Brand bullish over caternet launch
By Gaby Huddart
The software arm of the Brand Group is in the final stages of testing its Caternet software package, which chief executive Jerry Brand claims will do away with discounting and save companies thousands of pounds.
Uniware, which is the sister company of contract caterer Russell & Brand (R&B), has spent 18 months and more than £500,000 developing Caternet, and is now preparing to market the product by the end of the year.
As well as allowing catering managers to carry out stock controls, set up menus and devise training schedules, the system will also link to R&B's purchasing scheme, Corporate Supermarket, a one-stop shopping scheme that claims to offer food 17.5% cheaper than supermarket chains.
"The system will allow a catering manager to order food by sending an electronic message to Corporate Supermarket. The food will then be delivered all at once and the bill produced on site," Mr Brand told Caterer.
He said the software would not only be sold to companies employing R&B as their contractor, but would be generally available to in-house caterers. Competitor contractors could even find themselves using it as it would be marketed directly to companies, he added.
"The software will be available to anyone so we could end up supplying our competitors with food. A company might well install the software and then tell the catering manager to use it," he explained.
The software will cost between £5,000-£7,000 a year to use but, according to Mr Brand, this will be more than offset by the reductions users will make in purchasing costs.
In a statement likely to further inflame rival contractors, Mr Brand added: "We don't employ any false discounting and, if Caternet takes off as we intend, it will be the emphatic answer to discounts."
Mr Brand said the company planned to market the product by allowing customers to try it out in their units using demonstration disks.
lIn the first six months of the year, R&B has won 45 new contracts worth £700,000 in fee-income. They include staff feeding contracts with Lever Industrial in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, and the Nottingham Evening Post.
