From Trade Leakage to Trade Governance
Introducing a practical model for governing
trade from the first commitment through
payment, performance, and the next
investment decision.
PART ONE
Where Trade Stands Today
The size of the spend, the shape of the leakage, and where in the business it concentrates.
Trade Spend Is Your Second-Largest Cost. It Deserves More Than Management.
Managing trade means planning it, paying it, and reconciling claims after the fact. Governing trade means knowing whether each dollar should be paid, what happened at the operator after you invested that dollar, and whether you should invest the next dollar the same way.
Trade leakage occurs when trade dollars are paid in ways the manufacturer never intended, whether through duplicate payments, ineligible claims, or overlapping programs. This report examines where that leakage occurs, why it persists, and how trade governance helps manufacturers prevent it, recover overpayments, and make better investment decisions.
For foodservice manufacturers, trade spend is an investment used to win business, influence purchasing decisions, protect existing volume, and create profitable growth. Across consumer goods, trade spend is one of the largest lines on the P&L. Nearly 68% of manufacturers allocate more than 15% of annual revenue to it.1Promotion Optimization Institute (POI), 2026 State of the Industry, April 2026. CPG-wide, largely retail data; not a foodservice benchmark. Even in retail, where trade promotion tools are mature, only 14% of manufacturers are fully satisfied with how they manage trade, and 75% say they struggle with its complexity.1Promotion Optimization Institute (POI), 2026 State of the Industry, April 2026. CPG-wide, largely retail data; not a foodservice benchmark. Foodservice trade, with its complex network of distributor and GPO agreements, earned income, deviated pricing, and rebates, isn’t even covered by that benchmark.
As manufacturers face increasing pressure to grow volume while protecting margins, trade spend becomes an even more important strategic lever. It allows manufacturers to target investments toward specific products, customers, and market segments rather than relying on broad price reductions. But with more riding on those investments, manufacturers need greater confidence that their trade dollars are reaching the intended operators, aren’t funding the same volume twice, and are delivering the expected results.
$1.41T
U.S. food-away-from-home spending in 2025, inflation-adjusted, up from $818 billion in 1997 and 56.3% of all U.S. food spending. This is the market your trade dollars compete for.
USDA Economic Research Service, updated June 2026 2USDA Economic Research Service, Food Expenditure Series (updated June 2026). Inflation-adjusted U.S. food-away-from-home spending.
3 Years
Food-away-from-home prices have outpaced food-at-home growth every year since 2023: 7.1%, 4.1%, 3.8%, with 3.5% forecast for 2026 and 2.6% for 2027, against 2.4% and 1.8% for food at home.
USDA ERS Food Price Outlook, September 2026 4USDA Economic Research Service, Food Price Outlook (September 25, 2026). Annual food-away-from-home and food-at-home price changes and forecasts.
Operators are paying more for fewer cases while consumers push back on menu prices. That squeeze doesn't stay at the operator. It moves upstream.
Brian Choi, CEO, The Food Institute
In foodservice, the squeeze shows up in the trade budget. Operators face rising costs and limited room to pass them through, so they ask more of suppliers to earn and keep a place on the menu. More of a manufacturer’s volume and margin strategy runs through trade, and control over those dollars becomes more urgent. Even well-managed trade programs can carry exposure that does not surface until it has been paid.
What Trade Leakage Is, and Why It Persists
Trade leakage occurs when trade dollars are paid outside the manufacturer’s intent. This includes payments on ineligible claims, overpayments, and duplicate funding of the same operator purchases through overlapping trade programs.
Double dipping is one of the most common forms. The same operator, product, and volume may be claimed under multiple trade programs, resulting in the manufacturer paying twice for the same business.
Foodservice is particularly susceptible to these overlaps because manufacturers often have multiple trade arrangements in place simultaneously, including GPO agreements, distributor programs, deviated pricing, and operator-specific deals. Eligibility adds another layer of complexity as operators join or leave GPOs, change distributors, or participate in different programs.
