Please email your interest to Head of Contracts Jane Eve ([email protected]), with the below information:
- Institution name
- Contact name, email and phone number
- Which framework you're interested in
- Current supplier details including whether they're on a TUCO framework
- Your current contract end date
- Value of spend if known
We will assess the information provided and get back to you regarding next steps.
TUCO provides free, tailored procurement support to in-house caterers in the public sector. Our Further Competition Service will help you squeeze every drop of value from your processes and frameworks.
Food purchasing can be exhausting. Constantly managing suppliers, driving down prices, benchmarking service levels, scrutinising spend data. A huge amount of time and resource is needed, plus the latest data analysis tools and across-the-board product knowledge.
Catering and procurement teams in the public sector have the skills and the know-how, but they are stretched. Finding the capacity needed to generate further value can be tough.
This is where TUCO can help.
We already have an annual spend of over £140 million on food and beverage with UK universities, colleges and the wider public sector, all through our EU compliant frameworks. But we can help your organisation generate extra savings and value through our Further Competition Service – a personalised procurement service that is FREE to members.
Extra capacity for your team
Think of it as an extension of your catering and procurement teams; increasing their capacity.
We work with your staff to offer as much or as little support as they need, freeing them up to focus on other areas.
How can we help you?
- Spend analysis: TUCO can conduct a detailed evaluation of your organisation’s food and beverage spend, identifying opportunities to create further value
- Further competition: We can run mini-competitions on TUCO frameworks, asking approved suppliers to tender for your specific basket of goods; driving competition and maximising additional incentives
- Product switching: TUCO can help your organisation create savings by ensuring core list compliance. We can also help you find lower priced, comparable products.
- Product rationalisation: Refining the number of lines purchased can generate big cost savings. Let TUCO help you shrink your basket and see the benefit to your bottom line
- Supplier rationalisation: Managing masses of suppliers is costly and laborious. We can prioritise your supply base - reducing numbers if necessary; improving engagement and saving you more
How does the Further Competition Service work?
You may already be using one of our food and beverage frameworks. To help you generate even greater value, we can run a second competitive process for your specific requirements.
This is how a mini-mini competition works:
- Work with you to agree the basket of goods and a statement of requirements
- TUCO will contact all pre-approved suppliers to price your basket
- TUCO will evaluate the responses and provide a recommendation
- You select an award option and TUCO award the contract
The full mini competition works as the above, but specific questions relevant to your institution and requirements can be asked in a ‘Quality’ section.
- Questions and basket agreed with you
- TUCO to contact all pre-approved suppliers to respond
- Question responses evaluated by the member and moderated by TUCO
- TUCO evaluate the basket responses
- TUCO provide a recommendation
- You select an award option and TUCO award the contract
What are the benefits?
- Speedy process
- No need to go through a full tender process again
- Compliant contract
- Suppliers have already been vetted
- Terms and conditions of the framework have already been agreed
- Suppliers tender for your exact requirements
- You can refine the basic terms of the framework such as payment terms
- Additional cost savings
Specialist knowledge
TUCO’s CIPS-qualified procurement team have in-depth category understanding and can quickly provide the specific food and beverage market intelligence and procurement advice you need.
Maybe you have a question about a particular area of the market or perhaps you want advice on how to manage challenges within the supply chain.
Whatever your request, our CIPS-qualified staff can help. They can quickly provide the catering industry research, data and insight you need.
“Our team of professionally qualified category managers and data analysts have the experience and food and beverage industry knowledge to help education institutions drive down their costs further. We’d love to support your organisation to generate added value – let us know what type of assistance you need.”
- Jane Eve, Head of Contracts, TUCO
Low operating costs
As a not-for-profit organisation, TUCO reinvests its surplus into member benefits. Having no shareholders to pay dividends to means we have lower operating costs. Being owned by you, our members, means we only ever act in your best interests, with transparency and integrity.
Please email your interest to Head of Contracts Jane Eve ([email protected]), with the below information:
- Institution name
- Contact name, email and phone number
- Which framework you're interested in
- Current supplier details including whether they're on a TUCO framework
- Your current contract end date
- Value of spend if known
Your information will be assessed and someone will get back to you regarding next steps.