Fortuna Baking Co

Founded in 1992, Fortuna Baking Co is a full service bread provider for the restaurant industry in the Greater Chicago area.  The company specializes in rye, white, and sourdough breads as well as rolls and croissants.   TwinPeaks Online recently spoke with Fortuna Baking Co owner Peter Fourtounis about how his bakery does benefit from using MyRouteManager system with Samsung 7” tablets and Z-Bake software as a backend solution.

In the early 2000s, Fortuna Baking Co needed a way to automatically account for orders that are changed at the delivery site – a unique need of Fortuna Baking Co which, according to Peter, is probably shared by other bakeries.  Peter says, “for example, most customers have a set order for rolls but for breads they want us to fill them up.”  Prior to implementing MyRouteManager, this meant Peter had to manually enter invoices for 100s of customers each day.   Those invoices included the original delivery numbers and then handwritten changes made by his drivers on site.  Not only was this method time consuming because of the volume of orders, it was a challenge to decipher what those numbers represented and doing everything by hand opened the possibility for errors.  At some point, he wanted server based software to run the bakery.  To avoid issues later on connecting two different systems externally, he decided the best idea was to buy handheld devices from the same company.  After doing research on products, he found out TwinPeaks was the only company that provided both options.

Peter says, “Set up was only a couple days, and it was an instant fix.  After all it’s pretty basic: the drivers enter orders on the handheld and that’s it.  Then we come back and upload them.”  MyRouteManager allows Peter’s drivers to modify orders on the spot and print a revised invoice.  Then, when the drivers return, the modified invoices are uploaded to Fortuna Baking Co’s Z-Bake computer system where it automatically updates their inventory.   In fact, Peter cites inventory control as the foremost benefit of the software.

Since implementing the handhelds, Peter says, “fills are more solid and consistent and there’s more control over what goes in and out.”  “No doubt it saves the driver some time,” he continues,” instead of handwriting and calculating, everything is electronic.  Our customers prefer the new invoices to the old ones covered in handwriting.  We’ve seen less calculation errors, as well.”  Furthermore, Peter relates, “MyRouteManager increases office efficiency.  It’s an instant download – the amount of time that’s saved me is worth a full office person.  Because of the efficiency of our work, I was able to consolidate some routes.”

Initially, Peter was hesitant about 100% web-based solution because of the risk of losing web communication.  However, in practice, he says “I may count 2 or 3 times for whatever reason website, provider, the system was down for short period of time.  But I have been able to contact George and his team at any time at night even 2-3am in the morning and George and his team have been very responsive and worked instantly to reestablish communication.  Since moving the service to a dedicated server a couple of months ago, there has not been any downtime.”

Peter says, “Overall, [TwinPeaks Online’s Software] makes my business look more professional and affects a positive impact all the way across.  I am happy to work with TwinPeaks online support staff – they have been friendly and helpful.  I expect to use their products well into the future, and would definitely recommend them to another bakery.  I would be glad to talk to any prospective customer about the system and its reliability, benefits, and overall cost.”