Blog · Board and management reporting · Foodservice distributors
The ten sales KPIs a foodservice distributor should run on, each with its formula, the export it comes from and what it tells you: category share per kitchen, drop frequency against the kitchen's own pattern, average drop value, order guide compliance, share at chain and at site level, delivery window adherence, substitutions and shorts, new account ramp, contribution per drop, and lost kitchens by prior value. Also the three measures most foodservice distributors miss, the figures to drop, the identities, and who owns what.
A kitchen orders several times a week, from several suppliers, by category. The measures that matter for a foodservice distributor show which categories each kitchen buys elsewhere, which kitchens have quietly given a delivery day to someone else, and which drops cost more than they earn.
| # | Measure | Formula | Export | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Category share per kitchen | Kitchen spend in category ÷ kitchen total, against the median for its format and cuisine | Ledger with category; account master | Proteins bought, produce and dry goods bought elsewhere |
| 2 | Drop frequency against own pattern | Delivery days per week, last 4 weeks, against the kitchen's prior 26 weeks | Delivery file | A delivery day given to a competitor |
| 3 | Average drop value | Revenue ÷ drops, per kitchen | Ledger; delivery file | Drops too small to pay for the truck |
| 4 | Order guide compliance | Spend on order guide items ÷ total spend; order guide items not bought in 8 weeks | Order guide; ledger | What the kitchen was set up to buy and stopped buying |
| 5 | Share at chain and site | Revenue per site against the chain's own median site; sites below half of median | Ledger; account master with chain | The kitchens inside a contract that buy elsewhere |
| 6 | Delivery window adherence | Drops inside the agreed window ÷ drops; drops during service hours | Delivery file with timestamps | Deliveries that arrived during lunch service |
| 7 | Substitutions and shorts | Lines substituted or shorted ÷ lines ordered, per kitchen | Order and shipment files | The service failures that precede a dropped day |
| 8 | New account ramp | Weekly revenue in weeks 1 to 12 against the ramp of accounts that went on to stay | Ledger; account master | New kitchens that are not becoming customers |
| 9 | Contribution per drop | Gross margin per drop − delivery cost per drop | Ledger; delivery file; route costs | Kitchens and routes that lose money as served |
| 10 | Lost kitchens, by prior value | Prior-year revenue of kitchens past k × own order gap ÷ prior-year revenue | Ledger | Revenue that stopped, with the closure or the competitor to find out |
Every one of these is computed per account, per route and rep, and in total, and every one carries an identity that must hold before the table is shown.
The dropped delivery day. It is in the delivery file, not the sales report, and it leads the revenue decline by four to eight weeks.
Site-level share inside chains. A forty-site group at plan in total can hide six sites at a tenth of the median.
Contribution per drop. Gross margin per case is reported everywhere; what it cost to put the case in the kitchen is not.
A bistro took three deliveries a week for a year, averaging $620 a drop. Over the last four weeks it has taken two a week at $780. Weekly revenue fell from $1,860 to $1,560, a 16 percent decline that the monthly report shows as a small dip. The delivery file shows Wednesday has gone. In the same weeks the kitchen had five shorted lines on a Wednesday delivery. The call is about Wednesday, not about price.
Cases shipped. Volume without margin or cost. A route can ship more cases and earn less.
Number of active accounts. Counts a cafe and a hospital as one each.
Revenue per rep against last month. Holidays, weather and the calendar. Use the same weeks last year.
| Table | Must hold |
|---|---|
| Category share | Category spend per kitchen sums to the kitchen's ledger total |
| Drop frequency | Every delivery belongs to one kitchen and one day; drops sum to the route total |
| Substitutions | Lines ordered = shipped as ordered + substituted + shorted + cancelled |
| Chain and site | Site revenue sums to the chain total |
A table whose identity fails is a table with a row missing or counted twice. It is not shown until it is fixed.
| Measure | Owner | Reviewed |
|---|---|---|
| Drop frequency; lost kitchens; substitutions | District sales manager with operations | Weekly |
| Order guide compliance; new account ramp | Rep; district sales manager | Weekly to monthly |
| Delivery window adherence; contribution per drop | Operations; commercial director | Monthly |
| Category share; chain and site share | Commercial director; national accounts | Quarterly |
A measure with no owner is a metric, not a KPI; see KPI versus metric versus measure.
Ten measures from the ledger, the delivery file and the order guide. Watch drop frequency weekly, because a kitchen gives away a delivery day before it gives away the account. Covirage computes all of them from the exports foodservice distributors already produce, files only, with the definitions stated and the identities checked. See Covirage for foodservice distributors.
A kitchen that ordered Monday, Wednesday and Friday and now orders Monday and Friday has given a day to another supplier. Revenue may barely move at first, because basket size rises on the remaining days. Drop frequency against the kitchen's own pattern shows it weeks before the revenue line does.
Kitchens of the same format and cuisine: a pizzeria against pizzerias, a care home against care homes. Produce share at a steakhouse and at a vegan cafe are not comparable. The norm comes from the distributor's own well-developed accounts in each group.
Both. The chain total decides the contract conversation; the site view shows the six kitchens in a forty-site group that buy almost nothing, usually because a local manager has a preferred supplier. The site list is the action.