The app also comes with an algorithm that detects the best combination of local, regional, and national distributors.
"We allow you to work with your existing distributors and auction off items to find the best prices," George said.
Clients access the marketplace through a free or paid subscription, and shop from other vendors who have the items that they need.
Next George would like SupplyNow to continue to build on its procurement services.
"What are factors that improve that efficiency and how and what is what is the future of procurement, especially when it comes to businesses? Those are those are questions that keep me up at night," George said. "And, that's also sort of what pushed me towards getting this to become a reality."
