Do you know where your bread baskets are?
How do you keep track of your bread baskets to stop them going missing?
The question was brought into focus once again after reports of nearly 3,000 misappropriated baskets and dollies recovered Northern Ireland last year.
Bakers Basco, the equipment recovery unit set up by the UK’s biggest bread manufacturers, reclaimed 1,605 Omega baskets and 1,315 dollies in 2023. This was the first year that Bakers Basco had widened its remit beyond England.
Items included stolen baskets and dollies found for sale online, misused baskets from market traders, and dolly wheels that retailers were simply chucking away.
Costly misappropriations like this will be familiar to all commercial bakers. And, as bread baskets are made of high-grade plastic, they are also stolen for “conversion” or “chipping” at the kinds of recycling plants that don’t ask too many questions.
This growing tend means that it costs bakeries in the USA over $10 million a year to replace stolen bread crates (as they are called in the States), according to the American Bakers Association.
Unless you are a large corporation that can afford to underwrite a unique investigative organization like Bakers Basco, what can you do to prevent your property from theft and misuse?
One answer lies in a solution we developed five years ago when we added basket tracking to Cybake’s module for deliveries (see below).
Cybake’s deliveries module is used by our customers’ van drivers. It comes in the form of an app that they use on their cell/mobile phones to record drop-offs. The app captures any shortages, and drivers get proof of deliveries either with signature captures or by taking photos of the goods in situ.
Drivers can process cash-on-delivery payments. Otherwise, Cybake emails customers with an invoice on account. Either way, all the data entered on the Cybake delivery app is immediately visible to head office.
With the module’s basket tracking feature, delivery drivers record the number of baskets they deliver and collect each time on the app. At the same time, the invoices issued to customers clearly state how many baskets they hold.
By showing customers how many of their baskets they currently hold, with a monetary value for each, Cybake users can invoice those who do not return them. Plus, they get a clear picture of where all their bread baskets should be at any one time.
Cybake’s basket tracking feature is a simple solution that has proved most effective in the field. Developed in close collaboration with our users, it is the kind of bakery-specific tool that differentiates Cybake from generic ERP-type competitors.
So, if you are interested in how Cybake can keep track of your bakery’s property, get in touch. And, if you already use Cybake to manage your bakery and would like to activate its basket tracking feature, why not give us a shout?
Rachel Hindle is the Global Sales & Marketing Manager of Cybake.
