Buis Beef: Telling their Food Traceability Story Gives Customers Peace of Mind

Buis Beef Inc. is a family-run farm operated by third-generation farmers, Joanne and Mike Buis. Located in southwestern Ontario, the Buis’s raise beef for retail and market their homegrown products through their farm store.

“We started out by selling beef as whole animals or sides to friends and family out of our house” says Mike. However, demand for their product grew rapidly as did requests for smaller quantities and individual pieces. “Sales along with our customer base increased to the point that an on-farm retail outlet was needed.”

Today we offer a wide assortment of beef and beef products at our on-farm retail store with the help of our inventory management software bioLinks” explains Mike.

The Profit Loss

Before bioLinks the Buis’s relied heavily on paper records. “While we did our best to keep orders straight it was a cumbersome and inaccurate way to try to sell product. Traceability and inventory control was non-existent” says Mike.

In the store, staff were using a cash register and hand entering the prices of each item in as the customer waited impatiently to get through check out and leave. They remember all too often catching, or find out too late, mistakes as items got missed or typed in incorrectly. Overcharged customers were irate and the undercharged ones enjoyed their free product in silence.

“We could not track each individual cut of meat. We had no idea what was in inventory, what or when items got sold or even if we were profitable”.

 

Small Change for Larger Net-Profit

With frustrations growing, Mike and Joanne quickly recognized they needed to make a change in order to keep their business growing
and customers satisfied.

They needed to find a point of sale and inventory management system but the ones that were available were designed for large businesses.

“The systems were complex and very expensive to implement and operate. bioLinks proved to be a viable solution.”

“bioLinks was easy to set up and user friendly. Now we can offer to our customers a fully traceable product, have confidence in our inventory and our sales numbers are accessible and accurate.”

Only Growth on the Horizon

With bioLinks implemented into Buis Beef the check-out counter product moves quickly and accurately, and their customers are impressed by the easy and professional check out procedure.

“Staff have confidence in the traceability and integrity of the products they have to sell making their job easier and more successful.  Our sales numbers and records are stored safely and in a secure data base yet can be retrieved (only by us) from any computer in our office or at home any time.”

The real-time sales and customer data has been very valuable tool to Joanne and Mike in making marketing plans and sales decisions.

“Products can make us money, but a good system like bioLinks can help us make a fortune.”