EFR Publications
The Efficient Foodservice Response initiative developed numerous resources to provide foodservice companies in-depth information about standard product identification, bar coding, category management, and other key issues. In mosts cases, these resources are now available as complimentary downloads in PDF form.
The EFR Executive Committee believes that companies should understand certain key EFR enablers. The documents that discuss these enablers have been prioritized in the following order. The Committee recommends that you read and understand the concepts of each document in the order they are presented.
PLEASE NOTE: IFDA, IFMA, NRA, CCGD, or GS1 US are EFR sponsoring associations. If you are a member of one of these associations, you may purchase EFR publications at "member" rates. If a publication is not available as a complimentary download and you wish to purchase a report, contact Myra Shelton of IFDA at (703) 532-9400.
Enabling Profitable Growth in the Food-Prepared-Away-From-Home Industries
The original 142-page EFR report documents $14.3 billion in supply chain saving that may be achieved across five defined strategies - equitable alliances, supply chain demand forecasting, electronic commerce, logistics optimization and foodservice category management. This comprehensive analysis of the foodservice supply chain is the roadmap for the industry-wide EFR project, but is equally valuable for individual companies attempting to design a integrated business process strategy.
Members of EFR Sponsoring Trade Associations: $100
Non-members: $395
Standard Product Identification and Bar Codes: The Cornerstones of EFR
With the advent of the Efficient Foodservice Response (EFR) initiative, the need for communicating product information in a more accurate, consistent and expedient fashion has become paramount in the foodservice industry. Therefore, the voluntary standardization of product identification and bar coding has been identified as the primary initiative for EFR. This document focuses on the voluntary standards for product identification and bar coding recommended for the foodservice industry, and defines the benefits that can be found by implementation.
Complimentary Download
(Acrobat Reader required)
Getting Started in Electronic Commerce: Item, Price and Promotion Transactions
This document has been created to help maximize your investment in Electronic Commerce and accelerate your understanding of EFR. Specifically, it will convey the importance of establishing item, price and promotion transaction standards before revenue cycle transactions, establish the business value of these transaction sets, and provide practical examples of these transactions for all segments the foodservice industry. The item, price and promotion transactions have been specifically targeted for implementation first to help ensure that databases are synchronized to eliminate many of the errors that may occur when inaccurate information is used to generate revenue cycle transactions.
Read Executive Summary
Members of EFR Sponsoring Trade Associations: $40
Non-members: $95
Electronic Commerce Phase II: Revenue Cycle Transactions
The 64-page report, Electronic Commerce Phase II: Revenue Cycle Transactions, includes recommendations that cover purchase order, purchase order acknowledgement, invoice, payment order/remittance advice (EFT), product transfer and resale report and ship notice/manifest. Many other transactions may also be used in the revenue cycle. However, to minimize development and start-up costs, the report recommends that companies focus on the smallest number of core transactions that affect a broader range of trading partners.
This report, EFR's second electronic commerce document, re-emphasizes the importance of synchronizing trading partner databases before automating revenue cycle transactions, provides practical examples to the industry using these transaction sets, communicates the importance of examining business processes and emphasizes the importance of integrating these business processes with the revenue cycle transactions, and provides a recommended path for companies to move to an invoiceless environment.
Read Executive Summary
Members of EFR Sponsoring Trade Associations: $40
Non-members: $95
Activity Based Management for Foodservice: Getting Started
Activity based costing/management is the key enabler to realizing value from other EFR initiatives. It is important to understand what your current costs are, and what activities are consuming resources within your organization in order to establish a baseline against which to measure costs savings and other benefits from process improvements.
This report provides tools and information regarding the application of ABM techniques across the foodservice value chain. This approach enables a company to understand more readily the activities that are performed to manufacture and distribute products and service customers. The report provides a framework used in the application of ABM techniques, definitions of the various activities and cost drivers found within the framework and examples from a foodservice ABM pilot project of how the information can be applied for cost reduction and process improvement.
Complimentary Download
(Acrobat Reader required)
EFR Roadmap for Small and Medium Foodservice Businesses
Many large foodservice companies are in the process of implementing EFR strategies to strengthen their supply-chain partnerships and benefit from process improvements. Small and medium foodservice businesses have been slower to embrace EFR, despite the significant opportunity to benefit from the EFR strategies. And though the purpose of the EFR roadmap is to help boost participation by small and medium companies by providing an implementation approach to EFR, any company interested in getting started in EFR can use it.
The document actually contains four individual roadmaps, one for each member of the foodservice supply chain. Each roadmap varies slightly to support the unique business processes and technological characteristics of that member of the supply chain. All of the roadmaps are divided into logical implementation phases that can be used to plan and measure EFR implementation progress.
