Skidmore Sales & Distributing
Banyan Technology Connects
the Supply Chain for Food Distributor
Introduction
Skidmore Sales & Distributing, a leading food ingredients distributor in the United States, has established its reputation through a deep commitment to both customers and suppliers. Since its founding in 1963, this family-owned business has expanded its operations across 35 states, with a network of 23 facilities. As the company grew, Skidmore partnered with Banyan Technology to enhance its freight operations and improve logistical efficiency.
Challenges
Before integrating Banyan Technology’s solutions, Skidmore faced several logistical hurdles that impacted its operational efficiency. Managing inbound freight and redistributing it into smaller, tailored shipments to customers was both complex and time-consuming. The manual coordination with carriers led to frequent errors and drained resources. Furthermore, Skidmore’s legacy systems lacked integration with their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, causing inefficiencies in communication, invoicing and freight tracking. As the company expanded geographically, the need for a scalable solution became evident — one that could handle operations across multiple warehouses without the need for significant staff increases.
Solution
To address these challenges, Skidmore Sales implemented Banyan Technology’s LIVE Connect® platform and integrated it with their ERP system. This seamless integration allowed for streamlined freight management, covering everything from booking shipments to invoicing. Jordan Pearman, VP of Supply Chain and Operations at Skidmore described the integration as vital to their operations: “Banyan is the pipeline by which we interact with carriers to book and monitor loads. As a distributor, we bring product into our warehouses in large quantities and ship the products back out, typically in smaller quantities. Our purchasers rate/book/ tender loads through Banyan to get our products inhouse, and our Customer Service reps rate/book/tender loads to our customers.”