Turning to Technology to Automate Labor-Intensive Tasks

Dawn Foods is tackling the time-intensive task of ordering, tracking, and managing products. Dawn Foods’ Digital Transformation Manager Lacey Berlin breaks down simple solutions for transitioning to online ordering so that bakers can take costly work out of their day and focus on what matters most – baking and marketing the creations consumers want.

Throw Out the Paper and Pencil

For most bakers, the typical system for ordering products is a pieced-together manual process of jotting down what they realize they need throughout the week, then contacting a sales rep before their ordering deadline to place the order. And while this works, it takes more time than necessary and often rests on the owner or manager to track the bakery’s needs. Berlin said, “There is really no industry best practice. Every baker does what makes sense for them without realizing how time consuming and inefficient it can be. By moving from a manual process to online ordering, there are more benefits than just the time savings.”

Order Anywhere, Anytime (and Empower Team Members to Do It Too)

Online ordering saves time by giving bakers a digital platform for tracking what they need and placing that order with one click. Online ordering also turns anywhere they are, any time of day, into an office. “Bakers can order from a desktop or laptop, tablet, or phone.

All they need is an Internet connection, and ordering is seamless 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Berlin added. With Dawn Foods, bakers can also add users onto their online account, extending the reach of teams and offloading tasks to others so they can focus on the business of running the business.

Easily Access Order History

Gone are the days of scouring receipts or guessing for past orders. With a smart online ordering system, bakers have access to their order history, organized by date. “Dawn Foods online ordering provides more than a year’s history that can also be organized by product list and that imports into a customized shopping list,” Berlin said. “By auto-populating lists, bakers save time and ensure they’re getting what they need in the right quantities to minimize any disruption to the business.”

Easily Learn About New Products

In addition to shopping lists, Dawn Foods’ online ordering platform will generate marketing lists for bakeries that connect them to new or specialty products that have relevance to each bakery’s assortment. This shortens the cycle of learning about what’s new and then using those products in unique recipes, again saving on labor and streamlining another process for the benefit of the business.

Access Important Product Documents

Berlin added that beyond the marketing and order history an online platform provides, “Dawn also gives online customers digital access to our library of specifications and nutritional information, helping to organize products by ingredient types, allergy considerations, and more details that matter to customers.” What once could be a process that took days, bakers now can have the latest information about the safety and nutrition of Dawn products with a few clicks.

Ideas and Inspiration to Help Bakers Grow

Bakers also have access to a complete body of sell sheets, videos, and other valuable information about how to use products and maximize them for their operations. They can also click through to the DawnFoods.com website to connect with our Inspiration Guides, Insights, Articles, and other important information to help grow the bottom line.

Regular Updates Built Around Baker Feedback

Each month Dawn updates our online platform with enhancements requested by our customers to ensure they’re getting what they need to operate as efficiently and as smartly as possible. “In spite of reduced labor, our goal is for bakeries to continue to delight customers and grow,” Berlin added. “Evolving our system with the features that matter to bakers is critical to ensuring it meets the needs of the market, now more than ever.”

Collaborate with Team Dawn on What Matters Most

For customers that use online ordering, their Dawn sales or technical rep is still right there. Online ordering doesn’t replace the personal partnership bakers have come to expect from Dawn. Technology is there to automate tasks where it makes sense so that the Dawn team can focus on more strategic challenges, like product performance, recipe creation, and ensuring the operational efficiency of bakeries around the country.

Ready to Get Started?

If online ordering sounds like a smart solution, signing up is easy. Just go to shop.dawnfoods.com to set up an account. It only takes one previous order receipt and a few other pieces of information about the customer and their bakery.

As your business changes and markets evolve, we're here to offer you the strategic insights that fuel your growth. Find articles HERE!

Find new & exciting recipes HERE!