The challenge is connecting all of that activity at the operator-location level. When program eligibility, contract terms, and claims are managed across different systems and data sources, manufacturers can struggle to see where programs overlap before the money is paid. That is how leakage occurs even in otherwise well-managed trade organizations.
The Benchmark: Up to 5% of Trade Spend
Across more than three decades of foodservice data, Tibersoft has found that up to 5% of trade spend can be protected through the prevention of duplicate payments or recovery of overpayments.3Tibersoft trade audit data, 1996–2026. Derived from trade auditing engagements, not from a survey or panel. That figure doesn’t include the additional savings possible when manufacturers evaluate proposed trade deals against existing programs at the operator-location level, identifying potential overlaps before new commitments are made.
But leakage does not occur at a uniform rate. It varies with a manufacturer’s GPO footprint, distributor network, program structure, and go-to-market model. The scope of the audit also matters. GPO-to-GPO overlap is only one source of exposure. Direct programs, distributor-funded activity, eligibility conflicts, and other overlapping incentives can reveal additional opportunities to protect trade spend.
Some manufacturers find 2% leakage. Others find substantially more. There is no universal leakage rate, and even a manufacturer’s own exposure can change as its business and trade programs evolve. Industry benchmarks provide a useful starting point, but the real opportunity lies in understanding your specific exposure, identifying where it originates, and putting controls in place to prevent it from recurring.
Three Types of Double Dip Exposure
Concurrent
The same claimant, typically a distributor, submits two or more trade program discounts for the same physical case, for the same operator, on the same claim. This can result from duplicate submissions or processing errors.
Claim-to-Claim
Two organizations, such as different GPOs, submit two or more claims for the same physical case, on different claims. Without cross-referencing claims, a manufacturer risks paying twice on the same business.
Street and GPO Overlap
An operator receiving manufacturer-funded street pricing through its distributor joins a GPO. The GPO then submits rebate claims on those same purchases, creating duplicate funding through two separate trade programs.
Double dipping issues have haunted manufacturers over the past decade as the increasing number of regional and national purchasing programs have begun to overlap in ways manufacturers did not intend.
Food Management magazine5Food Management magazine. Characterization of double dipping as a reconciliation challenge created by overlapping purchasing programs.
Where Exposure Concentrates: The Segment View
Leakage varies by manufacturer. It depends on which segments you serve, the trade programs you offer, and how your products reach the operator.
Some segments and routes to market create more opportunities for overlap than others. As more parties and programs sit between the manufacturer and the operator, it becomes harder to determine which program should apply to a purchase and whether that volume has already been funded elsewhere.
Understanding where these risks concentrate is an important first step toward protecting trade spend. The following comparison highlights the conditions that make certain foodservice segments more susceptible to overlapping trade programs and duplicate payments.
SEGMENT DEEP DIVE
K–12: Complex Eligibility at Scale
K–12 trade is particularly challenging because manufacturers must manage competing bids, multiple purchasing arrangements, and distributor relationships across thousands of individual schools. With contracts often awarded above the school level but purchases and claims reported at individual locations, determining which trade program should apply to each purchase can be difficult.
Multiple Purchasing Arrangements. School districts may participate in GPOs, belong to purchasing cooperatives, or negotiate direct bids with manufacturers. These arrangements can overlap, creating situations where the same school and product are covered by multiple trade programs. Manufacturers need to know which agreement should take precedence to avoid funding the same purchases twice.
Annual Bid Cycles. K–12 purchasing is heavily driven by annual bids. Manufacturers compete on product pricing, while distributors compete on the markup and service costs associated with fulfilling those contracts. As bids are awarded or renewed, the applicable pricing and trade programs can change, creating new opportunities for overlap with existing agreements.
