In development · Phoenix pilot · Founding cohort of 20
Supplier price creep is eating your margin. Candor catches it — invoice by invoice.
Food costs are up 34% on pre-pandemic and 95% of full-service operators call them their top concern. Send us your last 3 distributor invoices — in 48 hours you'll know your top overpaying items, your vendor-switch opportunities, and exactly what to say to your rep. Built by a Phoenix operator running 8 restaurant brands.
Book a 15-min call95%
of full-service operators cite elevated food costs as a top concern (NRA 2026)
63%
already shopped for alternative suppliers last year — few had the data to do it well (NRA 2026)
+34%
food costs vs. six years ago — creep compounds quietly (NRA 2026)
$2,730/yr
what one of our restaurants saves on ONE item (chicken, 150 lbs/week × $0.35/lb spread)
Your rep's pricing is opaque. That's not an accident.
No leverage under ~5 units
Chains get cost-plus-fixed contracts. Independents get cost-plus-percentage — with a markup you never see. Same truck, different math.
Increases arrive as policy
The annual increase letter isn't fixed — it's an opening offer. Pushing back item-by-item takes data nobody has time to collect.
Creep hides in the line items
Nobody re-checks a $2.40 case that quietly became $2.90. Multiply by 200 line items and 52 weeks — that's the margin leak.
And it's consolidating — March 2026
Sysco signed a ~$29B agreement to acquire Jetro/Restaurant Depot (pending close) — the cash-and-carry that 725,000+ independents use as their price sanity-check. Your Plan B is being bought by your Plan A. An independent benchmark matters more every quarter.
The 48-Hour Invoice Audit
Send 3 invoices. Get your leaks back in 48 hours.
Email your last 3 invoices
Photos or PDFs, any distributor. Two minutes, from your phone.
Free: your top 3 overpaying items
Within 48 hours — two calendar days from when your invoices land — benchmarked against real Phoenix price data. Free, whether or not you go further.
Full audit — $99, credited
Every line item, vendor-switch opportunities, and a word-for-word negotiation script for your next rep call. The $99 credits toward your founding subscription.
manager@autumncourt.com — the founder's own inbox during the pilot. Audits are done by hand by people who run restaurants. That's the point.
What happens to your invoices
- · Used for one thing: benchmarking your prices
- · Never shared with distributors, never sold
- · Benchmarks are anonymized — no names, ever
- · Say the word and they're deleted
Same item. Same city. Same week. Different price.
Real spreads from our own restaurants' 2026 invoices and quotes in Phoenix — this is what your audit looks like, line by line.
| Item | Best price found | Highest quote | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicken breast, boneless (per lb) | $3.20 (Restaurant Depot) | $3.60 (broadline quote) | 12.5% |
| Soybean oil (per gallon) | $13.00 (negotiated) | $15.00 (list quote) | 15% |
| Soy sauce, Lee Kum Kee (12-gal case) | $28.00 (negotiated) | $35.00 (list quote) | 25% |
Sample of our own documented purchasing data — your items and spreads will differ. That's the point: you should know yours.
What lands in your inbox: a one-page savings report
| Finding | Est. monthly savings |
|---|---|
| Price creep: chicken breast, $128 → $144/case in 30 days | $64 |
| Cheaper across town: same case, different distributor | $64 |
| Fuel surcharges you can push back on | $10 |
Sample data. Every finding in the real report cites your own invoice lines — invoice #, date, SKU. No citation, no claim.
Comparison tools exist. They compare the quotes your vendors already gave you.
We'll name them, because that's the brand: FrillPick ($29/mo) compares two uploaded price sheets. Kitchify ($99/mo) compares your own vendors' catalogs and streamlines ordering. Useful — if you have the time and the quotes. Candor answers the question they can't: what are operators across town actually paying for the same case?
DIY comparison tools
$29–99/mo
You upload, you match, you compare — within the prices your own vendors chose to show you.
Invoice & inventory suites
$239–599/mo
MarginEdge, MarketMan — great at telling you what you spent. Silent on what you should have paid.
Candor
$99 audit → $99/mo founding
- Benchmarks against other operators' real invoices
- Done for you — with a negotiation script
- Tracks creep invoice-over-invoice
“Ended up just building an elaborate Google sheets project that tells me who to purchase everything from using vlookup formulas… I compare four different purveyors, saves me a lot of money.”
Why I'm building this
“I run an 8-brand restaurant group in Phoenix. For years I compared distributor prices the way everyone does: badly, in spreadsheets, at midnight. When I finally did it properly, one item — chicken — was worth $2,730 a year. Candor is that discipline, productized. Your audit gets done by people who run restaurants, against prices we actually pay.”
— Jay Tang, Founder · Candor
Jay has spent the last decade running restaurants in Phoenix — eight brands out of one kitchen, buying from Sysco, US Foods and Restaurant Depot every week. Your audit is read by someone who pays these same invoices.
Two ways in. Both honest.
Start here · 48-Hour Audit
$99 one-time
top-3 benchmark free first · $99 credited if you join
- Every line item benchmarked
- Vendor-switch opportunities
- Word-for-word negotiation script
- Finds nothing? You don't pay.
Founding Operator
$99/mo
20 spots · locked for life · rises at public launch
- Ongoing creep-tracking, every invoice
- 1 location, unlimited distributors
- Direct line to the founder — shape the product
- Audit fee credited on day one
Straight answers
What exactly happens after I send my invoices?
Within 48 hours you get back your top 3 overpaying items, benchmarked against real Phoenix price data — free, no strings. If you want the full picture, the complete audit covers every line item, vendor-switch opportunities, and a word-for-word negotiation script for your next rep call: $99, credited toward your founding subscription if you join.
How is this different from FrillPick or Kitchify?
Both are real tools and we'll say so: FrillPick ($29/mo) compares two vendors' price sheets you upload. Kitchify ($99/mo) compares prices across your own vendors and streamlines ordering. Both compare the quotes YOUR vendors already give you. Candor answers a different question: what are operators across town actually paying for the same case? Plus we do the work for you and hand you the negotiation script — during the pilot, by hand, on purpose.
Is this a finished product?
No — and we won't pretend it is. Candor is in development, piloting in Phoenix with a founding cohort of 20 operators. The audits are done by the founder's team by hand against our price dataset from operating 8 restaurant brands. That's not a limitation, it's the point: you get a human who runs restaurants reading your invoices.
Which distributors does it cover?
Any distributor whose invoice you can photograph or export — Sysco, US Foods, Shamrock, PFG, Restaurant Depot, local broadliners. The benchmark is built from real invoices and quotes, not scraped catalogs.
Do I have to change how I order?
No. You keep your reps and your ordering routine — you just walk into the next call knowing what the same case costs across town, with a script for the conversation.
Why $99?
The full audit is $99 one-time, credited toward the founding subscription ($99/mo, locked for life, capped at 20 operators). If the audit doesn't surface a single overcharge, you don't pay. Both prices rise at public launch.
What happens to my invoice data?
Your invoices are used for exactly one thing: benchmarking your prices. They're never shared with distributors, never sold, and never shown to another operator — benchmarks are anonymized (“operators across town pay $X”, never who). Ask us to delete them and they're gone. You're handing your numbers to another operator, and we treat them the way we'd want ours treated.
Find your leaks this week.
Email 3 invoices for the free benchmark, or join the founding waitlist — 20 spots, Phoenix pilot.