Extract discovery insights

Synthesis for the CPO

Headline

The evidence points more strongly to a delivery-reconciliation problem than to a general marketplace need. Supplier coverage matters—especially to Calder Group—but the interviews suggest the bigger day-to-day pain is knowing what arrived, resolving discrepancies, and matching invoices and credits. Build toward that workflow next quarter; treat a broad marketplace as an unproven solution.

Findings and evidence

1. Receiving and invoice reconciliation are recurring operational pains. — Moderate evidence Eight of the ten interview excerpts raise delivery checking, discrepancies, invoice matching, credit notes, or the paperwork around them. Examples include paying for undelivered goods, learning about short deliveries only when the invoice arrives, and re-entering clipboard checks into Larder. Several customers describe financial impact or repeated manual work. The support export also contains tickets in both “Delivery didn’t match order” and “Invoice reconciliation.”

This is a consistent signal across the interviews, but ten excerpts cannot establish how common the problem is across Larder’s 1,140 accounts or which part of the workflow is most valuable to solve first.

2. Supplier availability is a genuine need, but the ticket count overstates its breadth. — Moderate evidence for demand; weak evidence for a marketplace “Add more suppliers” is the largest ticket category: 75 of 200 tickets. But 58 of those tickets—most of the category—come from one customer, Calder Group. The remaining 17 are from other accounts, so supplier coverage is not solely a Calder concern, but ticket volume is not evidence that most customers want a marketplace. Calder’s 14 sites and stated intent to move all ordering to Larder make its request strategically important; it is still one account.

The interviews echo that distinction: the pizzeria wants more choice and better prices, and Calder explicitly wants every supplier on-platform. But another multi-site operator says finding suppliers is not the problem, and the tapas bar says paperwork is what hurts day to day.

3. A marketplace is a proposed solution, not a validated priority. — Weak evidence The evidence supports specific supplier gaps and some appetite for choice, but does not show that customers broadly want a marketplace, what marketplace model they mean, or whether it would resolve their more frequent receiving and reconciliation problems. The draft’s conclusion goes beyond what these sources can establish.

What to build next quarter

Prioritize a focused delivery-to-invoice reconciliation improvement: make it easier to record what was received, flag shortages and substitutions against the order, and carry discrepancies through to invoice matching and credit-note tracking. Test the workflow with customers who describe these pains before committing to a larger build.

In parallel, follow up with Calder and a few other customers requesting suppliers. Assess targeted supplier onboarding or integrations for the specific suppliers they need; do not assume this requires a general-purpose marketplace. Use the quarter to measure how widespread each problem is across distinct accounts and whether improved reconciliation reduces manual work and unresolved discrepancies.

Next-quarter synthesis: prioritise delivery-to-invoice accuracy, not a marketplace

Recommendation: Build and validate a focused workflow for recording what arrived, flagging discrepancies and resolving invoice/credit issues. Continue targeted supplier onboarding, but do not commit next quarter to a broad marketplace. The evidence supports operational accuracy more broadly than supplier discovery.

Main findings and evidence strength

1. Supplier requests lead ticket volume—but are heavily concentrated in one account

The export contains 200 tickets:

Account counts are deduplicated within categories; they should not be summed across categories.

Calder Group generated 58 of the 75 supplier tickets (77%), repeatedly requesting onboarding for four named suppliers or supplier types. The other 17 supplier tickets came from 17 accounts.

Evidence strength: Strong evidence of a concentrated supplier-coverage need; weak evidence that a marketplace is the right solution. Ticket volume measures support demand, not independent customer votes. Repeated requests may indicate an important unresolved problem, but not broad market demand.

Calder’s 14 sites and stated willingness to move all ordering to Larder warrant commercial follow-up. However, this is a conditional intention—not a commitment—and we have no revenue or order-volume evidence to size the opportunity. Requests to add existing suppliers must also be distinguished from discovering new ones.

2. Delivery and invoice problems affect a broader set of accounts

Together, delivery discrepancies and invoice reconciliation account for 63 tickets from 62 distinct accounts, compared with supplier requests from 18 accounts.

The interviews reinforce this pattern. Eight of ten excerpts describe delivery, reconciliation or paperwork pain, although the tapas bar’s comment is less specific. Examples include:

• Discovering a short delivery only when the invoice arrives.
• Paying for undelivered goods; one gastropub reported approximately £600 in one month.
• Chasing credit notes weekly.
• Having no shared evidence when suppliers dispute shortages.
• Recording deliveries on paper, then re-entering them in Larder.

The café group explicitly says finding suppliers is not the problem; knowing what arrived is.

Evidence strength: Strong convergence across these two sources that this is a meaningful problem spanning multiple restaurant formats. Evidence for its prevalence across all 1,140 accounts, typical financial impact or the best solution remains limited. The £600 figure is one customer’s report, not an estimate we can extrapolate.

3. Marketplace interest exists, but “most customers want one” is unsupported

The pizzeria strongly wants more choice and better prices. Calder explicitly mentions a marketplace, but frames its need as getting every supplier onto the platform. The tapas bar expresses tentative interest, then prioritises paperwork.

Evidence strength: Directional evidence for supplier expansion, but weak evidence for broad marketplace demand. Only Calder explicitly advocates a marketplace; the pizzeria’s desired outcome could potentially be served in other ways. These excerpts do not establish expected adoption, switching behaviour or willingness to pay.

What we should build next quarter

Prioritise a narrow delivery-to-invoice pilot, rather than attempting full reconciliation automation immediately:

1. Capture actual receipt against an order: quantities received, shortages and substitutions, without duplicate entry.
2. Carry discrepancies forward: make them visible when checking invoices rather than leaving users to reconstruct events.
3. Track resolution: preserve a discrepancy record and show outstanding supplier responses or credits.

Start with observing receiving and invoice-checking in a varied set of independent restaurants. In particular, test whether busy staff will actually record discrepancies: the unchecked delivery-note example suggests software alone may not solve the problem.

Measure receiving-workflow adoption, duplicate entry, reconciliation time, discrepancies identified before payment and time to resolve credits. Establish baselines before setting numerical success targets; use pilot results to decide how far to expand.

Keep supplier coverage as a separate, bounded workstream. Clarify Calder’s required suppliers, onboarding feasibility and commercial commitment. Test targeted onboarding before assuming we need marketplace discovery, comparison and transaction capabilities.

Confidence and limits: This is a prioritisation recommendation, not a proven business case. Ten interview excerpts and self-selected support tickets cannot establish population prevalence. Some accounts also have inconsistent site counts in the export, so site-weighted conclusions would be unreliable. Validate the proposed workflow and its value before a broad rollout.