Bucks software firm rolls out VictualNet food system

Food Connex, a modest-sized ($1.5 million/year sales, 10-employee) food-distribution software firm in Furlong, Bucks County that counts Amoroso Baking and Vincent Giordano Corp. among its local clients, is rolling out a new "software-as-a-service" system, VictualNet, that allows small distributors to track sales, inventories, customers and suppliers from laptop, mobile (on-the-truck) or office personal computers, for $199/month.

VictualNet lets anyone with a computer and a phone set up a food distribution business, says founder Paul Hernandez-Cuebas, who's been selling inventory and payment-tracking systems locally (doing business also as Integrated Management Solutions) for the past 20 years.

Hernandez raised nearly $1 million to build and market VictualNet the old fashioned way: with his own money - and a bank loan. "Paul has reason to be excited. Lots of delivery systems are moving toward a Web-based product. We think he's first in the market with a product that meets the needs of the customer," William Maeglin (corrected), head of business lending at Univest National Bank and Trust in Souderton, told me.

"He's a longstanding, well-established local business," Maeglin added."I've known him for some time, but he was always a cash business, he never needed significant borrowing" before. "We're comfortable with him and his team, and their plan." Initial clients for VictualNet include distributors of Florida-based Boars Head Provisions Co., confirms Boars Head distribution executive Rick Bellucci.