River Cottage
River Cottage is an award winning restaurant and deli concept led by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.
With existing venues in Axminster, Bristol, Plymouth, and Winchester due to open later this year, the restaurants (canteens) showcase the very best sustainable produce.
Business case for EPoS
River Cottage is growing steadily and plans to open new canteens in the future. To manage this expansion the company was looking to invest in a flexible new EPoS solution that was more aligned to the canteen side of its business and one that was web-based, so the management team could centralise control, and access the business remotely from any location.
Why Slowey?
River Cottage reviewed several EPoS solutions in its quest to find a replacement for its existing system, which was more aligned to retail selling. The company decided upon Slowey as they were impressed by the company’s dynamic internal design team who could manage upgrades and provide support on technical issues in-house.
Sally Gale, Finance Director at River Cottage summed up “We liked Slowey’s EPoS solution and liked the way Slowey operated, as they instantly understood our business requirements”.
“Slowey is a dynamic company who really understands our business and we would definitely recommend them. Slowey EPoS is the perfect solution for River Cottage and offers a real return on our investment”
Stock Control – managing stock on Wet and Deli items
Using Slowey EPoS, River Cottage now has total control over its stock operation. It can do individual stock checks in real time, revealing exactly what’s in stock at any one time without having to physically check its whole inventory.
Sally added “We also have a flag system which notifies us of anything that needs re-ordering, so we now have more efficient stock control in the organisation making it less likely that goods will be out of stock”.
Centralised Reporting with remote access from any location
Sally Gale continued “We pull off a lot of reports using Slowey’s Head Office facility. Previously these were collated and then had to be emailed to the appropriate person, but now we can just go straight in to the system set up a report and download it in real time, which gives us instant access to information which can help with business planning and making financial decisions. Furthermore, I can be sitting in any location yet I access all the information I need remotely, so I know exactly what’s going on with the business.”
Slowey aids integration to make voucher system at River Cottage more secure
As part of its offering, the River Cottage group has a gift voucher service for customers that was originally designed for on line purchases but was extended to all areas of its business including all the Canteen and Deli operations.
To resolve this Slowey developed a piece of software that linked to the River Cottage website and customer database, so that when customers redeemed a voucher (whether in the Canteen or Deli) it could be put through the till at the point of sale and verified immediately.
EPoS tools used by River Cottage
What you sell, buy, and waste has a big impact on your bottom line. We operate, real time, ‘first in first out’ stock control for ‘actual’ GP tracking and reporting, multi supply unit and price for single ingredients, multi department management and cost/revenue allocation.
Slowey EPoS Head Office provides owner managers or corporate head offices with the ability to view, consolidate, and manage each of their sites remotely, either singularly, or as a group – and all in real time, with no more overnight polling.
We supply a fully integrated Chip & Pin solution for use, both on the restaurant floor or at the point of sale in the bar. Features such as bill lodging enable you to reduce errors and speed up the payment process.
Our Android Tablet EPoS solution is a cutting edge and class leading solution developed for the casual dining restaurant or similar operation to take orders at the tableside. All common EPoS functions are available and offer the benefit of maximising revenues in pub gardens, queue busting and table service restaurants
