Nothing in our world is permanent, as is well-known, and the same holds true for our always shifting needs and demands. Food is one need that never changes. Yes, food always comes up in conversation because you are what you eat!
There is no denying the significance of food, particularly the Food Supply Chain sector. The demand for reputable food supply chain companies that can meet obstacles and consistently produce outstanding results is continually on the rise!
Through this search, we discovered Foods Connected. Foods Connected is a well-known brand in the food supply chain sector, providing cutting-edge and effective solutions. The company is directed by Roger McCracken, who helped establish its unmatched service offerings and encouraged its expansion.
Today, Roger McCracken, co-founder and managing director of Foods Connected Ltd., joins us for an enlightening discussion. Let’s learn more about the business, Roger’s motivation for founding Foods Connected, and other things.
Brief us about the company, what inspired you to start the company?
I hail from Northern Ireland and co-founded Foods Connected with Paul Armstrong and Gary Tyre, in direct response to the need for digitization of everyday food industry supply chain processes to improve quality, minimize risk and reduce costs for food businesses.
With family livestock & arable farming background and having worked in the meat processing sector for many years, I understood the problems facing the food industry and was therefore well positioned to establish the technology solutions required to help solve key industry challenges.
I saw the opportunity to create an innovative software solution that allows food businesses to cut down on the use of excel spreadsheets and paper by logging all their supply chain approval, quality assurance plus trading and planning negotiations on one easy-to-use cloud software platform, reducing costs and time massively.
The Foods Connected cloud-based software platform provides optimized transparency and control over the complete supply chain for food retailers, food manufacturers, and foodservice providers and is used globally by key players in the food industry. The platform has transformed the way the food industry operates and conducts daily tasks, to make food production safe, sustainable, ethical, and simple.
What are the products or services the company focuses on? How are your services different from those in the market?
Through our one-stop-shop software solution, which provides improved transparency over each component of supply chain management for our customers in the most straightforward manner possible, Foods Connected innovates and transforms the food supply chain operations. Based on the needs of our customers and the in-depth expertise of our team of industry experts, all of our supply chain functionality is customized for use in real-world applications.
Foods Connected is an end-to-end supply chain management platform created exclusively for the food sector. It focuses on supplier compliance, food safety and quality, CSR, procurement and supply chain, specifications and new product development, traceability, reporting, and analytics.
Foods Connected was entirely developed by professionals in the food industry, many of whom had prior experience working on factory floors. As a result, they have first-hand knowledge of the problems that food businesses deal with on a daily basis and a thorough understanding of how to implement customer projects to maximize benefits and minimize risk.
We use innovation, research, and development to transform procedures and raise the sustainability of the food industry. Businesses operating in this sector may remain ahead of the outside influences that affect and influence their everyday operations by combining industry knowledge with Foods Connected’s reporting and analytics solutions.
The Foods Connected platform is the only digital supply chain solution on the market offering tracking, control, and reporting across all key areas of the food supply chain within one single pane of glass view.
Please tell us about the team of Foods Connected.
Foods Connected was born out of our passion for solving problems and maximizing opportunities within the Food Industry. Our lively, passionate and extremely dedicated team collaborates with our customers to understand the changing problems and opportunities that the food industry faces and develop innovative ideas and simple solutions based on this to deliver real value in the industry.
Over the last 10 years, the Foods Connected business has gone from strength to strength – from a team of just 2 to a team of now over 80 staff members across the UK and Australia with plans to expand to other locations, while currently serving customers across Europe, APAC and North America!
Please tell us about your professional experience.
Foods Connected was created with the input of industry professionals. I have experience working locally in the food business and a background in farming, so I naturally grasped the issues the sector faced and had a strong understanding of the technological solutions that would be needed to address them.
While I was employed by a well-known meat company in the UK, I became aware of a market opportunity to develop an inventive software solution that would address the actual needs of companies operating in the food industry, despite the fact that food businesses already had good digital systems in place to manage production, finance, and inventory management processes.
I was aware that digitising the fundamental procedures will change the way the food business handles supplier management, procurement, food safety, and technical requirements. Previously, these activities were carried out using a variety of administratively demanding manual techniques, such as Excel spreadsheets, pen and paper, emails, and phone conversations. This process was time-consuming and frequently resulted in duplication of effort.
Foods Connected was created as a result to enhance quality, reduce risk, and lower costs for food industries.
Any client experience you would like to highlight?
At Foods Connected we are proud to receive consistently positive feedback from our customers. Our secret is going above and beyond to ensure customers can get the full benefit of our solutions, providing high-quality customer service, building tools to meet their needs, and working with them to improve their experience.
Hear directly from our customers below on how they have incorporated Foods Connected into their processes and how the software has transformed the effectiveness of their operations.
“Foods Connected has provided the framework to capture agreed sales & purchasing outcomes in one centralized location. This enables ease of comparison on all best price options for more informed business decisions.” – Woolworths
“We needed a solution to manage our expansive supply chain globally, to create greater transparency over every tier of our diverse network. Foods Connected has provided us with several integrated solutions, bringing visibility to our operations, to better track our supplier compliance, mitigating any potential risks.” – Marley Spoon
“Using Foods Connected has allowed us to drive standard processes across our business, helping capture data in a consistent way meaning the analytics allows us to easily see comparable performance on any level.” – Ornua Foods
