Seafood Wholesale Ordering: If It Is Not On the Boat, It Is Not On the List
Open Pantry is ordering software for seafood wholesalers. You control what is orderable, so venues cannot order fish you have not landed; when a line still cannot be filled your picker substitutes it at the bench and the customer is told; catch-weight lines are billed at the weight that actually left; and pick lists run first-expired-first-out.
- Take a line off the list the moment you know you have not got it
- Substitutions made at the bench, at the customer’s own price
- Weighed at pack, billed at the weighed figure
★★★★★ Trusted by 600+ suppliers across Australia
You sell what came in, not what was on the list yesterday
Today’s availability read down the phone, venue by venue
Orders taken for fish that never landed
Substitutions decided at the door, by whoever is driving
Weights written on the box and typed up hours later
Availability In, Orders Out, Weights Captured
Set what is on today
Turn lines on and off as the day’s landings become clear. What venues can see and order is exactly what you have said you have.
Venues order against the real list
Through your own app and online store, or by email and text. Nothing that is switched off can be ordered, so the conversation never has to happen.
Pick, substitute, weigh
If a line still cannot be filled, the picker substitutes a comparable product at that customer’s price. Weight-based lines are weighed as they are packed.
Tell them, then bill them
Shorts and unavailable lines go out in one message when picking finishes, and the invoice bills what actually went on the truck.
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What is on the list is what you have
Availability is the seafood problem. In Open Pantry it is a switch you control, not a stock number that guesses: turn a line off and it stops being orderable across every venue. You can also hide a line from one customer or one customer group, and set what happens platform-wide when stock reaches zero — keep selling, show it as out of stock, or block it.
- Turn a line off and nobody can order it until you turn it back on
- Hide a product from one customer or one customer group
- Choose what happens at zero stock: keep selling, show, or block
- No calls explaining what is not available today
Short on the day, sorted at the bench
When a line genuinely cannot be filled, the picker swaps it there and then — the substitute goes on at that customer’s own price, not the substitute’s list price, and the line carries a note saying what it replaced. Shorts and unavailable lines are gathered into one message that goes out when picking finishes, so nobody finds out at the door.
- Substitute a comparable product from the pick screen
- Priced at that customer’s price, with a note on the line
- One consolidated notification once picking is done
- Billed for what was picked, never for what was ordered
Ordered, weighed and billed are three different numbers
Whole fish never weigh what the order said. Flag those lines as catch weight and each is weighed as it is packed — typed in, or read from a connected scale if you use one — and the invoice bills the weighed total rather than the count ordered. Over or under, it is the weight that left the floor.
- One entry per fish or carton on the weigh sheet
- The invoice bills the weighed figure, over or under the order
- Set per product, so only weight-based lines behave this way
- No weights re-typed from a marker pen later
Oldest stock leaves first, without anyone deciding
With seafood the decision about which box goes out cannot sit with whoever happens to be picking. Use-by is held against the carton and pick lists are ordered first-expired-first-out, so the oldest stock goes first automatically and less gets written off at the back of the coolroom.
- Use-by held against the carton, not in someone’s head
- Pick lists ordered first-expired-first-out automatically
- Expiry visible to the team before it becomes a write-off
- Fewer arguments about what should have gone out first
- More product lines purchased
- 24%
- Your always-on branded store and app put your full range in front of customers, so baskets grow.
- Less order-processing cost
- 95%
- AI order capture and auto-invoicing remove the manual keying between order and books.
- Fewer picking errors
- 80%
- Tablet pick & pack with FEFO lot and expiry tracking catches shorts and wrong items before they ship.
Real gains suppliers report after moving ordering, fulfilment and invoicing onto Open Pantry.
Sits On Top of the Accounting You Already Run
Trusted by M&J Chickens
- $175m+
- Annual turnover
M&J Chickens are a protein wholesaler running the same shape of day — early runs, weight-based lines and venues ordering right up to the cut-off. Open Pantry moved their ordering out of calls and messages into one digital workflow.
“With Open Pantry, we launched our own fully branded ordering app — it’s helped us protect our customer base, move to digital ordering, and deliver a much better experience to our venues.”
Availability does not travel well down a phone line.
The daily ring-around exists because the list changes every morning. It also means the list only exists in one person’s head until they have finished calling, orders get taken for fish that never landed, and the substitution gets decided by whoever is loading the van. Putting availability in the system does not remove the judgement — it just means the judgement is made once, at the market, instead of forty times on the phone.
Questions Seafood Wholesalers Ask
Can I stop venues ordering something I have not got?＋
Can I hide a product from one customer but not the rest?＋
Does availability reset itself the next day?＋
What happens when we run out mid-morning?＋
Can pickers substitute a product?＋
Does the customer find out before the delivery arrives?＋
How are whole fish billed when the weight varies?＋
How do you handle freshness?＋
Do my venues have to use an app?＋
Does it connect to my accounting system?＋
Sell What You Landed. Nothing Else.
Join 600+ Australian suppliers running their ordering, fulfilment and invoicing on Open Pantry.
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