The wholesaler’s recipe for success in winning public procurement contracts

Mårdskog & Lindqvist is a locally rooted food wholesaler in Sweden that has successfully expanded its market position from primarily serving commercial customers to winning several public sector contracts. A journey that would not have been possible without the right digital support

The family-owned wholesaler Mårdskog & Lindqvist takes pride in offering its customers a complete product range combined with local service across southern Sweden. Geographic proximity is an important part of the company’s offering — one third of its suppliers are small-scale local producers, something that sets them apart in the market. Their customer base includes restaurants, large-scale kitchens, cafés, and hotels. In recent years, they have also started supplying food products to municipalities in the surrounding area.

The challenge: Entering the public sector market

The pandemic years had a major impact on Mårdskog & Lindqvist. At the time, most of the company’s sales came from the commercial market, which was heavily affected by restrictions and a drastically reduced customer base. Expanding into the public sector became critical, as sales volumes there remained stable even during uncertain times.

However, responding to public food procurement tenders is a challenging task — especially for smaller companies without previous experience or dedicated resources. Tender documents from municipalities and regions are often both extensive and highly detailed. Manually comparing requirements with products in the assortment and managing tender responses in Excel was simply not a sustainable option.

To even make participation worthwhile, system support was essential. For Mårdskog & Lindqvist, the answer was Matilda Needle — a smart solution designed to support the tender process for public food procurement.

System support — a prerequisite for responding to public procurement tenders

Since Mårdskog & Lindqvist started using Matilda FoodTech Needle to support their public procurement work, they have made significant progress — both in terms of efficiency and winning contracts. Several nearby municipalities are now customers, allowing Gabriel to focus fully on strengthening the company’s position in the public sector market.

With Needle, procurement requirements are automatically matched against Mårdskog & Lindqvist’s product assortment, making it quick and easy to identify which products are relevant to include in the tender response. However, achieving accurate matching depends on products being updated with the correct information in Dabas.

This is an area with clear room for improvement, especially among smaller local producers who may not always have the knowledge or resources to work actively with product information in Dabas. As product data quality improves, more locally produced items will also be matched automatically — reducing the need for manual work during the tender process.

“Good system support is a prerequisite for us to be able to respond to public procurement tenders. But just as important is the support we receive from our contact person at Matilda FoodTech. It’s easy to get help with the system and discuss ideas or questions related to the entire procurement process,” concludes Gabriel Isik.