rising food costs?

Make your distributors compete. Watch your COGS drop.

Make your distributors compete.Watch your COGS drop.

With MadChef, you stay in control. Choose which items are worth shopping around for and which ones should always stay with your preferred distributor. Why win on some items and lose on others when you can win on all of them?

A 30-second thought exercise

Don’t take our word for it. Reason it through.

Four quick questions. Answer each honestly, then see where you land.

The 4-Question Test

Question 1 of 4

Imagine you own a very special restaurant where you only need to buy one ingredient, and nothing else — and that ingredient is worth thousands of dollars.

Would you:

The 4-Question Test

Question 1 of 4

Imagine you own a very special restaurant where you only need to buy one ingredient, and nothing else — and that ingredient is worth thousands of dollars.

Would you:

The part you’d never want to do by hand

MadChef runs that comparison on every item — automatically

Connect your suppliers once. We price every item across all of them — pack sizes converted, units matched — and build you the cheapest cart. You just approve it. The savings of shopping around, with none of the shopping around.

EVERY ITEM · LOWEST DISTRIBUTOR WINS

ITEM

DIST 1

DIST 2

DIST 3

Chicken thighs

$58.43

$63.10

$61.75

Shredded mozzarella

$30.50

$27.90

$24.15

Ground beef

$90.00

$80.60

$84.35

AP flour

$21.25

$18.40

$16.80

Olive oil

$44.35

$37.65

$39.20

All from one distributor

$2,047.90

MadChef · lowest on each

$1,817.45

Save $230.45 · 11%

$1,817.45

No distributor is cheapest on everything — the green winners are scattered across all three. Multiply that across a year of orders.

Our algorithm does the heavy lifting

After the chef figures out what they need for their next day delivery, they enter that order on MadChef with their anchor distributor. Our algorithm then goes to work and generates draft orders - but only with the distributors that have those items at the lowest price.

Anchor distributor

The distributors you already do business with, we call them your anchor distributors. Those are usually the broadline distributors that act as a one-stop shop for all your dry goods, frozen food, cleaning supplies etc. No need to name names but you know who they are.

Other distributors

However, there are a lot of smaller distributors in your area and also other broadline distributors that can deliver most of the items you are buying. Share your ordering guide with them and let them come back to you with their prices. With MadChef, they can upload their ordering guide and your weekly pricing so you won’t have to lift a finger.

Draft orders

The orders that our algorithm generates might not meet the delivery minimum plus we would never automatically send an order without you approving it first. So we made it incredibly easy to increase item quantities and shift items between distributors to help you meet those delivery minimums in no time at all.

Anchor distributor

Other distributors

Draft orders

What Chefs have to say

“This app is a must for busy chefs who struggle to keep their food cost down in this economy. I just select the products I need from my ordering sheet, and the software gives me drafts with the best prices. I have the flexibility to make changes if I need to, and then my orders get sent right to my distributors. I’ve saved so much time every week on the ordering process, time that I get to spend doing the part of the job that I’m really here for.”

Executive Chef Kat McCoart

Bar Vlaha

“All I can say is that we are finally moving on from old school ordering. This is so much faster and easier, and we’ve been seeing way less errors and the weekly savings are crazy! My boss Leo agrees there’s no going back…”

Chef Arturo Rodrigues

Alba

Unlock every feature with zero setup costs. Only at $99/month.

Everything you buy is probably more expensive than it was last year, and definitely more expensive than it was a few years ago. It is time to do something about it.

Estimate your savings

What could you save?

No food-cost figures to dig up — just set your annual revenue and food cost, and we’ll estimate the rest.

Annual revenue$2,950,000

$500k$10M

Food & beverage cost32%

20%45%

Estimated weekly savings

$1,090

FAQ

Common questions

Quality & consistency

Are you worried about maintaining consistency and quality in the items you buy?

That is a fair concern, but most local distributors do not manufacture the items they sell. In many cases, they are buying the exact same or very similar products and reselling them to you. The solution is simple: Ask for samples, test them in your kitchen, and decide which items meet your standards. It's a one-time process. With MadChef, you stay fully in control. You decide which items are worth shopping around for and which ones should always stay with your preferred distributor.

Distributor pricing

Are you worried your main distributor will stop giving you great pricing if you start shopping around?

In our experience, the opposite usually happens. Once your distributor realizes they are no longer guaranteed the entire order, they have a much stronger reason to stay competitive. Your salesperson now has to work harder to keep your business instead of assuming they already have it. MadChef does not replace your distributors. It simply gives you leverage.

Annual contracts

Are you locked in an annual contract?

Many restaurants are. You can still invite another distributor to give you their prices, just out of curiosity, and see instantly how much that contract may actually be costing you when it was supposed to be saving you. Why win on some items and lose on others when you can win on all of them?

Delivery minimums

What happens if you do not meet a distributor's delivery minimum after splitting the order?

That is a valid concern, but it should not stop you from shopping around. The system is built around real restaurant ordering. MadChef makes it easy to move items between distributors and adjust quantities when needed. For example, if you are close to a minimum, you can increase quantities on items with a longer shelf life or move certain products back to the original distributor.

Weekly price changes

Prices change every week. How can I keep track of all of them?

MadChef was built with weekly price changes in mind. Your salespeople receive a weekly email reminding them to log in and update your prices. If they do not, you or someone from your team can simply download the Excel sheet from the distributor portal, or use the Excel attachment from an email, and upload it directly into MadChef. No formatting work needed. Just upload the file and MadChef updates the prices.

Worth the time?

Is all this effort really worth the time?

For many restaurants, yes. Most restaurants can save $1,000+ per week using MadChef, depending on their purchasing volume and how many items they choose to compare. MadChef is not about adding more work. It is about removing the manual price checking that most restaurants never had time to do properly in the first place.

Stop wondering if you’re overpaying

See exactly where your order is cheaper somewhere else — in your first week with MadChef.