Changing Distributor Relationships. A district may award its distribution business to one distributor this year and another the next. Each distributor maintains its own customer identifiers, so the same physical school can appear under entirely different account numbers in claims data. Without a consistent school-location identity, manufacturers may struggle to connect purchasing activity across distributors and contract periods.
Contracts Awarded Above the School Level. Bids may be awarded at the district or purchasing cooperative level, but products are typically delivered to individual schools, where purchases are recorded and claims originate. Some GPOs submit claims at the district level, adding another layer of complexity. Manufacturers need to connect each school location to the correct district, cooperative, and applicable trade agreement to evaluate claims accurately.
Why This Matters. A manufacturer can win a district’s business through competitive bidding, fulfill the contract through the designated distributor, and still end up paying additional rebates on those same purchases through another purchasing organization. The manufacturer may have done everything correctly in establishing and administering each agreement, yet still incur duplicate trade spend.
The key is identifying the individual school behind each claim, regardless of which distributor or purchasing organization submitted it, and determining which trade agreement should apply.
A CHANGING MARKET
Commercial Restaurants: A Growing Area of Exposure
GPOs are expanding their reach into commercial foodservice, including independent restaurants and chains. Many of these operators already purchase products under manufacturer-funded street pricing through their distributors. When those operators join GPOs, manufacturers face a growing risk of funding the same purchases through two separate trade programs.
Existing Distributor Programs. Manufacturers often provide distributors with marketing or trade incentives to help them win and retain street business. Distributors use that manufacturer-funded support to offer competitive pricing to restaurants, even when the manufacturer has no direct relationship with those operators.
New GPO Membership. When a restaurant joins a GPO, the GPO may assume that the restaurant’s purchases qualify for rebates under its agreement with the manufacturer. But those same purchases may already receive manufacturer-funded street pricing through the distributor, creating the potential for a double dip.
A Growing Risk. As GPOs expand further into commercial foodservice, manufacturers need to account for GPO membership in a part of the market where other forms of trade support may already be in place.
PART TWO
A Different Way to Think About It
Foodservice Has More Data Than Ever. The Hard Part Is Connecting It to the Purchase.
Manufacturers have invested heavily in trade management systems, CRM, analytics, and BI tools. Distributors and GPOs have invested in their own technology, too. Yet even with all these systems, manufacturers still struggle to answer some basic questions about their business.
Consider what happens when a manufacturer launches a trade program, a salesperson closes a deal, and cases start moving through distribution. The trade team knows which programs are active. Sales has a record of the opportunity. Distributors report the volume. But can the manufacturer connect those records to the same operator location and determine whether the investment delivered the expected results?
That’s where operator-level intelligence makes a difference. When manufacturers can connect their trade programs, sales activity, and actual purchases to the same operator, they can answer much more useful questions: Who actually bought? Did volume increase? Which programs or sales activities may have influenced the purchase? And was the investment worth repeating?
Did the investment actually change what the operator bought?
A distributor's claims can tell a manufacturer which operators purchased its products and how much they bought. But that doesn't necessarily tell the manufacturer whether a trade program generated new business, increased existing volume, or simply funded purchases that would have happened anyway.
By connecting trade investments, sales activity, and operator purchasing history, manufacturers can better understand what contributed to growth and which investments are worth repeating. That same operator-level intelligence also helps identify duplicate trade payments, evaluate sales execution, and measure program performance.
Five Questions, One Missing Connection
Sales, marketing, trade, and finance teams all want answers to these questions. But the information they need is often scattered across CRM, trade management, distributor data, and other systems. The challenge is connecting those activities to actual purchases at the operator location.
When manufacturers can make those connections, they can see whether an investment was followed by changes in purchasing behavior, measure the results, and make better decisions about where to spend next.
Why Trade Is Where the Problem Surfaces First
Trade is where the financial impact becomes obvious. When two programs fund the same operator purchases, the manufacturer pays twice for the same business. That’s a direct, measurable loss, and one that can be prevented or recovered.
