For choosing a supplier you’ll rely on for years
The sample is always excellent. Score the supplier instead.
A sample tells you the ceiling of what a supplier can produce. It can’t tell you the average, the variance, or whether the lot you buy will come from the same preparer at all. And a low price isn’t an answer; it’s a question about what’s different in that lot.
The Vanilla Supplier Vetting Scorecard replaces impressions with evidence: twenty weighted criteria, red-flag gates that cap a supplier however pleasant they are, and an eight-week process with the emails to run it.
- 20weighted criteria, scored from evidence
- 500maximum score, read against five decision bands
- 8weeks from first enquiry to trial lot
- 6ready-to-send supplier emails
Look inside
Sample pages from the book. Click a page to enlarge it.
What changes once you’ve read it
- Score suppliers side by sideScore three at a time against twenty criteria weighted towards product integrity and provenance, where money is actually lost. Anything you can’t evidence scores 1.
- Catch deal-breakers earlyRed-flag gates cap a supplier at High risk whatever their total, plus four things that look like red flags and aren’t.
- Ask for the right evidenceAn evidence request pack covering product and quality, provenance, operations and logistics, and commercial and governance.
- Judge the price on the right basisCompare offers on dry matter and vanillin, not gross kilograms, and ask the three questions a cheap quote should trigger.
- Scale without guessingOpening a sample without fooling yourself, trial lots, a payment-terms risk ladder and a contract clause checklist.
Score from evidence, not impression. A criterion you cannot evidence is scored 1, not left blank and not given the benefit of the doubt. Absence of evidence is the finding.
What’s covered, part by part
- Part oneThe buyer’s problemThe sample is always excellent · Four ways a supplier fails · What a bad supplier actually costs
- Part twoWhat you are actually buyingThe bean, origin profiles and the harvest calendar · The cure · Grades, certificates and authenticity
- Part threeThe twenty criteriaThe framework · Red-flag gates · The evidence request pack
- Part fourThe scorecardHow to score · The calculation · Tie-breaks
- Part fiveRunning the processEight weeks, from first enquiry to trial lot · How to open a sample without fooling yourself · Trial lots and scaling · Payment terms and the risk ladder · Contract clause checklist
- ReferenceAppendicesThe import document set · First-contact request · Quick reference · A worked example
What you get
- PDFThe buyer’s manualThe method, the twenty criteria, the gates and the eight-week process.
- XLSXVetting Scorecard (Excel)Scorecard, criteria, red-flag gates, a price normaliser and a worked example. Enter your scores; it does the weighting.
- PDFSix supplier email templatesFrom first contact through references to the trial-lot offer and the decline letter, sequenced week by week.
A good fit if
- You’re shortlisting two to four suppliers
- You need a supplier decision you can defend to quality, finance or an auditor
- You’ve been burned by a lot that didn’t match the sample
Not the right fit if
- You’re placing a one-off small order where a sample and a phone call are enough.
Do I need Excel to use it?
No. The scorecard pages are in the manual and can be scored on paper. The Excel file does the weighting, applies the gates and normalises price for you.
Why score three suppliers at once?
Scoring one supplier in isolation gives a number with nothing to compare it against, and the number drifts upward. The manual explains how to keep scores honest.
Does it only work for Indonesian suppliers?
The criteria, gates and emails work for any origin. The background chapters are written with Indonesian supply in mind.
What does the licence allow?
Licensed to one purchaser, for use in your own business. You may print the manual and the scorecard pages for your own supplier assessments, send the six emails as your own, and use the files for internal procurement within your own organisation. You may not resell or redistribute any of it as a product.
