Cut+Dry

Mani Kulasooriya, Co-Founder and CEO

While the company is often described as an ecommerce platform for distributors, that framing misses the point. Cut+Dry is not just another layer of digital ordering. It is a data-layer transformation company addressing the structural issue that has prevented foodservice from evolving at pace.

Across the foodservice supply chain — spanning manufacturers, distributors, and restaurant operators — data has historically been fragmented, inconsistent, and largely analog. This is not a minor inefficiency. It is the reason previous attempts at digitization have delivered limited returns. Without structured data, technology cannot scale effectively, automation remains constrained, and visibility across the supply chain remains limited.

By connecting manufacturers, distributors, and restaurant operators on a unified structured data layer, Cut+Dry enables scalable ecommerce, operational automation, intelligent workflows, and AI-driven execution across the foodservice ecosystem.

Standardizing the Chaos

The founding team behind Cut+Dry arrived at this realization through direct experience. After building and exiting a prior company to Sysco, they had a front-row seat to the operational realities of one of the largest foodservice distributors in the United States.

What they saw was not a lack of willingness to adopt technology, but a system that could not support it.

The problem was not the interface. It was infrastructure.

Before becoming Cut+Dry, the company operated under the name Codify.AI with a singular focus: structuring and standardizing foodservice data at scale. That decision continues to define the company today. Everything else — the platform, workflows, user experience, automation, and AI capabilities — is built on top of that foundation.

What has emerged is a unified system in which manufacturers, distributors, and restaurant operators operate on the same structured data layer. This is where Cut+Dry separates itself from both legacy systems and newer point solutions. The company is not simply enabling transactions; it is standardizing the information that drives them.

“The scale of this model is already significant,” says Mani Kulasooriya, Co-Founder and CEO. “Cut+Dry processes approximately $32 billion in transactions annually, accounting for about eight percent of the total foodservice market and nearly twenty percent of the independent restaurant segment.”

But scale alone is not the differentiator. The real advantage lies in the depth of data captured across every transaction. Every interaction becomes structured, traceable, and actionable.

From this foundation, the platform layer becomes exponentially more powerful.

Distributors can offer a seamless digital ordering experience that mirrors the convenience of consumer platforms, but with significantly greater operational intelligence underneath. The results are meaningful. Distributors adopting Cut+Dry typically see approximately twenty percent revenue growth within the first year.

This growth is not driven by discounting or promotional tactics. It comes from eliminating friction throughout the purchasing process.

At the same time, operational costs improve materially. Sales, marketing, customer service, and administrative workflows become more efficient as ordering, payments, logistics, and customer interactions operate within a single connected system instead of fragmented tools and manual processes.

Restaurant operators experience a similar transformation. Procurement becomes faster, more intuitive, and easier to manage because product information is structured, standardized, and consistent across the ordering experience.

The platform does not just make ordering easier. It makes decision-making clearer.

Making Demand Measurable

The most underappreciated impact, however, is on manufacturers.

In traditional foodservice, manufacturers operate at a distance from demand. They lack visibility into who is buying their products and have limited ability to influence those decisions.

Cut+Dry changes this dynamic by creating a direct, data-driven connection to the point of purchase.

Manufacturers can now engage with demand in a targeted, measurable way without disrupting the distributor relationship. Because the platform operates on clean, unified data, campaign performance becomes measurable down to the SKU and operator level.

The results are substantial. Campaigns executed on the platform generate an average return on advertising spend of approximately nine times, with some campaigns reaching fourteen to fifteen times ROAS.

These outcomes are not simply the result of better advertising tools. They are structurally enabled by the presence of clean, unified data.

This data-first approach has also driven broader industry validation. UniPro, the largest independent foodservice distribution cooperative in the United States, selected Cut+Dry to power its supplier connectivity platform — reinforcing the idea that structured data is no longer optional within foodservice. It is foundational.

Not Just Integrated—Intelligent

The platform’s integrated architecture reinforces this advantage. Unlike point solutions that address isolated functions, Cut+Dry brings ordering, payments, CRM, and logistics into a single system.

This integration is not simply about convenience. It ensures every workflow operates on the same underlying data layer, eliminating inconsistencies while enabling automation and intelligence across the system.

That foundation becomes even more valuable in the context of artificial intelligence.

AI is only as effective as the data it operates on. In fragmented environments, AI produces fragmented outcomes. In structured environments, it becomes transformative.

Cut+Dry is already moving in this direction through products like Yes Chef, which leverage structured public and proprietary data to automate complex sales and operational workflows. Tasks that once required days of manual effort can now be completed in minutes.

More importantly, the direction of the industry is becoming increasingly clear. Technology is shifting from simply assisting human workflows to actively executing them.

Closing the Gap between Technology and Foodservice

Foodservice has historically evolved slowly, while technology — particularly AI — is advancing at an accelerating pace. The gap between the two continues to widen.

Companies operating on fragmented systems will struggle to adopt emerging technologies effectively. Companies operating on structured data foundations will be able to move faster, automate more intelligently, and adapt more efficiently.

As Kulasooriya explains, “We are not just an e-commerce platform for food service distributors. We are a digital platform that connects manufacturers, distributors, and restaurant operators together on the same unified structured data across the entire platform.”

That statement captures the essence of Cut+Dry’s positioning. The company is not competing on features or interfaces. It is competing at the infrastructure level.

By solving the data problem first, Cut+Dry has created a system where every subsequent layer — commerce, operations, payments, automation, and AI — becomes significantly more effective.

Structured Data as Foodservice’s Defining Advantage
In an industry where margins are tight and complexity is high, this distinction matters. Structured data is not simply an operational improvement. It is a competitive advantage.

It determines how efficiently businesses operate, how effectively they scale, and how quickly they can adopt the next generation of technology.

Cut+Dry’s role is not to introduce change for its own sake, but to make that advantage accessible. By rebuilding foodservice on a structured data foundation, it is enabling a shift that the industry has long needed but has been unable to execute.

And in a market where most players still operate on fragmented data, the ability to act on clean, unified data is not just an upgrade. It is the difference between keeping up and pulling ahead.