But duplicate payments are only part of the story. Manufacturers also invest heavily in trade programs, sales initiatives, and marketing campaigns to drive growth. Even when every claim is paid correctly, they still need to know whether those investments delivered the expected results.
For example, a manufacturer might increase trade funding to help a distributor grow volume in a particular segment. Six months later, volume is up 10%. That’s encouraging, but how much of that growth came from new operators? How much came from existing customers buying more? And how much would have happened without the additional funding?
Overpayment Costs Money. Investing in What Doesn’t Work Costs More.
A manufacturer might recover thousands of dollars in duplicate trade payments while continuing to invest far more in programs that aren't delivering incremental growth. Both affect profitability, but only one typically gets scrutinized at the individual transaction level.
Knowing what you paid is important. Knowing what you got for it should drive your next investment decision.
Manufacturers already track sales activity, trade spend, program participation, product launches, and other commercial initiatives. They also have purchasing data that shows which operators bought, what they bought, and how their volume changed over time.
The opportunity is to bring those two sides together. When manufacturers can compare their investments against actual operator purchasing behavior, they can identify what appears to be working, question what isn’t, and make more informed decisions about where to invest next.
The Operator Location Is the Common Denominator
Every foodservice purchase ultimately happens at an individual operator location, whether that’s a school, restaurant, hospital, or hotel. But the agreements and programs that influence those purchases are often managed at a much higher level.
Consider a national account agreement covering hundreds of restaurants or a GPO contract covering thousands of member locations. Purchases happen at individual locations, but distributors, GPOs, and manufacturers may report that activity differently. The same restaurant might appear under different names or account numbers across multiple data sources. And some reports may identify only the parent organization rather than the location that purchased the product.
That’s why the individual operator location matters. When manufacturers can identify the same location across different data sources, they can connect purchases to the right distributor, GPO, parent organization, and trade programs. They can see which operators bought, what they purchased, and whether multiple programs are funding the same volume.
Two Things Manufacturers Need
Authoritative
Manufacturers need reliable evidence of what operators purchased, including the product, volume, and date. Distributor claims and other operator-level transaction data can provide that detail. Without it, manufacturers may know how much product moved through distribution without knowing which operators actually purchased it.
Connected
The same operator can appear under different names and account numbers across distributor, GPO, and manufacturer systems. Manufacturers need to identify that location consistently and connect it to the appropriate parent organization, purchasing affiliations, and trade programs. That's what makes it possible to compare claims across sources, identify overlapping payments, and evaluate purchasing behavior over time.
Both are essential. Transaction data tells manufacturers what was purchased, but without a consistent operator identity, they can’t reliably connect those purchases across different sources. Likewise, knowing who the operator is means little without evidence of what they actually bought. Together, these capabilities allow manufacturers to identify overlapping trade payments, track changes in purchasing behavior, and better understand which commercial investments are driving results.
Why Trade Systems Alone Aren’t Enough
TPM systems were designed to manage trade programs, process claims, and settle payments, not to provide a complete view of every commercial relationship surrounding an individual foodservice operator.
For payment processing, manufacturers primarily need to know the purchase date, product, applicable program, rate, and amount owed. Identifying the individual operator location isn’t always necessary. But when manufacturers want to use that same claims data to identify overlapping trade programs, prevent double payments, or evaluate trade performance, location-level detail becomes essential. Without a consistent operator identity across distributors, GPOs, and other data sources, even a well-managed TPM system can miss where multiple programs are funding the same purchases.
