The CORE Blog
Sharp takes on a shifting supply chain.
Inflation, tariffs, sourcing strategy and the outlook for hospitality & foodservice — practical guidance from the operators and procurement veterans behind CORE.
Latest articles
LatestCost Control
How Do You Audit Foodservice Invoices for Overcharges?
Most distributor overcharges are not fraud, they are drift: a contracted price that never got loaded, a substituted item that fell off your agreement, a case pack that changed, a credit that was promised and never issued. Checking your top 25 items against your contract every month catches most of it. Every dollar you recover is margin you already earned, and at a 5% profit margin, $1,000 recovered does as much for the bottom line as $20,000 of new sales.
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Procurement
How Do Restaurants and Hotels Handle Food Supply Chain Disruptions?
Food supply disruptions are rarely random. They are the predictable result of thin national supply, single-sourced items, and menus written with no approved substitute. Operators who ride them out do three things in advance: they know which items have exactly one source, they write substitute specs before they need them, and they have someone watching manufacturer supply rather than just distributor stock. Managed procurement gives an operator that visibility across the distributors they already use, on a transparent agreed fee with no markup on spend.
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Procurement
How Does Foodservice Distributor Pricing Work?
Foodservice distributors nearly all price the same basic way: they start from what a product costs them and add a markup, either a percentage margin or a flat fee per case. Sysco says exactly that in its own SEC filings. So the number driving your food cost is not really the case price on the invoice, it is the two pieces behind it, the underlying cost and the markup applied on top, and most operators only ever see the total. Managed procurement makes both visible, on a transparent agreed fee with no markup on your spend and 100% of rebates passed back to you.
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Procurement
GPO vs. Procurement Consultant vs. Managed Procurement: How to Choose
Operators lowering supply costs are usually choosing among three models. A GPO (Avendra, Foodbuy, Entegra, Dining Alliance) pools volume for catalog pricing and is paid out of your spend. A procurement consultant studies your buying and recommends changes for a project fee, then hands the work back to your team. Managed procurement runs your purchasing as an ongoing, transparent service. CORE360 is managed procurement: one agreed fee, no markup, 100% of rebates passed back to you, and it works with the distributors, and even the GPO, you already have.
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Cost Control
How Do Hotels Reduce Food and Beverage Costs?
Hotels reduce food and beverage costs most durably by attacking purchasing first (benchmarking and renegotiating what they pay across every outlet), then tightening menus, portions, and waste, without cutting the quality guests notice. Because cost of goods runs about a quarter of hotel F&B expenses, even a few points off purchasing flows straight to the department's profit. Managed procurement brings the buying leverage a single property struggles to build alone, on a transparent fee with full rebate pass-through.
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Procurement
Is There a GPO for Country Clubs? (And the Better Alternative)
Is there a GPO for country clubs? Yes, club buying groups exist, but what clubs are really asking for is lower food and supply costs without sacrificing the member experience. CLUB360 delivers that as a free-to-join, sign-and-save program built for clubs: no membership fees, savings built into the price at the time of purchase, and a dedicated CLUB Advisor.
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Procurement
Do the New 2026 Tariffs Really Raise Restaurant and Hotel Costs?
The tariffs that took effect this week are, for the most part, a renewal of duties that were already in place rather than a brand new cost, so on their own they are unlikely to move most hospitality prices much. Tariffs also rarely pass through to buyers at the full headline rate, because exporters, importers, and distributors each absorb part of the change. The measured response is to map your exposure and use your buying leverage, not to reprice in a panic. Managed procurement brings the scale, market visibility, and execution to stay calm and protected, on a transparent fee with full rebate pass-through.
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Procurement
What Does a Hospitality Procurement Consultant Do?
What a hospitality procurement consultant does — sourcing, supplier negotiation, and contract management that cut food and supply costs without cutting quality — plus when your hotel, restaurant, or club needs one, and how the best ones get paid.
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Cost Control
Do GPOs keep rebates, or pass them back?
Most group purchasing organizations keep some or all of the rebates and incentives they negotiate, along with marketing incentives and lump sum payments that never reach the operator. CORE Insights Group is not a GPO. Its CORE360 and CORE Consulting clients pay CORE for procurement management, so CORE keeps no rebates or incentives.
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Team
Get to Know John Reardon, SVP Strategic Sourcing
John Reardon, SVP Strategic Sourcing at CORE Insights Group, spent two decades in hospitality operations before discovering his passion for sourcing, then 13 years rising to lead the sourcing team at Starwood Hotels and Resorts, where he was named one of its top 100 leaders. He brings that rare blend of operations and procurement expertise to CORE's clients, along with a conviction that technology will transform strategic sourcing over the next five years, with CORE on the front edge.
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Procurement
Are Restaurants Outsourcing Procurement to Protect Profit Margins?
Yes, a growing number of restaurant operators are handing purchasing to outside procurement partners, and the reason is simple math. With food and labor costs high and margins thin, the price paid for goods is one of the few levers an operator can pull without raising menu prices or cutting quality. Outsourcing brings buying leverage, market visibility, and a dedicated team that a single restaurant cannot build alone. CORE360, CORE's managed procurement program, does this on a transparent fee with full rebate pass-through, so the savings stay with the operator.
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Procurement
What Is CORE's Procurement Center of Excellence?
CORE Insights Group has launched a Procurement Center of Excellence (COE): a single platform uniting its people, processes, and technology (including data and AI) to deliver best-in-class sourcing across CORE360, CLUB360, CORE Consulting, and Lifecycle Facilitation Services, while building a supply chain talent pipeline for clients and the hospitality industry.
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Procurement
Can you work with any distributor?
Do you have to switch distributors to work with a GPO? With CORE, no — CORE works with your existing distributors and opens the market beyond any single one, so you keep the relationships that work and gain leverage where they don't.
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Procurement
How does CORE get paid?
How does CORE get paid? One transparent, agreed fee — never a markup on your spend — with 100% of every rebate and allowance passed back to you. It's the operator-favorable alternative to the typical GPO model.
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Cost Control
How to Reduce Restaurant Food Costs
A practical, procurement-first playbook for lowering restaurant food costs: track true food cost %, tighten purchasing, engineer the menu, and cut waste — without cutting quality.
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Procurement Service
The real story of 2025 (and what to expect in 2026)
2025 brought pressure but not the disruption many feared. Here is an honest look at how hospitality outperformed the fear narrative, and what CORE expects operators to face in 2026.
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Procurement
Tariff Turmoil: Taking a long- and short-term view
Tariffs are causing turmoil for sourcing strategies in 2025. CORE Insights Group weighs the potential long-term benefits against the short-term price and supply chain turbulence ahead.
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Procurement Service
How to prepare for 2025? Who the hell knows!
No one knows what 2025 holds, but CORE Insights Group's century of combined industry experience says you can still prepare for the unexpected with a strong sourcing strategy.
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Procurement Service
Operators: Get Ready for Change in 2025
As a new administration reshapes labor, energy, tariffs and food costs, here are the key 2025 themes restaurant and hospitality operators should prepare for.
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Procurement Service
Shifting the Paradigm: A Refreshing Approach to Procurement Services
CORE Insights Group's founders saw the procurement industry draining operators of cash and capability — so they built a transparent, operator-first model to shift the paradigm and deliver value to those who deserve it.
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Procurement Service
Understanding the Vital Role of Food Supply Services in Ensuring a Safe and Nutritious Food Supply
Access to a safe and nutritious food supply is a basic human right — and food supply services, including food service purchasing, are crucial to ensuring everyone can meet it.
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