Food Broker Tips & CPG Insights
Practical guides for small brokerage agencies — deductions, commissions, promotions, and software.
- Food Broker Software: A Buyer's Guide for Small CPG Agencies
What food broker software actually is, why generic ERP and CRM tools fail brokers, and the six capabilities to check before you buy. A practical guide for small CPG brokerage owners.
- Sales Agency Management Software: What Food Brokers (SMAs) Actually Need
Sales & marketing agencies and food brokers are the same business under two names. Here's what sales agency management software has to get right—principals, commissions, and orders across every brand you carry.
- EDI for Food Brokers: A Practical Guide to 850s, 875s, and 997s
Retailers increasingly mandate EDI, but a broker's needs are narrower than a manufacturer's. Here's what EDI actually means for a food broker—which documents you handle, which you don't, and how trading-partner setup works.
- Order Management for Food Brokers: From Retailer PO to Manufacturer
A food broker's order lifecycle has quirks no generic system handles—catch weight, perishables, and distributor-serviced accounts. Here's what order management looks like when it's built for brokers.
- Do Food Brokers Need a CRM? Principal and Retailer Relationship Management
Generic CRMs model a simple sales funnel. A food broker's relationships are three-sided—principals, retailers, and distributors. Here's why broker CRM is its own thing and what it needs to track.
- Food Broker Software That Works With QuickBooks (Not Against It)
Most small brokerages run on QuickBooks plus spreadsheets. Here's where that combination breaks—and how the right food broker software layers on top of QuickBooks instead of replacing it.
- What Is Trade Spend ROI? Formula, Calculation, and a Worked Example
A plain-English definition of trade spend ROI, the formula, and a step-by-step example — including the rolling 8-week baseline most promotions get wrong.
- SupplyPike for Food Brokers: Why a Supplier Tool Doesn't Fit a Broker's Job
SupplyPike is excellent deduction recovery software—for suppliers. Here is why its per-retailer, vendor-credential model doesn't fit how a food broker actually works, and what to look for instead.
- Food Broker Commission Reconciliation: How to Stop Leaving Money on the Table
Is your brokerage losing 5-8% of its margin to 'invisible leaks'? Learn how specialized food broker software automates the manufacturer statement match and eliminates shadow accounting.
- How to Measure Trade Promotion ROI as a Food Broker (Without a BI Team)
Stop guessing on trade spend. Learn how food brokers can calculate volume lift, CPIC, and break-even lift without complex spreadsheets or expensive BI tools.
- How Food Brokers Use Deduction Recovery Software to Stop the Short-Pay Bleed
Retailer deductions are eating your commission margin. Here is how food brokers use dedicated software to triage, dispute, and recover short-pays—without a full-time coordinator.