Product New: Acumatica

Food distribution is a promise business. Customers count on you to deliver the right product, on time, with clean paperwork and consistent pricing. When specs change, supply tightens, or demand spikes, they still expect fast answers. 

Foods Galore has built its reputation by meeting those expectations the old-school way: by doing right by customers, even when it’s inconvenient. It’s a family-owned company with deep roots and long-tenured employees. In 2025, a year when many businesses struggled with turnover, Foods Galore had only one person leave. That kind of stability doesn’t come from perks. It comes from trust in how the business is run.  

That customer-first culture helped Foods Galore grow quickly. The company has doubled in size over the past eight years and is on track to reach roughly $120 million in revenue this year. Growth like that is exciting, but it can also expose weak points behind the scenes. At some point, hard work and institutional knowledge stop being enough. The system either supports your service standard, or it quietly becomes a risk to it.  

Foods Galore hit that moment with its legacy ERP. The platform could process transactions, but it struggled to keep pace with a high-volume distribution business that needed better visibility, cleaner processes, and a foundation that could evolve with changing customer expectations.  

So, Foods Galore partnered with Net at Work to implement Acumatica ERP for Food Distribution. They also implemented Prime Food Service software, a solution Net at Work developed for Acumatica customers, to modernize and fuel growth. These upgrades gave the company a food distribution ERP foundation that could scale with the business and support continuous improvement. 

In this article, you’ll learn: 

 

• Why service-driven distributors are modernizing ERP now 

• What tends to break first when a legacy system can’t keep up 

• What Foods Galore prioritized during its Acumatica implementation 

• How distributors use optimization to keep compounding value after go-live 

• Where digital ordering and profitability visibility show up as real business outcomes 

Growth increases pressure behind the scenes

In distribution, growth means more than higher sales. It means more transactions, more purchasing decisions, more inventory movement, and more opportunities for small issues to turn into expensive ones. 

Foods Galore saw that pressure building. The company was investing in sales and new capabilities and preparing for a future in which customers expect greater transparency and greater digital convenience. The problem was that the back office and operational systems weren’t built for that version of the business.  

What makes this especially tricky for service-first companies is that people compensate. They work longer hours. They build spreadsheet workarounds. They chase down missing information manually. They keep the promise to customers, and the strain stays hidden inside the business. 

Eventually, that model stops scaling. That’s when modernization in food ERP stops being a systems conversation and becomes a service strategy. 

The moment the old system became a risk

Foods Galore’s legacy ERP was showing clear limitations. At that point, a legacy ERP migration becomes less about IT and more about protecting service, margin, and decision-making. Financial processes were manual and labor intensive. Reporting lacked depth and flexibility. Integrations relied on flat-file transfers rather than true integration. Teams relied on spreadsheets to fill gaps. And customer ordering modernization was becoming a competitive issue.  

Mark Oltman, the company’s CFO, brought a practical perspective to the decision. He has worked with platforms like SAP, NetSuite, and Microsoft Navision in other roles. He knows what strong systems can do. He also knows what happens when every improvement becomes a project with an unpleasant price tag. Foods Galore needed modern capabilities and the ability to adapt without turning change into a budget battle. Mark sums it up simply: “Without a modern ERP, Foods Galore would have missed too much.”   

In a high-volume distribution business, the cost of “missing too much” shows up in margin leakage, inefficient labor, slower decisions, and a growing dependence on heroics. 

A solution that understands food distribution

Foods Galore evaluated multiple options before selecting Acumatica as its ERP foundation, then pairing it with Prime Food Service, the industry-specific distribution solution developed by Net at Work.  

Food distribution is not generic distribution. The workflows are specific. Profitability details matter at a granular level. Inventory and expiration handling matters. And the system has to support the business as it actually runs, not as a textbook process map suggests. 

Mark’s view is clear: “If an ERP vendor doesn’t know this industry, they don’t have a chance.”  

Net at Work brought that context, including consultants with food distribution backgrounds. That experience shows up during implementation, but it becomes even more valuable after go-live, when the business begins refining workflows based on real operational needs. 

A go-live that protected the business 

Foods Galore went live in June 2025. For Mark, who has participated in seven ERP implementations, it was the smoothest-running go-live of his career. “This was the best go-live by a long shot. Net at Work was fully prepared. We went live, every truck went out, and we didn’t lose any business.”  

Adoption also came quickly. Within a month, most users were comfortable. That matters because Foods Galore had spent more than two decades on its previous system. When a team adapts quickly after that kind of history, it usually means the system fits the work.  

Optimization becomes routine 

A modern ERP delivers the fastest ROI when the business treats go-live as the beginning, not the end. Foods Galore leaned into that mindset. 

