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Purchasing & suppliers

Bid sheet

Also called: bid comparison · vendor comparison sheet

A bid sheet lists your highest-spend items and each supplier's current price for them, normalised to the same unit. It's the only way to compare vendors honestly, and for most independents twenty items cover the great majority of food spend.

Building one

  1. Rank items by annual spend, not by price. The expensive item you buy twice a year matters less than the cheap one you buy weekly.
  2. Take the top 20. Specify each precisely — grade, pack size, brand or equivalent.
  3. Get current pricing from two or three suppliers on identical specs.
  4. Normalise everything to a common unit before comparing anything.
  5. Multiply each price difference by your annual volume. That's the number that decides.

The three traps

  • Comparing different specs. A cheaper price on a lower grade isn't a saving; it's a different product with a different yield.
  • Ignoring delivery terms. Minimum order, drop days and delivery fees can erase a per-unit win entirely.
  • Trading a relationship for 2%. A supplier who takes your Saturday emergency call has real value that isn't on the sheet. Know what you're giving up.
A bid sheet, normalised — four items across two vendors
ItemVendor AVendor BAnnual volumeAnnual difference
Ground beef 80/20$4.18/lb$3.94/lb3,600 lb$864 to B
Olive oil, pomace$3.80/L$4.28/L540 L$259 to A
Chicken breast, B/S$3.44/lb$3.61/lb2,900 lb$493 to A
Cheddar, block$3.02/lb$2.88/lb1,450 lb$203 to B
Net$315 to A

Read the unit prices alone and Vendor B wins two of four lines. Weight them by annual volume and Vendor A is $315/year cheaper overall — and that's before delivery terms. The volume column is what turns a price list into a decision.

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