The effort to reinforce the importance of voluntary standards - like the product identification and bar coding standards and the electronic data interchange (EDI) standards recommended by EFR - is critical to each roadmap. The roadmaps also stress the implementation of activity based management (ABM).
Complimentary Download
(Acrobat Reader required)
Assessing Pallet Cost in Foodservice
The objective of this industry report is to encourage and help the foodservice distribution industry reduce costs associated with current shipping platforms and related practices. The report uses data collected from companies in the foodservice industry to show perceptions across the industry rather than highlight specific details for each industry segment.
This report includes:
- descriptions of current physical platforms and storage and handling issues associated with the platforms;
- anticipated impact of current challenges faced by major industry segments;
- selected average company costs associated with current platforms; and,
- a self-assessment template for understanding the current pallet system costs of a foodservice company.
This report is to be used as a tool to encourage open dialog between industry participants interested in improving the management of shipping platform costs.
Members of EFR Sponsoring Trade Associations: $40
Non-members: $95
Logistics Optimization: Profile of an Industry
Foodservice logistics involves getting millions of tons of widely varied, mainly perishable foodstuffs from every corner of the globe to the right foodservice establishment across North America with speed, accuracy and agility - every day of the year.
The EFR Logistics Optimization committee offers Logistics Optimization: Profile of an Industry to provide the foodservice industry a view of what some of the leading companies are doing today with regard to successful logistics practices. The committee intends for the publication to serve as a guide for those companies that are moving forward with implementation of supply chain initiatives.
The report is based on interviews and site visits with 15 companies who are successful practitioners in one or more of the EFR logistics optimization strategies - direct shipment of fast movers, consolidation of slow movers, shared warehousing and distribution, coordinated transportation and cross-docking. All segments of the foodservice supply chain are represented in this publication.
Complimentary Download
(Acrobat Reader required)
Standard Product ID and Bar Coding: Foodservice Case Studies and Practical Application
In an effort to help the foodservice industry better understand the motivating factors behind standard product ID and bar coding, EFR has published a series of case studies on the subject. The case studies feature two suppliers, three distributors and three operators and provide practical advice and incentives for those companies that want to move ahead with standard product ID and bar coding.
The results of the interviews are presented in this report. The companies interviewed discuss anticipated savings, better business relations and increased efficiency for their internal operations as some of the incentives for moving ahead.
Complimentary Download
(Acrobat Reader required)
The Role of Bar Codes in Food Safety
Time-starved convenience-craving American consumers are spending an increasing portion of their food dollar on prepared foods. This trend not only shifts where and how value is added to the food we eat, it also shifts risks and liabilities in the food chain. The risks associated with food-borne illness are increasingly being shifted from the consumers' own kitchens to the foodservice operator. Although impossible to eliminate all contaminants from the supply chain, when an incidence does occur, a fast, effective response should be the goal of every company in the foodservice supply chain.
This publication describes how current technologies can help the foodservice industry address the critical issues of: (1) which units of which products may be affected, and (2) where are they now? Presented in detail is a plan to utilize standard product identification, lot tracking and bar coding to effectively and efficiently address these crucial questions. The publication also takes the reader through an example of a hypothetical market withdrawal.
Complimentary Download
(Acrobat Reader required)
A Roadmap for Success: Activity Based Management for Foodservice Professionals
Recognizing the foodservice distributorâs opportunity, Efficient Foodservice Response (EFR) commissioned the development of a primer to help the industry better understand the basics of activity based management (ABM) and its use as a business tool. The primer is designed to walk an organization through its initial ABM initiative by helping the reader to understand how ABM is different from traditional financial tools and how ABM can be used to verify or modify the strategic direction of an organization, and how ABM can be used to improve an organization's bottom line.
The use of ABM will assist distributors in:
- Quantifying the value they provide to the supply chain;
- Understanding the dollar impact of inefficient or unnecessary internal and industry practices;
- Implementing change to reduce (if not eliminate) activities that add cost, but not value;
- Identifying potential new services;
- Identifying activities that support growth in foodservice and other channels; and,
- Benchmarking and implementing continuous improvement.
Complimentary Download
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Foodservice Category Management: A Systematic Approach to Balancing Product Variety & Duplication in the Supply Chain
This step-by-step guide is designed to help foodservice distributors take advantage of the benefits of category management to systematically increase sales and profit. This publication provides a framework with which distributors may better analyze and understand their businesses and maximize product movement and profitability by product category. By relying on distributor market expertise, manufacturers knowledge of the brand, and operators perception of the category, category management can optimize product mix, maximize sales growth and enhance customer loyalty.
This publication provides distributors, manufacturers and operators a comprehensive overview and roadmap to category management success and explains how to develop, implement and execute a comprehensive category management plan.
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