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Long John Silver's transitions commodities, payment systems, hires new COO

Long John Silver's announced the company has outsourced its complete supply chain operation to SpenDifference.

May 27, 2015

Long John Silver's announced the company has outsourced its complete supply chain operation to SpenDifference. The 1,100-unit brand's franchise and corporate leadership hired SpenDifference to manage all aspects of its supply chain for its U.S. and Asia locations, including purchasing all food and non-food items, as well as distribution.

With the addition of Long John Silver's, SpenDifference will buy well over $1 billion worth of commodities and supplies for almost 7,000 restaurants, the release said. The company serves more than 20 other brands, including Carvel, Cinnabon, Schlotzsky's, Moe's Southwest Grill, Auntie Anne's, McAlister's Deli, Sizzler, Shoney's and HuHot Mongolian Grill.

Long John Silver's is utilizing SpenDifference's full outsource model, which includes placing on-site personnel at the brand's Louisville, Kentucky, headquarters, according to the release.

In a separate release, the company announced it upgraded its payments infrastructure to Ingencio Group's EMV- and NFC-ready payment terminals to support the upcoming EMV transition.

"As we prepared for the advent of chip-based cards, we also wanted to implement a solution with point-to-point encryption (P2PE) to provide bulletproof security over our customers' cardholder data, while also easing the process of meeting increasingly complex PCI requirements," said Craig Daniel, chief financial officer for Long John Silver's, in a statement. "During our competitive evaluation, Ingenico proved to have the most secure technology, the greatest experience with EMV, and the most flexible solution that allowed us to leverage our existing infrastructure without having to spend millions of dollars on network and infrastructure upgrade costs."

The company also stated that Brian Unger will serve as its new chief operating officer. Unger has more than 30 years of experience in the food service industry, which began as a manager trainee at McDonald's, where he achieved the positions of senior vice president of McDonald's USA and vice president of McDonald's Restaurants of Canada.