Mark describes a structured cadence with Net at Work through an ongoing Customer Experience Plan. The team keeps a living list of improvements in Monday.com and releases enhancements in planned sprints, typically five or six at a time, validated in production with minimal disruption.  

Net at Work also supports Foods Galore with a separate development environment that mirrors production, providing the team with a sandbox where changes can be built and tested before they reach live operations. Mark calls that a major differentiator.  

This matters because distributors don’t stand still. Customer needs change. Vendor dynamics change. Margin pressure changes. When optimization is routine, the business can keep improving without making each change feel risky or disruptive. 

Finance control gets lighter, faster, and more useful

For the finance team, the impact was immediate. Mark estimates Foods Galore gained 20 to 30 hours back each month, not simply by moving faster, but because the work itself changed. Processes that once required manual effort and careful timing became straightforward and stable. For a growing distributor, the right food accounting software makes the close feel calmer and the numbers more usable. 

That shift changes how finance leaders spend their time. Instead of chasing cleanup tasks, Mark and his controller can focus on performance. They can build comparative reporting, spot where the business is up or down, and act faster. 

AR also became simpler. Customer statements used to be a print-and-scan exercise. Now it’s one click.  

AP gained more visibility as well. Accrued AP used to feel uncertain because the team didn’t always know what would show up after the fact. With the new system, Foods Galore can see what has been received but not yet invoiced and proactively reach out to vendors.  

Mark describes the overall effect as life-changing, not because of one feature, but because every role feels lighter. “People’s lives have gotten better across the board. Every role.”  

Margin you can actually manage

Most distributors know margin is won or lost in the details. The challenge is that those details often live outside the ERP, in spreadsheets, as tribal knowledge, or through manual workarounds. 

Foods Galore tackled a major one through landed cost and backhaul cost allocation. This directly affects profitability. Before, Foods Galore either didn’t capture certain costs at all or captured them manually. Now those costs are automatically allocated. 

“The landed cost and backhaul landed cost features we just put in place are something we didn’t have before,” Mark says. “Now, it’s automatic. Our buyers don’t have to do anything.”  

Mark gives a clear example. When Foods Galore picks up product on its own trucks, there is a cost to that pickup. In the past, that cost often disappeared instead of being tied back to the product. Now the system can attribute costs per case, so the margin picture is more accurate and actionable.  

In other words, Acumatica and Prime Food Services aren’t just recording outcomes after the fact. They’re helping the business understand the actual cost of serving customers, which is the foundation for smarter pricing and better decisions. 

Visibility supports better operations

Foods Galore is also seeing improvement in inventory operations. Cycle counting became easier to manage, and the inventory control team can cover more of the warehouse each week. That supports accuracy and helps the business stay ahead of issues rather than reacting late.  

Expiration date reporting also improved, a critical capability in food distribution. It supports quality, reduces waste, and protects the customer promise.  

These wins don’t always sound dramatic from the outside, but in distribution, they are the difference between a team that stays in control and a team that spends every week chasing problems. 

Digital ordering opens the door to growth

ERP modernization often starts as an internal efficiency conversation. At Foods Galore, it also created new ways to grow. 

The company introduced online ordering through an integrated eCommerce platform and began testing it with a subset of customers. In one month, that pilot alone drove an additional 1,200 cases sold, roughly two full truckloads of product.  

“That’s tremendous growth,” Mark said. “The new system opened up this opportunity for us. It benefits us, and it benefits our customers.”  

Modern ordering capabilities aren’t only about convenience. They make it easier for customers to buy more, reorder faster, and interact with your business without friction. For service-first distributors, that kind of capability helps protect relationships while supporting scalable growth. 

A platform for the next chapter

Foods Galore’s story is about protecting what makes the company successful while giving the team better tools to scale. Mark sees the benefits in profitability, visibility, and the time the team gets back. He also sees it in confidence. Leadership can keep improving rather than work around system limitations.  

Each year, the company expects to be better than the one before. With Acumatica, Prime Food Service, and Net at Work supporting the path forward, Foods Galore has the foundation to do that. “We’re always listening and always working toward solutions, and with Net at Work we have a partner in that effort,” Mark concludes. “That’s what keeps us out in front.”  

 

Read the Foods Galore success story for the full details and results.  

 

Key takeaways

• Treat ERP modernization like a service strategy. If your promise is reliability, your systems have to deliver on it at scale. 

• Choose ERP based on your organization’s real workflows. Food distribution has requirements generic ERPs don’t naturally handle. Industry context matters. 

• Plan for optimization from day one. The fastest ROI comes when improvement becomes routine after go-live. 

• Go after margin truth early. Landed cost and true cost attribution are foundational for profitability management. 

• Look for growth upside, not only efficiency. Digital ordering can drive measurable volume when the ERP foundation is solid.