Dot developed the redistribution concept in the food supply chain, and has worked hard to become the industry leader.

Since 1960, we have been harnessing new technologies to provide better service to make food manufacturers and our distributor customers more profitable.

We grew to #1 by innovating, particularly in information technology. Our e-commerce web-site, the Dot Expressway, was one of the first in the industry to allow customers to search for item information and pricing. We also lead the industry in electronic communications, using industry exchanges and electronic data interchange (EDI) to reduce transaction costs.

Our experience has shown that communicating electronically can lower costs and improve service.

For all the information to get started using EDI, click on the below PDF:

Supplier Guide to Electronic Communication

To access the New Partner Form, click here.

Dot EDI Profile & Procedures

DUNS Numbers

 

Global Data Synchronization

Dot Foods has entered into a technology agreement with 1SYNC - the GS1 US data pool - and Aligntrac Solutions. Aligntrac and 1SYNC provide leading solutions for GS1 standards in data exchange among businesses, enabling them to upgrade the accuracy and availability of product information throughout the supply chain.  Click here to view the news release.

Foodservice GS1 US Standards Initiative

Dot Foods is a founding member and Governance Committee leader of the recently announced Foodservice GS1 US Standards Initiative. The Initiative is made up of 55 founding-member distributors, manufacturers and operators voluntarily committing to GS1 standards adoption for product information and electronic data exchange.  For more information regarding the Foodservice Initiative, please go to https://www.gs1us.org/foodservice.

Industry Pilot

During a two month pilot, 1SYNC and Aligntrac worked with Dot Foods and 4 leading foodservice manufacturers to implement electronic exchange through GDSN. To measure the impact of the pilot, they tracked discrepancies between GDSN data, and contrasted that data with data that was manually entered or synchronized through EDI.  To learn more about the results of the pilot, please read our case study. 

 

  100% Electronic Required

Dot Foods requires all suppliers to be 100% electronic on the following business documents:

• Item (set-up and maintenance)
• Price (set-up and maintenance)
• Purchase Orders
• PO Acknowledgements
• Advance Ship Notices (ASN)
• Invoices
• Sales Reporting

If you are a small-to-medium size supplier and are not currently EDI capable, it may make sense for you to outsource your EDI needs to a 3rd party provider. The third party provider would receive our EDI data on your behalf and make it available to you in the format you prefer. You can choose to integrate this data into your system or you could simply view and manipulate it in a web-form on the provider's web site. Click here for a list of third party providers for the item and price transaction sets orclick here for a list of the providers for the core (order cycle) transaction sets.

For more information, please call 800.366.3687
Leann Hammer - Suppliers A-F
Kristen Moore - Suppliers G-O
Carey Felten - Suppliers P-Z

   Implementation Information

Data Synchronization: Item and Price

Data synchronization is the automated exchange of product information (such as product ID, description, color and dimensions) between you and customers.  Data synchronization helps trading partners reduce errors involved in pricing, purchase orders, product delivery and scanning.

Item Synchronization

Dot Foods requires suppliers to publish data through the Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN.)  With GDSN, you would join one of the certified data pools within the network and publish your item data and then your customers would subscribe in order to receive the items.

For a list of GDSN certified data pools, click here. For more information on data synchronization through the GDSN, please go to www.gs1us.org/standards/global_synchronization_network_gdsn.

GDSN

Dot Foods is a member of the 1SYNC certified data pool and uses Aligntrac Solutions, Inc. as our solution partner.  Please go to www.aligntrac.com/dotfoods to review our GDSN Implementation Guide and to register on our GDSN Registration Form.  We will contact you once the subscription has been set up to begin the item publication process.

 

Price Synchronization

Dot Foods offers two methods for synchronizing price data which are via EDI using the 879 Price transaction set or via Excel using our Dot Price Sync Template.

879 Price Transaction Set

879 Price

879 Implementation

Spreadsheet Information

Price Synch Spec Sheet

Price Synch Implementation Guideline

For the Price Syce XLS Template, click here.

  Core Transaction Set

Here at Dot Foods, we believe that when customers and suppliers trade the order cycle documents via EDI, both sides realize the following benefits: reduced cycle time, improved accuracy, reduced labor costs, fewer product returns, fewer deductions, and increased customer satisfaction. Suppliers can trade these transaction sets directly with Dot Foods or they can outsource them to a 3rd party provider.

850 Purchase Order	875 Purchase Order	Purchase Order Implementation Guide	855 PO Acknowledgement
855 Implementation Guide	856 Advance Shippment Notice	856 Implementation Guide	810 Invoice
880 Invoice	Invoice Implementation Guide	3rd Party Provider List

Sales Reporting

It is imperative that suppliers receive accurate, timely sales data from Dot Foods in order to better manage the business. It is also important that suppliers receive the sales data in an electronic format that they can either integrate into their system or that they can easily modify in order to suit their needs. We have two options available to suppliers for receiving their sales data - via EDI on a direct basis or through a 3rd party provider, or on an as-needed basis from the Dot Expressway.

Transaction Sets

867 Product Transfer/Resale

867 Implementation Guide

3rd Party Provider List

Dot Expressway Report

For more information, please call 800.366.3687
Leann Hammer - Suppliers A-F
Kristen Moore - Suppliers G-O
Carey Felten - Suppliers P-Z