Inovis boosts UK work as it harmonises food sector data

Supply chain systems giant Inovis is expanding global data synchronisation (GDS) in the food sector, having clinched a five-year deal between The Bay Tree Food Company and House of Fraser (HoF).

The deal gives HoF instant access to automatically uploaded product information from Bay Tree Foods via a centrally managed database using Inovis Datasynch software.

Bay Tree Foods supplies a range of speciality food products, from cooking sauces and preserves to pasta and desserts. Inovis is a global player with extensive exposure in markets such as the US. "95% of department stores and 6,000 suppliers use us in the US," said Stephen Jefferies, director of Europe, Middle East and Africa retail for Inovis.

The database the Inovis software taps into can hold information on 125M unique items. It is therefore substantially larger than other data pools. "We're a different scale," said Jefferies. "More of a data ocean than a data pool." However, Inovis said it was currently focusing on UK non-food and luxury food suppliers. "We can't concentrate on food businesses at the moment," said Jefferies. "We wouldn't want to take on too many projects. The consumer packaged goods market may well go dual strategy, with GS1 being the food group while we do non-food."

However, he said that as Inovis developed its data synchronisation activities in the UK market, it anticipated securing more business with the food sector, adding: "We have dealings with luxury food brands Walkers Shortbread and Whittards of Chelsea and we are looking at Harrods Food Halls and their suppliers. That will undoubtedly be the source of more suppliers coming on board with us at some stage."

Information sharing via GDS speeds up the pace of communication and reduces invoice disputes, errors and stock shortages caused by bad data.