| In Use Today | What It Does | The Gap |
|---|---|---|
| Spreadsheets | Tracks contracts, programs and eligibility outside core systems | Difficult to keep current and cross-reference across programs, operators and data sources. No overlap flagging. |
| TPM System | Plans trade investments, manages agreements and processes claims | May not connect the same operator and purchases across multiple foodservice programs |
| ERP | Manages financial transactions, including customer billing, accounts receivable, deductions, payments, and general ledger reporting. | Shows what was paid, but may not contain the operator and program context needed to identify overlap |
| BI / Data Lakes | Brings data together for reporting and analysis | Can analyze what is available, but still depends on reliably identifying the same operator across different data sources |
| What Closes the Gap | A consistent operator-location ID connects purchases across distributors, GPOs, manufacturer systems, and trade programs. | Allows manufacturers to compare claims across programs, identify duplicate funding, and connect trade investments to actual purchasing behavior. |
| Capability assessment by Tibersoft, based on systems environments observed across manufacturer engagements. Not a vendor evaluation.6 | ||
Each system can be doing its job correctly and still provide only part of the picture. The missing connection is the operator location: identifying the same operator across systems and connecting its purchases to the commercial relationships and programs surrounding them.
A Trade Governance Maturity Model
Manufacturers have spent years building the systems and processes to plan trade investments, manage programs, process claims, and track spending. But even when those processes work well, they don’t necessarily reveal when multiple programs are funding the same operator purchases. Trade governance takes manufacturers a step further by connecting purchases and trade programs at the operator-location level, providing the visibility needed to identify overlaps, protect trade spend, and evaluate results.
Managing Trade Manually
Contracts, eligibility, claims, and exceptions are managed largely through spreadsheets and individual expertise. Teams often know their programs and partners extremely well, but identifying overlap depends heavily on people recognizing it and reconciling records manually.
Managing Trade in Systems
TPM, ERP, BI, and other systems bring structure and scale to planning, claims, payments, and reporting. Manufacturers can manage individual programs efficiently and analyze trade spend across the business.
The challenge is that the same operator can still appear differently across systems, distributors, GPOs, and programs. Each system may be doing its job correctly without revealing how those relationships intersect.
Governing Trade at the Operator Level
Purchases are connected to a consistent operator identity and the commercial relationships surrounding that operator. Manufacturers can see when programs overlap, determine which funding should apply, and use actual purchasing behavior to evaluate what happened after the investment was made. Trade can then be governed across programs: before payment, after payment, and before the next dollar is committed.
Manufacturers don’t need to replace their existing systems to achieve better trade governance. They need a consistent way to identify operators across those systems and connect their purchases to the trade programs and commercial activities surrounding them. That visibility reveals where programs overlap, where duplicate funding may occur, and how trade investments relate to changes in operator purchasing behavior.
Existing systems help manufacturers manage individual trade programs, process claims, and track spending. Connecting that information at the operator-location level adds something those systems typically can’t provide: visibility into how programs overlap, whether multiple investments are funding the same business, and how operator purchasing behavior changes in response to commercial activity.
AI makes this even more important. With reliable, connected operator-level data, AI can help manufacturers identify potential double dips, uncover purchasing trends, flag unusual activity, and find opportunities for growth. But AI can’t compensate for missing operator identities or incorrectly matched records. Without a reliable data foundation, it can produce convincing answers built on incomplete or inaccurate information.
PART FOUR
Tibersoft's Expertise
Three decades of foodservice data expertise, proven technology, and experience working with the world’s leading CPG manufacturers.
The Trade Governance Model
Trade governance has two jobs: protect trade spend and make sure those investments deliver results. That means preventing and recovering overpayments, measuring what worked, and using those insights to make better decisions about where to invest next.
Protect
Identify where trade programs overlap at the operator level and prevent or recover duplicate payments.
Evaluate proposed trade deals against existing programs at the operator-location level to identify potential overlaps before new commitments are made. Compare incoming claims against active programs and other claims to flag duplicate funding before payment.
Compare paid claims across programs to identify duplicate funding at the operator level. Recover confirmed overpayments and use the findings to prevent similar issues in the future.
Perform
Connect trade investments to operator purchasing behavior to measure results and make better investment decisions.
