Methodology and results
How we find savings,and what you receive.
Deliverables
What you receive
A savings report covering the scope agreed on your discovery call, presented on a call with our team. Free, with no obligation to act on any of it.
- Your purchasing for the agreed scope, standardised and consolidated across suppliers and sites
- Equivalent products from participating wholesalers, line by line, with the saving on each. Wholesalers’ unit prices stay hidden in the early stages, to be fair to the wholesalers on the platform
- Estimated monthly and annual savings by supplier and by category, including from consolidating spend with fewer suppliers
- Where you are already paying a good price, so you know what to leave alone
- Products with no reliable equivalent, listed separately so nothing is hidden
- A call to walk through the results, introductions to the wholesalers you choose, and a check of their final prices against your data
Sample report
What a report looks like
Illustrative data in the layout of a real Percy report. Supplier names are hidden here; in your report you see your own suppliers.
- items analysed
- 312
- matched (41%)
- 128
- saving a month (£58,440 a year)
- £4,870
- of spend saved
- 5.6%
| Supplier | Product → equivalent | Saving a month |
|---|---|---|
| Current supplier A → Wholesaler 1 | Beef burger 113g (48 x 113g) → Beef burger 4oz (48 x 113g) | £612 |
| Current supplier B → Wholesaler 2 | Grated mozzarella (6 x 2kg) → Grated mozzarella (5 x 2.5kg) | £488 |
| Current supplier A → Wholesaler 1 | Chicken thigh fillet (1 x 5kg) → Chicken thigh fillet (2 x 2.5kg) | £402 |
| Current supplier C → Wholesaler 3 | Rapeseed oil (1 x 20L) → Rapeseed oil (1 x 20L) | £96 |
| Current supplier C → Wholesaler 2 | Kraft takeaway box no. 2 (1 x 250) → Kraft food box no. 2 (2 x 125) | £84 |
Competitive: switch now
93
A close match that is cheaper today.
Needs negotiation: requote
35
A close match that costs more today; the wholesaler is asked to improve its price.
Coverage gap: no match
184
No high-confidence match. Listed so nothing is hidden.
Method
How the analysis works
- 1
Standardise
We read your exports, spreadsheets or invoices and turn them into one consistent list: product, supplier, pack size, unit, quantity and price. Repeated products are combined, and volumes are expressed per month.
- 2
Apply the agreed scope
Suppliers and products you have ruled out are removed before any matching, so they never appear as opportunities.
- 3
Match
AI-assisted matching compares each product with the ranges of participating wholesale suppliers, using description, product code, pack size and unit. Every match carries a confidence score.
- 4
Check
A match only counts when its AI match-confidence score is 70% or higher. Lines below that bar are held for review rather than matched automatically, and only doubtful ones need a human look from you. Price differences large enough to suggest a match is not like for like are kept out of the headline saving too.
- 5
Price
Participating wholesalers confirm prices for your matched products and suggest products for gaps, without being told who you are.
- 6
Compare like for like
Prices are converted to the same basis, such as per kg, per litre or per item, using pack and case sizes, so a 6 x 1 kg pack can be fairly compared with a 1 x 5 kg pack. Consolidation is modelled by case size and volume.
- 7
Estimate the saving
For each confirmed match, the saving is the difference in like-for-like price multiplied by your monthly quantity. Lines are added up by supplier and category; the annual figure is twelve times the monthly figure.
- 8
Validate
When you choose a wholesaler, their final prices are run back through Percy against your own purchasing data, so the saving you act on is the saving you get.
Validated, granular and conservative
Why you can trust the numbers
Percy’s figures are deliberately conservative. They count only close, like-for-like matches and respect the specialist products you want to keep, because in hospitality, quality at the right price point is what keeps customers coming back. A bigger headline saving is usually possible on paper by swapping specialist products for cheaper, lower-quality alternatives. Most operators do not want to do that, so we do not count it.
Validated, not estimated
Savings are measured line by line against your own purchasing data, and the final prices you are offered are run back through Percy before you act. Our 5–7% is a validated figure.
Granular
Every product line is compared, not category averages or basket deals, so you can see exactly which products and suppliers a saving comes from.
High-confidence matches only
A product only counts as a match when its AI match-confidence score is 70% or higher, which means a very close match. Lines below that bar are not thrown away: they are held for review rather than matched automatically.
Pack sizes handled accurately
Pack-size differences are one of the most common sources of error in price comparisons, especially when they are worked out by hand. Percy applies pack-size correction factors automatically, so every price is compared per kg, litre or item.
No membership, no system change
Percy works from the data you already have. There is nothing to join or install, and you can stop at any point.
Calculating savings
A worked example
Each saving is the difference in like-for-like price, multiplied by how much you buy each month. The figures below are illustrative.
What the figures mean
- Savings are estimates based on your data and wholesalers’ prices at the time of the analysis.
- Actual savings depend on which opportunities you take up, delivery terms and minimum orders, and future price changes.
- Where a product needs tasting or testing, samples can be arranged before you decide.
Rapeseed oil, 1 x 20 L
- Current price per 20 L drum
- £31.20
- Equivalent 20 L drum from a participating wholesaler
- £28.40
- Saving per drum
- £2.80
- Drums bought per month
- 6
- Estimated saving per month
- £16.80
- Estimated saving per year
- £201.60
A real report repeats this for every matched product in scope, then adds the lines up by supplier and category.
Results and evidence
Results across the Percy network
- operators on the Percy network
- 80+
- cost of goods reviewed across that network
- £400M+
- combined revenue of operators on the network
- £1.3bn
- of the food and beverage spend analysed, typically recovered
- 5–7%
Where the savings come from
Where the savings came from, across more than 32,000 lines of operator purchasing analysed:
| Category | Share of total saved |
|---|---|
| Ambient and dry goods | 33% |
| Specialty and niche products | 32% |
| Proteins | 21% |
| Everything else combined | 14% |
Everyone assumes it's proteins. The data says it's whatever nobody has re-tendered.
What we've learned
- Even where procurement is already working well, for example with an e-procurement system in place, Percy typically still finds 3 to 5%.
- Across a typical basket, 88% of the savings come from just 10% of the products switched.
- Used by operators from a single café turning over about £150,000 to enterprise groups, and proven on baskets of more than 1,000 products.
Operators on the Percy network include
- Loungers
- Turtle Bay
- The Breakfast Club
- Yolk
- Pinkmans
- Kolamba
- K10
- Lussmanns
- Left Handed Giant
- Real Eating Company
- Camino
- Rola Wala
- Benito's
- Walcot Group
- Federal
- Dodo Pub Co
- The Attendant
- Heidi
- Ardent Pub Group
- Pizzarova
- Little Victories
- Brother Marcus
- TreeTop Golf
- Parsons Bakery
- Double Puc Café
“The fact it's been made by you guys with your hospitality experience really shows through.”
Ops Director, TreeTop Golf
Getting started
See what Percy could save you
Free for operators, with no obligation. Start with a short discovery call so the analysis covers what matters to your business.
- 1Book a discovery call, or send us a message.
- 2Accept the operator terms in the invitation we send you before the call.
- 3On the call, agree the purchasing categories to investigate.
- 4Prepare and share the purchasing data for that scope.