Resources
Guides for running a distribution business.
Practical, no-hype guides on wholesale ordering, pricing, delivery, and selling direct, from the team building Minori Midori.
Wholesale (B2B) ordering
How wholesale B2B ordering works for food distributors
How wholesale ordering actually works: approvals, net terms, per-customer pricing, credit limits, case quantities, and invoicing, piece by piece.
Standing orders: recurring wholesale orders that run themselves
What a standing order is, which wholesale accounts belong on one, and how pricing, skips, and delivery-day cutoffs work when repeat orders automate.
Getting wholesale invoices paid: reminders, pay links, statements
How food distributors get net-terms invoices paid on time: a reminder cadence that keeps the relationship, pay links, ACH, and month-end statements.
What is a wholesale ordering portal? A distributor's guide
What a wholesale ordering portal is, what buyers should see when they log in, and the features that separate a real portal from a generic online store.
Letting wholesale buyers order through their own AI assistant
How restaurant buyers check your fresh sheet, see their own prices, and place net-terms orders from Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini, with no new app to learn.
Catch-weight billing: charging by actual shipped weight
How meat and produce distributors sell by the case and bill by the actual pound: labeled estimates at checkout, weigh-ins at packing, exact invoices.
Onboarding wholesale customers to online ordering, without friction
How distributors get existing wholesale accounts ordering online: create their logins for them, invite prospects to apply, and skip sign-up friction.
Fresh sheets: the availability email produce buyers order from
What a fresh sheet is, why produce distributors live by it, and how to send one priced per customer that turns into orders instead of phone calls.
Offering net terms to restaurant customers without losing your shirt
A produce distributor's guide to net 30/60: when to extend terms, sizing credit limits, invoicing, overdue follow-up, and protecting cash flow.
Per-customer wholesale pricing for produce, done right
Why every wholesale account prices differently, why spreadsheet price lists rot, and how base-price-plus-override discipline keeps your numbers honest.
Running your distribution business
Fresh produce distribution software: an operator's guide
How fresh produce distributors run (order intake, per-customer pricing, delivery days, invoicing) and what software should and shouldn't do for each part.
Barn2Door vs Local Line: which farm platform fits your operation?
An honest comparison of Barn2Door and Local Line for farms and food sellers: signature strengths, pricing and setup fees, and the case where neither fits.
Food distributor profit margins: benchmarks and how to lift them
What food distributors actually make: margin benchmarks, markup vs margin, what Sysco's numbers show, and the levers that lift a thin margin.
Local Line vs GrazeCart: which fits the way you sell food?
An honest comparison of Local Line and GrazeCart for farms and food sellers: who each is built for, signature strengths, pricing, and when neither fits.
FSMA 204 food traceability: what food distributors need to know
The FDA Food Traceability Rule now has a July 2028 deadline. What FSMA 204 asks of food distributors, which foods are covered, and how to prepare early.
Farm ecommerce software contracts: what to check before you sign
Auto-renewal, cancellation windows, setup fees, and data export: the contract terms that decide what leaving a farm ecommerce platform really costs.
How much does food distribution software cost?
The four pricing models food distribution software uses, what actually drives the price, the hidden costs to check, and what Minori Midori charges.
Printing parcel shipping labels straight from your orders
How distributors ship the occasional parcel order: manual tracking entry on every plan, plus integrated Shippo, ShipStation, and Speedship labels on Enterprise.
Running inventory across multiple warehouses
When a second building breaks your single stock number: per-warehouse counts, zone-based order routing, audited transfers, and pick lists per building.
Send order confirmation emails from your own domain
Why order updates from your own domain land better, what DKIM and SPF actually do, and the three-step setup — with a fallback so no email is ever lost.
Two-way QuickBooks sync for food distributors, explained
The two ways Minori Midori talks to QuickBooks Online: the CSV export on Starter and up, the Enterprise API sync, and what each deliberately leaves alone.
Importing invoices into QuickBooks Online from a CSV file
How QuickBooks Online's invoice CSV import actually works: the layout it expects, the settings that trip people up, and how distributors skip the retyping.
Recording customer payments in QuickBooks Online
Receive payment, bank feed, or sales receipt? How distributor money actually lands in QuickBooks Online, and why an in-flight ACH isn't a payment yet.
Pick lists and delivery-day manifests for food distributors
How to turn a delivery day's orders into one aggregated warehouse pick list and a stop-by-stop manifest, and why picking by order wastes your morning.
The three sales numbers every food distributor should check weekly
What's moving, who's buying, and how the season is trending: how to read each number, what it tells you to do, and when the spreadsheet stops being enough.
Getting your food store found on Google (and by AI assistants)
A distributor's guide to search visibility: what actually moves the needle, local search basics, share previews, and what to ignore from SEO salesmen.
Running distribution on spreadsheets and QuickBooks: when to switch
The spreadsheet-and-QuickBooks stack works until it doesn't. The failure modes to watch for, the real switching triggers, and what a move actually involves.
Delivery days and own-truck routes for food distributors
How to structure delivery days and zones, set order cutoffs against route days, use pickup as a pressure valve, and know when parcel shipping makes sense.
Moving produce orders off phone and text to online
Why phone and text order-taking costs distributors money, what an online order portal fixes, and how to migrate wholesale customers without losing a single one.
Subscription boxes & memberships
Selling produce subscription boxes: a distributor's playbook
Why food distributors add a consumer subscription channel, how box and membership models work, and how boxes fit your existing delivery routes.
Packing day for produce subscription boxes: running the station
How to run box-packing day: pick-list math, assembly-line layout, cold chain, exception boxes, and staging by route so every box makes the truck.
Membership programs with free delivery for produce customers
How produce distributors run a paid membership with free delivery: the fee-vs-delivery-revenue math, what to include, member retention, and when to wait.
Starting a CSA-style weekly produce box: a how-to
Design, price, and launch a CSA-style weekly produce box: box sizing, signup and payment, handling skips and pauses, and fitting box day to routes.