Written by: JJ Tan, Founder, Jelly
Key Takeaways For UK Hospitality Teams
- UK hospitality groups running central distribution face margin volatility, food safety compliance pressure, and logistical complexity that spreadsheets cannot manage at scale.
- Infios WMS excels at warehouse execution, including FEFO picking, lot traceability, temperature zone control, and recall readiness, and it stops at the point of dispatch to venues.
- Venue-level inventory visibility, dish costing, and real-time margin analysis require a complementary system that integrates directly with POS platforms.
- Infios and Jelly address different parts of the supply chain and work best together. Infios improves the warehouse while Jelly improves the venue.
- See how Jelly complements your warehouse operations with a quick demo.
What Is Infios WMS?
Infios WMS (formerly part of Körber Supply Chain Software, rebranded as Infios in March 2025) is a warehouse management system that helps businesses control stock movement, storage, and order fulfilment across warehouses and distribution centres. Infios was named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Warehouse Management Systems for the eighth consecutive year, with an average customer rating of 4.5 out of 5 based on verified reviews on Gartner Peer Insights and Capterra.
The platform spans entry-level to enterprise deployments and supports manual, RF, voice-directed, and highly automated distribution centres. It can be deployed in the cloud or on-premises and integrates with ERP and other supply chain systems. In the UK, Infios WMS is most commonly implemented by specialist partners. Balloon One has been the exclusive UK implementation partner since 2005.
Infios WMS For UK Hospitality: Core Features And Workflow
For a UK hospitality group, the supply chain runs from supplier to central DC to venues. Infios WMS manages the warehouse portion of that chain, including goods-in, put-away, storage, picking, and dispatch. The workflow in practice looks like this.
- Goods arrive at the central DC and are received via barcode scanning, with lot and batch numbers captured at the point of receipt.
- The system directs put-away to the correct temperature zone, such as ambient, chilled, or frozen, and this reduces the risk of cross-contamination.
- Stock is stored with real-time expiry tracking and FEFO picking logic enforced throughout.
- Orders are picked for dispatch to venues, with lot numbers carried through to shipping documents.
- Stock transfers to venues are recorded, maintaining a full chain of custody from supplier to site.
Infios WMS offers configurable expiration date management and real-time tracking of expiry dates to support FEFO stock management. These controls reduce waste and improve stock turn rates. Balloon One’s configuration builds on this with expiry capture at receipt via GS1-128 barcode scanning, FEFO-directed picking, expiry alerts at configurable thresholds, and supervisor-approved override governance with logged reason codes.
FEFO In Action For Perishable Warehouses
First-Expired-First-Out (FEFO) picking is the single most important food-safety control in a perishable warehouse. Balloon One’s 2026 research, surveying over 500 UK supply chain managers, found that the average UK food business loses £156,600 a year to avoidable waste, and 7.29% of perishable stock is lost to internal errors alone. FEFO enforcement directly attacks that figure by ensuring short-dated stock is always picked first.
Batch Traceability And Recall Management
UK food businesses operating under assimilated Regulation (EC) 178/2002 must keep records of all suppliers and the businesses they supply, to enable efficient and accurate withdrawals and recalls of unsafe food. Lot-level traceability is therefore a legal requirement and a core control.
Infios WMS supports traceability events including goods receipt, put-away, and lot-specific forward and backward tracing, and allows affected inventory to be placed on system hold at the lot level during a recall while unaffected inventory remains available for sale. A recall-ready WMS should enable a mock recall, from lot identification to full distribution report, in under thirty minutes. Balloon One’s Infios configuration achieves this through single-click recall reports.
Infios Integration With ERP And POS Systems
Infios WMS integrates with ERP systems for financials and purchasing. Infios WM natively integrates with SAP, Oracle NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, Sage, Infor, and Acumatica ERP systems. In UK deployments, this integration is typically delivered via Balloon One Xchange (BOX), a cloud-based integration platform that connects WMS, ERP, e-commerce, marketplaces, suppliers, and customers so data moves without re-keying.
Infios WMS does not natively integrate with hospitality POS systems. Infios’ platform offers native iPaaS integration with POS systems via its built-in integration layer. It does not provide venue-level inventory visibility, dish-level costing, or real-time margin analysis. The system is designed for warehouse execution, and once goods leave the DC and arrive at a venue, Infios’ visibility ends.
Jelly completes the picture at the venue layer. Jelly integrates natively with Square, EPOS Now, Lightspeed, and Toast via real-time API and delivers item-level sales data the moment a transaction completes. Combined with automated invoice scanning and live dish costing, Jelly gives operations directors and finance managers the venue-level profitability data that Infios cannot provide. The two systems are complementary. Infios improves the warehouse, and Jelly improves the venue.
