How Bengong's Tea Manages a Central Kitchen Supply Chain Across ~10 Australian Franchise Locations with Pospal

About Bengong's Tea & Bakery

Bengong's Tea & Bakery brings together Chinese tea culture and Western bakery in a single store concept — serving handcrafted tea drinks alongside freshly made bread, pastries, and coffee. With approximately ten franchise locations across Australia, the brand operates a central factory and warehouse model: headquarters handles production and distribution, while each franchise store focuses on in-store service and sales.

This central kitchen model is what distinguishes Bengong's Tea operationally. Rather than each franchise store sourcing and producing independently, the brand's quality control happens upstream — at the central factory — and the supply chain is the connective tissue holding the whole network together.

The Challenge: Operating a Supply Chain Across a Franchise Network

Running a central factory that serves ten franchise locations creates supply chain complexity that most standard POS systems are not designed to handle. Before upgrading to Pospal's supply chain module, Bengong's Tea faced a series of interconnected challenges:

• Store replenishment ordering was manual and fragmented. Each franchise store communicated their ingredient and product needs through ad-hoc channels — messages, spreadsheets, phone calls. There was no standardized process, and the central warehouse lacked a clear, unified view of incoming orders.
• Large customer (B2B) orders needed separate tracking. Beyond franchise stores, the brand also handled large orders from corporate or institutional customers. These orders followed different fulfilment logic from regular store replenishment but were being managed through the same informal channels.
• Inter-warehouse stock transfers had no system record. When stock moved between storage locations — or from the central factory to a regional holding point — these transfers were not formally documented in any system, creating gaps in inventory visibility.
• Purchase orders to suppliers were disconnected from the rest. The procurement side — ordering from ingredient suppliers — operated separately from the distribution side, making it difficult to match incoming supply with outgoing demand across the store network.
• In-store production consistency was hard to enforce at scale. With franchise stores each staffed independently, ensuring every drink was made to the brand standard required more than training manuals.

"We have a central kitchen that produces for all our stores — but without a proper supply chain system, we couldn't get a clear picture of what stock was where, what stores needed, or what we needed to order from suppliers. Everything was in someone's head or in a spreadsheet."

— Operations, Bengong's Tea & Bakery Australia

The Solution: Pospal Supply Chain for the Central Kitchen Model

Bengong's Tea upgraded to Pospal's supply chain module and reorganized all four key business document flows — store orders, large customer orders, inter-warehouse transfers, and purchase orders — into a single platform. KDS and tea brewing machine integration handle the in-store production side.

What Each Module Does

Results

Supply chain operations are now documented and traceable. All four types of business documents — store replenishment orders, large customer orders, inter-warehouse transfers, and supplier purchase orders — are recorded in Pospal. The central warehouse has a single view of what has been ordered, what is in transit, and what stock is available. Reconciliation that previously required cross-referencing spreadsheets and message threads now happens in one place.

Store ordering is standardized across the franchise network. Franchise stores submit replenishment requests through a consistent process. The central warehouse receives orders in a structured format with all required details, reducing back-and-forth communication and the risk of orders being missed or misrecorded.

Inter-warehouse stock movements are no longer invisible. When the central factory dispatches stock to a regional holding point, or when stock is redistributed between locations, those movements are formally recorded. Inventory counts stay accurate across the whole network without relying on manual stocktakes to reconcile discrepancies.

B2B and franchise orders are handled through the same platform with different logic. Large customer orders follow their own workflow — separate pricing, delivery requirements, and fulfilment rules — while still being visible in the same system view as regular franchise replenishment orders. The operations team no longer needs to maintain parallel systems for different customer types.

In-store production is consistent across franchise locations. Tea brewing machine integration means the recipe is set at headquarters level and enforced at the machine level — not dependent on each store's staff following instructions correctly. Combined with KDS order queuing, the in-store workflow is more structured and consistent regardless of staff experience or location.

"The supply chain upgrade was the most important change for us. Before, we had no proper record of what stores ordered, what we sent out, or what we bought from suppliers. Now everything is in one place. When a store asks where their order is, we can look it up immediately."

— Operations, Bengong's Tea & Bakery Australia