Contract price updates, checked against the pricing you have loaded before they take effect.

Price paper reaches a foodservice house in every shape: a deviation letter for a buying group or a management company's accounts, a manufacturer's price change file, a GPO member update, a school district's renewed bid. Your pricing analyst finds the items in your file, works out what each affected customer pays under its own contract, checks the dates, and loads the changes before they take hold.

In the proof of concept the same reading happens on copies. AI drafts the change list: item, customer or location, the price loaded today, the new one, the date it starts and the contract term that sets it. Items it can't match, covered locations that fit no ship-to or more than one, and dates that conflict go on a separate list for the analyst to settle.

Each customer's contract decides what a cost change does. North Dakota's Department of Public Instruction publishes a school prime vendor template priced at cost plus a fixed fee. Cost there is the supplier's invoice with inbound freight added and customer and other off-invoice allowances taken out, and the fee stays firm for the whole agreement whatever the supplier's price does. The South Dakota Department of Education's template holds items on its product list at firm prices for the one-year contract, prices the rest at cost plus a fixed fee, and throws out any proposal at cost plus a percentage. One manufacturer increase can move a school's price next week on one item and not until renewal on another, so the draft reads each customer's terms first.

Prices don't all move on the same day. A 2008 statewide prime vendor contract published by Michigan's Department of Management and Budget guaranteed meat, seafood, poultry, produce, dairy and several shortening and oil items for seven days, Monday through Sunday, and let other categories change at the start of the distributor's fiscal month. It also counted labeling cost in cost and said incoming cash discounts don't reduce it. Idaho's statewide milk price agreement, effective September 2025, ties prices to the monthly Federal Milk Order 124 and 131 announcements of final class and component prices, adjusted once a month. The draft tags each item with its pricing cycle and the first day a new price can start.

A late notice can't move a date backward. In the Michigan contract the distributor asked for seven to ten business days to put in place pricing the buying group had negotiated with manufacturers, and said it could not back-date pricing received after its effective date. Idaho's agreement wants 60 calendar days' notice before a requested increase, with documentation of industry-wide increases, and allows no retroactive increase because a contractor or manufacturer sent pricing late. A deviation that starts before it reached you, an increase dated inside a firm-price period, or two notices with overlapping dates for one item goes on the conflict list, and the draft never picks which date wins.

School items can carry USDA Foods value. Under 7 CFR 250.36, an end product made from USDA Foods is sold under a value pass-through method, such as a refund, a direct discount, net off invoice or a fee for service, and the value credited is the contract value of the donated food, which 7 CFR 250.2 defines as USDA's price reflecting its current acquisition price. The processor gives the distributor a list of eligible recipient agencies and what each may receive, and under fee for service through a distributor, the delivery charge is shown apart from the processor's fee. The draft checks each district against that list the way it checks a deviation's covered locations against your ship-to file.

Your reviewer checks what an auditor would. North Dakota's template lets a school audit quarterly, verifying up to 25 items for a stated pricing period on ten business days' notice, and South Dakota's has every discount and allowance passed on however the distributor labels it. Your reviewer, usually the pricing analyst who loads these notices, checks each proposed price for the cost it starts from, the fee or firm price on top, and the date it starts.

With a yes from your reviewer against the success criteria, new notices go through the same drafting for about 30 days.

Your pricing analyst loads every change, and only after approving it. Manufacturers, buying groups and customers hear from your team alone.

The live month's fixed price is set before you sign, and any job after it is chosen and priced separately.