Infios WMS And Jelly Across The Hospitality Supply Chain
The table below compares warehouse-layer solutions, including Infios WMS, SAP EWM, and Manhattan Associates, with venue-layer capabilities from Jelly. This clarifies which part of the supply chain each solution addresses and how they work together.
| Solution | Best For | Key Features | Hospitality Fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Infios WMS | Central warehouse and DC operations for multi-site food and beverage groups | FEFO, batch traceability, temperature zone management, recall management, ERP integration via BOX | Strong for central DC; no venue-level inventory, dish costing, or POS integration |
| SAP EWM | Large enterprise operations already running SAP S/4HANA | Bin-level inventory control, FEFO, cycle counting, yard management, MFS for automation | Powerful but complex and requires the SAP ecosystem; no venue-level profitability analysis |
| Manhattan Associates | Enterprise retail and distribution networks with high automation requirements | Advanced slotting, labour management, omnichannel fulfilment, robotics integration | Enterprise-grade with significant implementation investment; no hospitality venue-level features |
| Jelly | UK restaurants, pubs, and hotels managing venue-level inventory and profitability | Automated invoice scanning, live dish costing, GP margin tracking, POS integration, price alerts, menu engineering | Purpose-built for venue operations and complements central WMS; onboards in under a week at £129/month per location |
Jelly also integrates with leading POS platforms, including Square, EPOS Now, Lightspeed, and Toast, as partners to deliver real-time sales and margin data.
UK Compliance And Food Safety Requirements
Regulation (EC) No 852/2004, retained in UK domestic law via the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, makes HACCP a legal requirement for every UK food business. Article 5 requires documented hazard analysis, critical control points, monitoring procedures, corrective actions, and records proportionate to the nature and size of the business.
Infios WMS supports HACCP compliance at the warehouse level through lot traceability, temperature logging, and recall management. Balloon One’s Infios configuration supports compliance with BRCGS, IFS, HACCP, and FSMA, with mock recall exercises generating lot-to-customer reports in minutes.
Venue-level compliance, including daily temperature checks, stock rotation records, and allergen management at the point of preparation, sits outside the scope of any central WMS. Venues need their own systems and processes to meet FSA inspection requirements. Jelly’s automated invoice and ingredient tracking reduces administrative burden by maintaining accurate, up-to-date records without manual data entry.
Implementation Timelines, Costs, And Training
Infios WMS implementations in the UK require specialist partner support. A WMS implementation for a food business typically takes three to six months for a mid-market operation, depending on site count, temperature zones, and integration scope. Complex multi-site enterprise rollouts can extend to twelve months.
On cost, Balloon One’s 2026 guide reports that a mid-market multi-site food operation (one to three sites, fifteen to fifty users) can expect first-year total costs of £120,000 to £320,000. This figure covers software, implementation, food compliance modules, hardware, ERP integration, data migration, and training. Food-specific compliance features add a 20–40% cost premium over an equivalent general-purpose WMS deployment.
Jelly’s onboarding model is designed for speed. Venues gain access to price alerts and spending insights within 24 hours of photographing their first invoice, or less than a day after suppliers begin sending invoices to a dedicated email address. There is no implementation project, middleware, or specialist partner required. Jelly charges a flat £129 per month per location, with no variable charges per user or feature.
Common Challenges When Adopting A WMS For Hospitality
Even with a well-implemented central WMS, UK hospitality groups consistently encounter the same downstream gaps.
- No venue-level inventory visibility. Infios tracks stock to the point of dispatch from the DC. What happens at the venue, including usage, wastage, and portion control, remains invisible to the WMS.
- No dish-level profitability. A WMS manages stock quantities and locations. It does not calculate the cost of a dish, track GP margin by menu item, or flag when a supplier price increase has eroded profitability.
- Poor POS integration. Without a connection between sales data and ingredient costs, operators cannot see which dishes are profitable and which are unprofitable. Spreadsheets fill the gap slowly and often inaccurately.
- Over-reliance on monthly reports. By the time a finance manager receives a monthly cost report, the margin damage from a supplier price increase has already occurred. Real-time data at the venue level requires a different tool.
- Underestimating venue complexity. A central WMS is configured once and runs at scale. Each venue has its own menu, supplier mix, and waste profile. Managing that complexity requires a system built for venue operations.
Why Jelly Is The Recommended Solution For Venue-Level Inventory
Once goods arrive at a venue, the operational challenge shifts from warehouse execution to margin management. Jelly is built specifically for this problem. It automates the entire flow from invoice capture to dish costing. This replaces the 10–20 hours per week that kitchen teams spend on manual data entry with automated, real-time insights.
Key capabilities include:
- Automated invoice scanning: Every line item, including quantity, SKU, price, and tax, is captured via photo or email with no manual entry required.
