helmdocs-proposal-system/corpus/friendship-pcs/responses/source/chesapeake-food-service.md

Chesapeake Food Service, Inc.

Proposal to Friendship Public Charter School — Food Items, 2021–2022

1120 Ridgely Street, Baltimore, MD 21230 Marcus Bell, Vice President — (410) 555-0188

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Executive Summary

Chesapeake Food Service is a family-owned broadline distributor operating out of Baltimore since 1978. We serve roughly two hundred accounts across Maryland and the District, of which about thirty are schools, and we are pleased to offer Friendship Public Charter School the most competitive delivered pricing in this market.

Our proposition is straightforward. We buy well, we run lean, and we pass that through. Where other distributors in this bid will layer on portal technology and account management structures that ultimately appear in the case price, we have chosen to compete on the number that matters. Over an eight-site network across a full school year, the difference is substantial, and it is money that returns directly to the meal programme.

Our business license and certificate of occupancy are enclosed, along with two years of audited financial statements prepared by Hanlon & Reeve LLP. The debarment, price determination and lobbying certifications are signed and enclosed, as are the equal opportunity and clean air and water certifications. Insurance is carried at two million per occurrence and four million aggregate and a certificate naming Friendship Public Charter School as additional insured is enclosed.

We are committed to student nutrition and to the communities we serve, and we believe strongly that a school food programme succeeds or fails on consistency of supply rather than on marketing. That is the value we bring.

Pricing

Our pricing is submitted separately on the Excel schedule provided.

We price at a flat delivered unit cost per case with no volume tiers and no rebate mechanism, because we have found that banded pricing chiefly serves to make comparison difficult and to defer benefit to year end. Our number is our number from day one.

Delivered case pricing is applied as quoted plus a per-stop delivery charge which varies with the frequency requested. At two deliveries per week per site, the charge is $34.00 per stop. At three per week it falls to $28.50 per stop, and at four or more it falls to $24.00 per stop. Sites may elect different frequencies and may change frequency with two weeks' notice.

At the estimated volume stated in the solicitation and assuming three deliveries weekly to each of the eight sites across a one hundred and eighty day calendar, our base year total bid cost is five hundred and forty-one thousand, two hundred and eighty dollars ($541,280).

Prices are held firm through the base year. We would ask only for relief under the economic price adjustment provision in the event of a commodity movement exceeding eight percent, on the same published index basis contemplated in the solicitation.

Method of Approach and Implementation

We would begin with a site survey of all eight locations in the two weeks following award, walking each receiving area with the site's authorised designee to confirm the delivery window, the receiving point and the storage capacity. Our experience is that most transition problems are receiving problems rather than supply problems, and they are best solved before the first delivery rather than after.

Product is packed to USDA standards throughout. We have not historically found that schools require pack size changes from our standard configurations, but we would accommodate reasonable requests where our suppliers can support them.

On nutritional documentation, our category managers hold CN labels and formulation statements for the school product range and provide these on request. We can supply these for any item in the proposed catalogue, typically within two business days of a request.

We participate in the USDA Foods programme in Maryland and would work with the SFA to make appropriate use of entitlement, though we would note that our processing relationships are stronger in the protein categories than in fruit and vegetable. We think it right to be plain about that rather than to overstate it.

As to local sourcing, Chesapeake buys from the Maryland and Delmarva growing region in season and has done so throughout its history. We are proud of those relationships. We would expect a meaningful proportion of produce delivered between June and October to originate within the region.

We maintain a pest management programme at our Baltimore facility under contract with a licensed applicator, serviced monthly.

Bidder's Experience, Expertise and Reliability

Forty-three years in continuous operation under the same family ownership is, we would suggest, its own evidence of dependability. We have never failed to complete work awarded to us and we have never been terminated for cause.

We deliver on time. Our internal measurement for the last school year was in the high nineties by percentage, and we are comfortable being held to that standard contractually.

Our staff know the USDA meal pattern requirements and the District's Healthy Schools Act obligations, and several of our account team have worked with DC schools for more than a decade.

We would provide a single point of contact for the network with escalation directly to the undersigned. We do not operate an ordering portal; orders are placed by telephone or email to a named person, which our customers tell us they prefer.

Three references are provided in the questionnaire, all Maryland school accounts.

We appreciate the opportunity and would welcome the chance to discuss any element of this proposal with the committee.