Compare operator purchasing behavior before, during, and after a trade investment. Did volume grow? Did new operators begin buying? Which programs or activities may have contributed to those results?
Use purchasing trends and program performance to decide which investments to continue, adjust, expand, or discontinue. Focus future trade dollars where they have the greatest potential to drive profitable growth.
Protect and Perform work together throughout the trade investment lifecycle. Protect helps manufacturers avoid unnecessary payments and recover overpayments. Perform measures purchasing results and uses those findings to guide future investments. Together, they help manufacturers protect margins while making more informed decisions about how to grow.
What Trade Governance Requires
Effective trade governance requires more than technology. It starts with reliable operator-location intelligence that connects purchases, trade programs, and commercial relationships across different data sources. Manufacturers then need clear rules for how trade dollars should be allocated and paid, processes to enforce those rules, and the foodservice expertise to address situations that aren’t always straightforward. Consistent practices help sustain those controls and improve results over time.
Operator-level intelligence provides the foundation. Rules, workflows, expertise, and shared practices turn that intelligence into effective trade governance.
What Trade Governance Needs to Do
Trade governance isn’t just about identifying duplicate payments. It’s about giving manufacturers greater control over their trade investments, from evaluating new agreements to deciding where to invest next. The following seven Jobs to Be Done show how operator-level intelligence helps manufacturers prevent unnecessary spending, resolve claims, measure results, and make better investment decisions.
Together, Protect and Perform give manufacturers greater control over their trade investments. Protect helps prevent overlapping commitments before new deals are approved, identify duplicate claims before payment, and recover overpayments. Perform helps manufacturers understand how those investments affected operator purchasing behavior and where future trade dollars are most likely to drive growth. Both rely on the same foundation: reliable operator-location intelligence that connects trade programs, purchases, and results.
How Mature Is Your Trade Governance?
Most manufacturers have invested heavily in improving how they manage trade. But how well do those investments work together? And how confident are you that your organization can identify overlapping trade commitments, prevent duplicate payments, and measure the results of your trade investments?
The difference between managing trade and governing it isn’t necessarily the number of systems you have or how sophisticated they are. It’s whether your organization has the visibility, processes, and expertise to protect trade spend and make better investment decisions.
Find out where your organization falls on the trade governance maturity model.
Take the five-minute Trade Governance Maturity Assessment to see how your current capabilities compare with the Manual, Systematized, and Connected stages.
The Foodservice Industry Benchmark
Of trade spend can be protected through preventing duplicate payments and recovering overpayments.
Tibersoft trade audit data, 1996–2026 3Tibersoft trade audit data, 1996–2026. Derived from trade auditing engagements, not from a survey or panel.Based on three decades of foodservice trade data, Tibersoft has found that manufacturers can protect up to 5% of trade spend through claim-level controls and auditing.3Tibersoft trade audit data, 1996–2026. Derived from trade auditing engagements, not from a survey or panel. Actual exposure varies considerably based on a manufacturer’s GPO participation, distributor relationships, trade programs, and market segments.
And that’s only part of the opportunity. The benchmark doesn’t include additional savings from evaluating new trade agreements against existing programs at the operator-location level, identifying potential overlaps before manufacturers commit the next dollar.
Three Kinds of Value
Prevent Duplicate Funding
Identify overlapping trade commitments before new agreements are approved and flag duplicate claims before payment. Prevent unnecessary spending rather than trying to recover it later.
Recover Overpayments
Compare paid claims across programs at the operator-location level. Recover confirmed duplicate payments and use those findings to strengthen future controls.
Expand with Confidence
Pursue growth through GPOs and other trade programs with greater confidence that new investments won't duplicate existing funding. Protect margins while expanding into new markets and customer segments.
Your trade exposure is unique, and your own data is the best measure of the opportunity. A Tibersoft First Look analyzes a sample of six months of your claims to identify duplicate funding and estimate your potential savings.
