Pastry Chef Joseph Stock has had enough of convoluted, manual supply-ordering practices, so he’s aiming to bring them into the 21st century with a new platform for the hospitality industry.
Joseph Stock has been a Pastry Chef for close to 20 years, but in all that time he believes parts of the hospitality industry have been left in the past. He’s found the difficult, often frustrating task of managing stock has remained largely manual in the 21st century, creating difficulties for suppliers and venues alike.
As a result, he has created a new stock-ordering platform targeted specifically at the hospitality sector, naming it Stokd after both his surname and the platform’s function.
Having trained in Sydney and grown up in New Zealand, Joseph says his experience in the industry means he has his finger on the pulse of exactly what can be improved.
“I’ve consistently seen suppliers give the wrong product or miss products on delivery, and I’ve used clunky ordering systems or multiple apps and websites that have led to so much lost time chasing suppliers,” he says. “How the industry operates is inefficient, so we’ve built a system to fix that.
“With Stokd, we can streamline the process for both suppliers and operators across hospitality, whether that’s cafés, restaurants, or bars. We want every aspect of the ordering process to be easier, and to give more visibility on which products are actually available.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s toilet paper, coffee, or a bottle of vodka – our system shows all the data live in one click.”
Stokd has been developed using multiple venues as live testing sites, with Sydney roaster Mecca Coffee also offering support in its development. Mecca supplies about 60 wholesale clients – most of which are based locally – and operates a pair of retail sites.
“We’ve been helping Stokd with identifying what our pain points are, what we would love to see, and what we think is missing in existing ordering platforms as a supplier,” says Mecca Coffee Wholesale Relationship Manager Germán Salamanca.
“At the moment I’m not familiar with any platform that has both a really good back end as well as a beautiful front end that’s easy to use. The user experience is not as clinical as other platforms and you can tell it’s been designed by someone with experience in the industry. I think they’re doing a good job in that everything is being created to be friendly to use. It’s intuitive. I think we’re onto a winner with Stokd.”
Germán adds the platform is a more cost-effective solution than some other, larger-scale sales software.
“Small coffee roasters might not have a lot of money to invest in expensive systems to manage sales, so we still do a lot of things manually. Getting the orders is very manual and you can spend hours a day just processing everything,” he says.
“A lot of these systems are simply too costly to use, but Stokd is far more reasonable. It’s a great example of how the best solutions come from the user.”
The clarity on what products are in or out of stock can be a major pain point for venues. Joseph says Stokd has been developed as a solution to the long-standing problem.
“There are times when a supplier might not have an item listed on their website when they do in fact have it in stock, or an item they’re out of stock of is listed as available,” he says.
“Your expectation as a venue is you can get what you want when you want if you see it on your supplier’s system, and when you can’t it’s really frustrating. Having that visibility about which products are available is crucial.”
Germán says the difficulties in managing listed items, especially those in limited editions or short supply, are equally felt by suppliers.
“It can be very difficult to manage stock, especially with something like a limited-run single origin that we only have 60 kilograms of available. You get a lot of people ordering, and then you run out of it incredibly quickly. That stock management aspect is critical,” he says.
Joseph says those management difficulties have been taken into account in the layout of Stokd for both venue operators and suppliers.
“In our system, suppliers have their products listed and once they run out they’re removed so it’s impossible to order something that’s not available. Then, you can pivot to a different supplier if needed,” he says.
“We’re used to so much technology in our lives, but in hospitality we’re stuck in the Stone Age. Stokd has been created to be an end-to-end ordering solution that spans multiple suppliers. We’re also integrated with Xero, MYOB, and Quickbooks.
“Stokd is built by hospitality operators who live the day-to-day struggles of the industry, and we want to make lives easier. We’re not just another tech company, we’re hospo people solving hospo problems.”
For more information, visit stokd.com
This article appears in the August 2025 edition of BeanScene. Subscribe HERE.
