This established UK food manufacturer needed a temperature-controlled logistics partner to keep a high-frequency national foodservice operation moving smoothly as volumes, routes and urgent stock requirements changed.
The challenge
An established UK food manufacturer supplies a broad network of foodservice customers and major distributors. Its outbound operation requires chilled product to leave production in the early hours and reach multiple receiving sites within strict delivery windows.
Daily volumes vary, routes change, some destinations require booked delivery slots or manual unloading, and inbound frozen stock also needs collecting from suppliers and cold stores. Additional vehicles, reloads and urgent movements have to be absorbed without disrupting planned deliveries.
The solution
Really Cool Logistics runs the customer’s temperature-controlled distribution up to six days a week, with refrigerated vans and larger temperature-controlled vehicles dispatched from the production site from the early hours. Routes include direct and multi-drop deliveries, with drivers returning to reload and complete second runs where required.
RCL also manages receiving-depot bookings, delivery references and site-specific unloading requirements as part of the same operation.
RCL’s dual-temperature refrigerated vehicles use moveable bulkheads and independently controlled compartments, allowing chilled and frozen consignments to travel at separate set points within the same vehicle.
The operation also includes inbound frozen product and unusual temperature instructions. On one frozen pallet movement, the product needed to begin tempering during transit, so the refrigeration unit was deliberately switched off after collection and the load was managed to the customer’s instruction.
Short-notice changes form part of the normal operation. An urgent full-load request received first thing in the morning was collected within hours and delivered to two customer sites the same day. RCL also reorganises vehicles when order volumes exceed one van, collection arrangements change or stock substitutions delay loading.
The operation in numbers
The partnership has enabled the customer to:
Keep a national foodservice delivery programme running up to six days a week despite daily changes in volume and routing
Absorb urgent orders, reloads and inbound stock movements without disrupting scheduled customer deliveries
Meet tight receiving windows, site-specific unloading requirements and complex temperature instructions through one integrated transport operation
The result
RCL functions as part of the customer’s transport operation, giving its team one established partner for planned daily distribution, inbound stock movements and the exceptions that arise around a live food-manufacturing schedule.
The customer keeps production and customer service moving while RCL reshapes the daily transport plan around changing order volumes, delivery windows, collection arrangements and temperature requirements.
