Should I Build or Buy AI Tools for my Business? Why FOBOH’s AI Agents are the Smarter Investment for Foodservice

In the age of AI, every foodservice distributor and manufacturer is wondering the same thing: Should we build our own AI tools, or just buy one off the shelf?

It’s a fair question. After all, no one knows your business better than you. But while the idea of building your own AI sounds like the ultimate power move, the reality is a lot messier—and more expensive—than most realise.

If you’re in foodservice, the smartest move isn’t to build from scratch. It’s to plug into a system that already knows how your industry runs. That’s where FOBOH’s AI Agents come in.

Let’s walk through the reasons why this is the case.

1. Building an Engineering and Product squad from scratch, capability that may not exist within the organisation.

Building your own AI agent means developing a custom-built software system, often using machine learning or natural language processing, that can replicate tasks traditionally done by humans. In foodservice, this might look like an agent that processes orders from emails, suggests product substitutions, answers basic customer questions, or predicts re-ordering needs.

For example, you might want to:

• Automate the handling of repeat customer orders

• Digitise phone and email order intake

• Eliminate manual data entry into your ERP system

• Personalise pricing or product recommendations

At first glance, building an AI agent in-house seems like a great idea. It promises complete control, tailored functionality, and the ability to align the tool 100% with your internal workflows. You might think, “Why settle for a general tool when we can build something just for us?”

But here's the catch: AI isn’t like building a spreadsheet macro or setting up an inventory alert. It requires deep expertise in software engineering, machine learning, data science, and systems integration. You’ll need to:

• Gather and clean your internal data

• Train a machine learning model to understand your specific language, orders, and exceptions

• Build a user interface or integrate it into your existing tools

• Continuously update and refine the system as your business changes

It’s tempting. Building your own AI tool gives you full control, lets you customise every detail, and promises something tailored exactly to your workflows.

But unless you already run a software company on the side, all of that is likely far outside your team’s wheelhouse.

2. DIY AI is expensive (and not just in dollars)

Let’s say you decide to build your own AI system. What will it take?

• Hiring: At a minimum, you’ll need a team of engineers to support your system. For a full experience, you’ll need machine learning engineers, data scientists, software developers, and product managers.

• Data preparation: Your data is likely in emails, PDFs, handwritten notes, or buried in an ERP—not AI-ready.

• Development time: Expect 6–18 months before it’s up and running (and that’s if things go smoothly).

• Ongoing costs: After launch, the work doesn’t stop. You’ll need to maintain, retrain, and troubleshoot constantly.

And while you’re busy doing all that? Your competitors using FOBOH are already reaping the benefits of automation today.

3. Building from a reference point of one

When you build an AI tool in-house, you’re doing so based on a single frame of reference: your business. While that may seem like a strength, it actually creates a narrow foundation for building your tech.

Your data, workflows, and language are unique — but they’re just one slice of the foodservice industry. That means your solutions will be limited to what you know, what you’ve experienced, and what you’ve had time to design. 

FOBOH’s AI Agents, on the other hand, are built based on industry best practice. We bring in research from industry across multiple geographies. Our tools are shaped by real-world problems across the industry; not just one operation. That means our AI systems are trained on industry-wide patterns, exceptions, and edge cases.

In short, by tapping into the broader foodservice ecosystem, and bringing to you the best in class technology to help enable simpler, smarter and more sustainable evolution of your processes, people and tech. This means better accuracy, faster results, and stronger outcomes for your team.

4. FOBOH’s AI Agents are built for the way you work

Here’s the good news: you don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

FOBOH’s AI Agents are purpose-built for foodservice. They are easy to fit in your business and teams.

• Understands messy, unstructured orders from email, SMS, or phone logs

• Familiar with foodservice-specific language like “same as last time,” “sub with 5kg tubs,” and “customer-specific pricing”

• Integrates with existing systems like your ERP, EDI, or email tools

• Learns and improves continuously, using patterns across the entire industry

It’s like having your best sales rep on their best day—every day—handling order admin, logging requests, and freeing up your real team to sell.

5. The Real Cost Comparison: FOBOH vs Build-Your-Own

6. Final Thoughts

There’s no need to play mad scientist with your margins.

FOBOH’s AI Agents are already built for foodservice. They’re trained on the chaos of distribution, honed on millions of data points, and deployed by teams who want to spend more time selling and less time sorting spreadsheets.

Here’s how our AI Agents can cater to your foodservice supply chain needs:

• Alan for automating orders

• Sal for smart inventory suggestions and sales boosts

• Daz for data-driven insights and sales optimisation

• Shaz for mastering invoices and cashflow

You move food. We move at your pace. Let’s do it together.

Ready to see FOBOH’s AI in action?

Book a demo or get in touch with our team—we’d love to show you what smarter selling really looks like.