Restaurant supply chain marketplace notch has launched notchPay, the first payment platform for its customers, the company said in a Thursday (March 10) news release.
The notchPay platform is powered by Balance, a B2B payments company described as offering the first online checkout designed for businesses.
“As the food and beverage industry continues to rebound from the pandemic, there is a growing demand for solutions that simplify the wholesale ordering process,” notch CEO Jordan Huck said in the release. “Partnering with Balance allows us to bring a consumer grade checkout experience to wholesale food service, abolishing the analog ordering process in favor of an online model that is faster and easier for our customers.”
The company says notchPay addresses the shortcomings of B2B payments in the food and beverage sector. The platform lets restaurants pay with a variety of methods, including credit card, ACH, wire transfers or checks, while letting distributors receive payments in a matter of days rather than weeks or months.
“The pandemic took a devastating toll on restaurants and distributors,” said Bar Geron, co-founder and CEO of Balance. “Balance is excited to shape the new normal for wholesale food service by kickstarting the industry’s transition into the ecommerce space.”
The companies note that, as with many industries, most food and beverage transactions still happen offline, “creating widespread inefficiencies that negatively impact businesses.”
Read more: Notch CEO Talks Taking Fax Machines Out Of The Restaurant Supply Chain
Huck spoke about the disconnect in the restaurant industry in an interview with PYMNTS last year. While many eateries have embraced things like mobile ordering for customers, the B2B side of the industry has remained trapped in the analog world.
“The problem on the buyer side is that procurement is offline,” he said. “The problem on the distributor side is, their order desk is offline — they receive orders via email, text, phone, fax machines, carrier pigeons. Their order desks are completely offline, and so they have to have two, three people a week who just manually enter orders into their systems.”
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