Scaling Smarter: Express Wholesalers Transforms with Fresh Computers
Introducing the Customer: Express Wholesalers
Express Wholesalers is a family-owned business that began in 1979 at Sydney’s Flemington Markets. For over 45 years, they have built a strong reputation for delivering high-quality fruit and vegetables to restaurants, pubs, clubs, hotels, aged care homes and commercial kitchens across Sydney.
Led by directors George and Chris Rositano, the team works directly from the market floor to source the freshest produce available each morning. Their location enables them to deliver orders quickly and reliably with a fleet of refrigerated trucks that cover a wide area, from the Blue Mountains to the East Coast.
The Situation
Express Wholesalers had experienced steady growth, expanding their customer base and delivery reach across Sydney. By 2018, the internal systems they relied on were struggling to keep up. Built in the late 1990s, the original software was becoming increasingly unreliable and difficult to maintain. Every attempt to upgrade the system resulted in more patches, which led to frequent technical issues and rising support costs.
Express Wholesalers’ legacy platform also struggled with slow processes and limited functionality, including the inability to offer online ordering or integrate stock and invoicing. These challenges began to impact daily operations and efficiency, making it challenging to meet customer expectations. It became clear that the current system was no longer sustainable and that a more modern, flexible platform was needed to support future growth.
Enter Fresh
After researching several providers, Express Wholesalers chose Fresh for its all-in-one functionality, customisation options and strong understanding of the secondary wholesale sector. Other systems at the time offered only partial solutions, such as invoicing without inventory management or stock control without integration. The Fresh Distribution, Fresh Orders and Fresh Market Agent were the only options that could manage everything in one place. The team also valued how responsive Fresh was to their specific needs. Before onboarding began, Fresh developed custom features to integrate with digital scales, helping to reduce manual entry and improve accuracy during packing.
Earlier attempts to improve their old system had only made it more complex and unreliable for Express Wholesalers. Fresh offered a different experience by working closely with the team throughout the transition. Support staff were available on site to assist during setup, making the changeover smooth and low-risk. Fresh’s platform provided stable infrastructure, improved visibility across the business and tools that could grow with them.
The Outcomes
Implementing Fresh brought immediate improvements to both daily operations and long-term efficiency for Express Wholesalers. Tasks that once took until early afternoon were now completed several hours earlier, allowing staff to focus more on growing the business rather than on manual processes. With fewer technical issues and a more reliable system in place, the team reduced their reliance on extra office staff and saw a noticeable lift in overall productivity.
The early adoption of Fresh’s online ordering platform also gave Express Wholesalers a competitive edge in their market, particularly at a time when few others were offering similar services. The addition of tailored features, such as digital scale integration, helped minimise errors and speed up fulfilment. Ongoing training and responsive support from Fresh ensured the platform continued to deliver value as the business evolved.
Key Outcomes:
Saved 3 to 4 hours each day on back-office tasks
No recorded downtime over a seven-year period
Improved accuracy and speed through scale integration
Gained an early market advantage through online ordering
I'm 100 percent satisfied. We’re now able to work on the business rather than in the business. Processes are so much easier and there’s less human error, which is what we want. The stability of the software program has been fantastic. We've had zero downtime over the past seven years, which I think has been pretty extraordinary.
Pat Rositano, Managing Director