Here’s what our food & drink customers have to say about us….
“Since we first implemented Podfather it has had a positive effect on our business. It has removed a lot of the headaches and head scratching associated with managing multiple vehicles, staff, customers and delivery areas so I like it, but also, our drivers like it, our support team likes it, our management likes it. And most importantly our customers like it.”
Jamie Hotson
Transport Manager at Marrfish
Core features
Route planning
Our route planning and optimisation software allows your jobs to be efficiently planned, and loads allocated, across your drivers and vehicles. We help you deliver by optimising vehicle journeys that consider time windows, customer constraints, and vehicle capacities. We deliver peace of mind for you and your customers. Manual, regional, fixed route and dynamic planning options are available.
Driver App
Our app will allow your drivers to capture vehicle defect checks, receive job information & track deliveries. Our driver app is intuitive, easy to use and functionality rich. It will run on most Android or iOS devices and can be downloaded for free from either the Google Play or Apple App Store. It will enable your drivers to collect vehicle check information, track vehicle movements, and capture electronic proof of delivery.
ETA Notifications
Modernise your delivery experience with automated customer ETA notifications, live tracking links and delivery status updates. Once your driver is out on the road, you can notify customers that their delivery is on its way and provide live tracking links for real time updates. Working in this way has been proven to cut the number of "where's my delivery calls" received by customer service teams by over 80%.
ePOD
Our electronic Proof of Delivery (ePOD) solution means no more paper tickets for your drivers to carry, and your customers to sign. With a paperless process you get real time visibility of what's been delivered where, keep track of returnable assets such as trays and cages, and ensure both you, and your customers get an electronic proof of delivery confirmation that includes photos, signatures and time/date/location stamps as standard.
“As the business has expanded, we realised we needed to address some of our potentially outdated working practices. Using Podfather we are transitioning many of our processes and workflows to paper free, we are improving the efficiency with which we plan and execute our delivery schedules, and we are boosting customer service with automatically generated and updated ETA notifications and real-time ePOD reporting.”
Emma Draper
Office Manager at Mason Foodservices
Our food & drink customers include:
Addressing the challenges of running a food & drink delivery fleet
Ensure deliveries are cost & time efficient
When the pressure to deliver great service is high, and margins are tight, you need to ensure that you are making the most of every vehicle mile. We will plan routes that hit your customer time windows, which will help reduce waiting time and improve your on-time in full performance.
Keep track of returnable assets
Returnable assets, such as cages and trays, can add significant cost to your operation when they go missing, Introducing Podfather will reduce the element of doubt, helping you to keep track of what's where. Significant savings can be made as a result.
Invoice faster with ePOD
By removing paper from your process and moving to electronic Proof of Delivery (ePOD) both you and your customers have full visibility of what's been delivered where and when. You no longer have to wait for paper tickets to be returned, reconciled, scanned and processed so you can invoice faster as a result.
Provide a modern delivery experience
With Podfather you can deliver a modern, paper free delivery experience for your customers. It's a paperless process that ensures you, and your customers, know what is being delivered, or has been delivered, where and when. In a competitive marketing delivering a good service is not good enough; with Podfather you can deliver a GREAT service.
The benefits of using Podfather
Watch “where’s my delivery calls?” become a thing of the past by giving your customers accurate ETA information and live tracking links.
Remove paper from your process and get full visibility of what's going on across your operation in real time.
Reduce your fuel bill by at least 15% with more efficient routes, reduced waiting times and improved on time in full delivery performance.
Invoice faster & improve cash flow with a digital delivery process. Reduce the admin involved in delivery processing and invoicing.
Podfather is now available on the AWS Marketplace
Podfather is now available on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Market place, making it easier than ever for customers to access and deploy Podfather solutions directly within their existing AWS environment. Click on the button below to find out more.
Food & Drink Customer Success Stories
A E Rodda and Sons has selected fleet logistics software from Podfather to drive improvements in its direct to market service ensuring its world-renowned clotted cream is delivered, in optimum condition, to businesses across Cornwall. Rodda’s Direct serves smaller, independent retail outlets as well as campsites, bed and breakfast establishments and hospitality venues, delivering a range of dairy and delicatessen products. Using Podfather, Rodda’s now has complete visibility of its delivery fleet, can capture and communicate live updates as schedules unfold and is optimising the transport operation to reduce its environmental impact.
