Comparison
Carrots vs FoodByUs
FoodByUs sells to venues, not to distributors. It is less a competitor than a channel you might sell through, and the two sit together perfectly well.
What FoodByUs is
It is the venue's software, not the distributor's
Their home page addresses the buyer directly: “One order management solution to efficiently run your restaurant, cafe, hotel, catering business, aged care facility, pub, club”, and invites them to “Consolidate all your suppliers in one place”. Every feature on it serves the person buying food, not the person selling it.
A marketplace, and a reason to use it
They offer venues access to “hundreds of wholesale suppliers across 16+ categories”, plus a cashback programme run with manufacturer partners. For a venue that is a genuine reason to order through them rather than direct, and for a supplier it is a route to venues you have not met.
Tools aimed at the kitchen
Menu costing, price tracking, an invoice hub and integrations with Lightspeed, Ordermate, H&L, Square, Xero, QuickBooks, MYOB and Tenzo. This is a point-of-sale and accounting surface for a venue, which is not a surface Carrots has any reason to touch.
What we could not establish
We found no supplier-side platform features on their public site on 13 September 2026: nothing about running your own catalogue, price books, trade accounts or ordering channel. That may exist behind a login. We are not going to assert that it does not.
What Carrots is
It is the distributor's software
Carrots is the system a distributor runs their trading on: the storefront their customers order from, the back office behind it, the pricing engine, payments, delivery scheduling and customer messaging.
The relationship stays yours
Your customers order on your domain, under your brand, in an app published under your name, against price books you set. Nobody sits between you and the account.
Pricing complexity is the point
Price books, contract lines, quantity breaks and promotions resolved in one chain, so the cart, the invoice and the ERP agree. That is a supplier's problem and a marketplace has no reason to solve it.
These two are not mutually exclusive
Selling through a marketplace and running your own ordering channel are different jobs. Plenty of distributors will sensibly do both: take the exposure a marketplace brings, and keep their established accounts on a channel they own.
Side by side
Where the answers actually differ
No ticks and no scores. A tick means whatever the vendor filling it in wants it to mean.
| FoodByUs | Carrots | |
|---|---|---|
| Whose software is it | FoodByUsThe venue's. Their customer is the restaurant, cafe, hotel, pub or aged care operator. | CarrotsThe distributor's. Our customer is the business selling to those venues. |
| What it does for a distributor | FoodByUsPuts your products in a marketplace where venues already sourcing there can find and order them. | CarrotsGives you your own ordering channel, back office, pricing engine, payments and delivery scheduling. |
| Who holds the customer relationship | FoodByUsThe venue's relationship is with FoodByUs, who they order through. | CarrotsYours. The account is on your platform and the order is placed with you. |
| Complex trade pricing | FoodByUsNot something we found addressed on their public site, and not what a buyer-side tool is for. | CarrotsThe centre of the product. |
| Can you use both | FoodByUsYes. | CarrotsYes, and for many distributors that is the right answer rather than a compromise. |
Choose FoodByUs if
- You are a venue buying food rather than a distributor selling it. That is who the product is built for, and it is built well for them.
- You want exposure to venues already sourcing through their marketplace, which is a distribution channel rather than a platform decision.
Choose Carrots if
- You are the supplier, and you need the software that runs your side of the trade.
- Your established accounts should be ordering on a channel you own rather than through an intermediary.
- Your price books, contract rates and quantity breaks need to hold on every order.
- You want Australian GST, ABN validation and tax invoices handled properly.
- You would like to do both: keep your own channel, and take marketplace exposure on top of it.
How this was written
Everything above about FoodByUs comes from their own public material, read in September 2026. Nothing here is drawn from a private evaluation, a third-party review site, or a customer’s spreadsheet.
Products change. If you work at FoodByUs and something here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will correct it — that is a better outcome for us than being caught out by a prospect. FoodByUs is their trademark and we are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or partnered with them.
Still not sure which fits?
Tell us what you distribute, what you run on, and what your reps do all day. If the answer is FoodByUs, we will say so.