- Live dish costing: As invoices update ingredient prices, GP margins for every dish update in real time. A red percentage flags a margin drop, and green signals improvement.
- Price alerts: Every supplier price increase or decrease is flagged instantly, giving chefs the data to negotiate credits or switch suppliers.
- Menu engineering: POS integration with Square, EPOS Now, Lightspeed, and Toast surfaces which dishes are most popular and most profitable and enables data-driven menu decisions.
- Accounting integration: One-click push of digitised invoices into Xero, with Sage integration coming soon.
The results are measurable. Jelly users cut food costs by 3% on average in the first three months. Gross margins increase on average by 2 percentage points in the same period. Stuart Noble, Head Chef at Cairn Lodge Hotel, put it directly:
“Price hikes were crushing our margins—I felt helpless. With Jelly, every dish cost is up-to-date at my fingertips. We slashed food costs by 5% in a month—it’s a game changer!”
See how Jelly can automate your venue-level inventory and profitability. Book a demo today.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is FEFO And Why Does It Matter For UK Hospitality?
FEFO (First-Expired-First-Out) is a stock rotation method that ensures the oldest perishable stock, measured by expiry date rather than arrival date, is always picked first. For UK hospitality groups running a central DC, FEFO is critical for two reasons. First, it reduces waste by preventing short-dated stock from being overlooked behind newer deliveries. Second, it supports food safety compliance by ensuring that products approaching their use-by date are dispatched and consumed before they expire. Infios WMS enforces FEFO at the warehouse level through directed picking logic and configurable expiry alerts. Venues still need their own processes and systems to track stock rotation and usage after goods arrive on site.
Can Infios WMS Integrate With My POS System?
As noted earlier, Infios WMS does not natively integrate with hospitality POS systems, although Infios’ platform offers native iPaaS integration with POS systems via its built-in integration layer. Its integration capability focuses on ERP platforms, including SAP Business One, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, Sage, Infor, and Acumatica, for financials and purchasing. For real-time venue-level sales and margin data, a complementary solution is required. Jelly integrates natively with Square, EPOS Now, Lightspeed, and Toast via real-time API and delivers item-level sales data the moment a transaction completes. Connecting any supported POS takes approximately five minutes and automates two to five hours of weekly work to produce real-time margin and sales mix data.
Is Infios WMS Suitable For Single-Site Restaurants?
Infios WMS is designed for central warehouse and distribution operations, typically serving multi-site hospitality groups, food wholesalers, and third-party logistics providers. For a single-site restaurant, the implementation cost and complexity, including first-year costs of £120,000 to £320,000 for a mid-market operation with a three-to-six-month implementation timeline, are rarely justified. Jelly offers a purpose-built alternative at £129 per month per location, with onboarding that delivers value in the first week. For single-site operators and growing groups alike, Jelly provides the invoice automation, dish costing, and GP visibility that a WMS is not designed to deliver.
What Is The Difference Between Infios WMS And Jelly?
Infios WMS manages central warehouse operations, including receiving goods from suppliers, put-away with FEFO and temperature zone control, batch traceability, picking, and dispatch to venues. It functions as a logistics execution system. Jelly manages what happens after goods arrive at a venue, including automated invoice scanning, live dish costing, GP margin tracking by menu item, supplier price alerts, and menu engineering via POS integration. The two systems address different parts of the supply chain and are complementary rather than competing. A hospitality group running Infios at its DC and Jelly at its venues gains end-to-end visibility from supplier to plate.
How Does UK Food Safety Regulation Affect My Choice Of WMS?
UK food businesses must comply with HACCP requirements under assimilated Regulation (EC) 852/2004, traceability obligations under assimilated Regulation (EC) 178/2002, and temperature control requirements under the Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013. At the warehouse level, Infios WMS supports these obligations through lot traceability, temperature logging, and recall management. At the venue level, compliance depends on documented daily processes, including temperature checks, stock rotation, and allergen management, that a central WMS cannot enforce. Jelly’s automated invoice and ingredient tracking reduces administrative burden by maintaining accurate, up-to-date records without manual data entry.
Conclusion: Complete The Picture With Jelly
Infios WMS is a robust, well-established solution for central warehouse operations in UK hospitality. Its FEFO enforcement, batch traceability, temperature zone management, and recall readiness address the compliance and efficiency requirements of a food DC. For multi-site groups with complex distribution operations, it represents a credible and proven choice.
The gap it leaves at the venue level is significant. Venue-level inventory visibility, dish-level profitability, real-time margin tracking, and POS integration sit outside its scope by design. For UK hospitality groups where margin pressure is felt most acutely at the venue, where ingredient costs, portion sizes, and menu pricing interact daily, a complementary solution becomes essential.
Jelly fills that gap at a flat £129 per month per location, with onboarding measured in days rather than months. Evaluate your current stack and identify where Jelly can add value.