Braehead Foods, one of Scotland’s largest food wholesalers, is looking to the future following a partnership agreement with family-run national food service company Reynolds. Following this announcement, Braehead will continue to deliver quality produce across Scotland, with a focus on controlling costs, maintaining service levels and responding to future changes in the sector, and it will achieve this with the use of Podfather’s fleet planning, route optimisation and ePOD functionality.
JW Filshill, one of Scotland’s oldest independent food and drinks wholesalers, is using Podfather logistics software to improve customer service. With a fleet of nearly forty rigid trucks, Filshill supplies its own Keystore brand of convenience shops alongside national accounts such as the Scottish Prison Service. Filshill also delivers ambient goods to over 1,600 independent customers across Scotland and the north of England.
Lake District Farmers (LDF), a supplier of high-quality meat to Michelin star restaurants, is using Podfather's optimised fleet logistics software to improve its green credentials, ensure food safety compliance and improve operational efficiency. Making around 5,000 deliveries a week, LDF connects traditional Cumbrian hill farmers with chefs such as Gordon Ramsey, Clare Smith and Marcus Wareing.
Marrfish, suppliers to top restaurants and catering organisations, is using Podfather’s logistics planning, route optimisation and ePOD software to ensure its fish is delivered in premium condition. Operating from its Essex headquarters, serving customers across London and the East of England, Marrfish is using Podfather to plan, schedule and allocate around 60,000 deliveries of fresh, deli ready and frozen fish a year.
Leicestershire based Mason Foodservices has implemented Podfather’s logistics software to automate delivery planning and reporting as it prepares to celebrate 80 years in business. A family run food wholesaler, Mason has recently seen a period of expansion and innovation both in its product offering and customer experience. With the support of Podfather’s planning, route optimisation and ePOD software, it hopes to underpin these, and future developments, with a move to paperless working, operational efficiency gains and customer service improvements.
Simply Lunch, award-winning food-to-go manufacturer, is using Podfather logistics software to support its sustainable strategic drivers. The family run business produces around 25 million products a year and makes more than 175,000 deliveries to organisations ranging from independent coffee shops to multi-national catering companies, from its headquarters in South London and its satellite depot in Birmingham. Realising the impact of this operation on the environment, Simply Lunch uses Podfather’s fleet route planning, route optimisation and electronic proof of delivery software to eliminate paperwork through digitisation, minimise mileage and boost customer service.
Podfather fleet logistics software is helping one of the UK’s largest fresh fruit and vegetable wholesalers provide a five-star delivery service to restaurants, hotels and caterers nationwide. Making up to 7,000 deliveries a week, Smith & Brock is using Podfather’s logistics planning, route optimisation and ePOD solution to improve visibility across its mobile operation, boosting customer service and supporting its green objectives.
Take a look at our whole solution; delivering many features and lots of benefits to the food & drink sector:
Related functionality
We hope you like what you see. If you are interested in our planning and optimisation functionality you might also be interested to find out more about the following.
Our route optimisation functionality allows you to plan routes that are cost-effective, resource efficient and meet promised customer time windows.
Optimise routes, manage pre-allocated jobs, review fixed routes and regions.
Podswap, our Haulier Management System, enables you to manage the work allocated to your own fleet, and the jobs you want to share with your third-party hauliers.
One seamless, paper-free system, whoever is completing the job.
Make sure all necessary vehicle checks have been completed and logged before vehicles leave the depot.
Maintain compliance with real-time visibility and full-time accountability online. Empower your drivers with vehicle check confirmation at their fingertips when out on the road.
Monitor progress against the plan in real time using our Android or iOS app.
Automatically send customer notifications and live tracking links, via email, text, or our online portal; keeping customers informed in real-time.
Streamline your proof of delivery process. Log and share job completions, scan barcodes, and capture signatures and photographs in real-time.
Get real-time notification of item adjustments, job cancellations and make delivery discrepancies a thing of the past.
Ready to start your journey?
We’d love to show you how we could help your business through improved logistics planning. Get in touch today and let’s talk about what challenges you are currently facing in your business and how we could help you to overcome them.