PART THREE
Putting Trade Governance Into Practice
From Trade Auditing to Trade Governance
More than a decade ago, Tibersoft began helping foodservice manufacturers identify duplicate trade payments by comparing claims across programs at the individual operator-location level. At the time, auditing trade claims this way was a significant departure from traditional processes. Manufacturers and their trading partners had to confront overlapping payments that previously went undetected.
Today, trade auditing is a more established practice, and manufacturers are looking for ways to make it faster, more effective, and more proactive. Advances in technology and AI are creating new opportunities to identify duplicate funding earlier, reduce manual effort, and strengthen trade controls.
The next step is moving beyond auditing individual claims to governing trade investments throughout their lifecycle, from evaluating new agreements to measuring the results.
How We Work with You
Every manufacturer’s trade exposure is different. We start by understanding your business, identify where duplicate funding may occur, and help you put controls in place to prevent it from recurring.
Understand Your Business
We learn how you go to market, including the segments you serve, your GPO and distributor relationships, and how your trade programs are structured. This helps us focus on the areas where you're most likely to have exposure.
Quantify Your Exposure
We show you where duplicate funding is occurring, which programs are involved, and how much trade spend may be at risk. You get specific findings backed by data, not just an industry benchmark.
Prevent It from Recurring
We help you establish exclusions, strengthen claim reviews, and address the program overlaps identified in the analysis. The goal is to prevent unnecessary payments going forward, not just recover past overpayments.
For more than 30 years, Tibersoft has helped foodservice manufacturers make sense of data from distributors, GPOs, and other sources. At the center of that work is OPTRADE, which identifies individual operator locations consistently across data sources, giving manufacturers the foundation to compare claims, identify duplicate funding, and understand purchasing behavior.
From Protecting Trade Spend to Driving Growth
Identifying and preventing duplicate payments is only part of the value of operator-level intelligence. The same purchasing data that helps manufacturers protect trade spend can also reveal opportunities to grow their business.
By understanding which operators buy their products, how purchasing patterns change, and where opportunities exist to increase volume, manufacturers can make more informed decisions about their commercial investments. That includes strengthening existing customer relationships, expanding into new accounts and markets, improving distributor performance, and measuring the results of sales and trade initiatives.
Grow Existing Business
Identify operators that purchase less of your products than similar locations. Prioritize the accounts with the greatest opportunity to increase volume.
Find Cross-Selling Opportunities
Identify products that operators commonly purchase together, then find locations buying one but not the other. Give sales teams specific opportunities to expand product penetration.
Win New Customers
Identify operators that aren't currently purchasing your products. Prioritize prospects based on segment, location, and similarities to your existing customers.
Get What You Paid For
Hold sales teams and partners accountable for the volume commitments made in exchange for trade investments. Verify that the expected purchases actually occurred using operator-level transaction data.
Focus Distributor Trade
Understand which operators each distributor serves, where your products are gaining or losing volume, and which market segments offer the greatest opportunity. Use those insights to build more targeted distributor programs.
Measure Real, Incremental GPO Growth
Determine whether GPO programs are driving incremental business or simply reflecting changes in operator membership. Track changes in operator purchasing behavior as membership and trade programs evolve.
For more than 30 years, Tibersoft has helped foodservice manufacturers make sense of data from distributors, GPOs, and other sources. At the center of that work is OPTRADE, which identifies individual operator locations consistently across data sources, giving manufacturers the foundation to compare claims, identify duplicate funding, and understand purchasing behavior.
Know Your Exposure. Take Control of Your Trade Spend.
Every manufacturer's trade exposure is different. Understanding yours is the first step toward preventing unnecessary payments, recovering overpayments, and making more informed trade investments.
But protecting trade spend is only half the opportunity. By connecting trade investments to actual operator purchasing behavior, manufacturers can better understand what's driving growth, which programs are delivering results, and where to invest next.
Find out where you stand and what you could be leaving on the table.
