If you own a small or medium-sized business, you don’t always have to haggle with your suppliers personally to get the right price. By joining a buying group, you can combine your purchasing power with other organizations in your industry to purchase more and negotiate better prices, rebates, contracts, and supplier terms.

For restaurants, hotels, healthcare providers, and other businesses, purchasing directly affects operating costs and profitability. Group purchasing organizations (GPOs) help businesses improve their buying power by combining the purchasing volume of many members.

Restaurants need food, beverages, packaging, equipment, cleaning supplies, and technology. Hotels have many of the same needs, along with linens, guest amenities, uniforms, maintenance supplies, and other property essentials.

Every restaurant, hotel, and catering business runs on a supply chain, even if nobody on staff ever calls it that. It's simply "who do we order from, and what does it cost us?"

Foodservice operators are heading into 2026 facing a familiar mix of challenges: rising costs, ongoing supply-chain volatility, and rapid advances in procurement technology.