This global food manufacturer needed a logistics partner embedded deeply enough in its UK and European operations to manage complex temperature-controlled logistics, samples, stock and events as an extension of its own team.
The challenge
The customer is a global food manufacturer with more than 20,000 employees, products sold in over 150 countries and more than 40 production facilities worldwide. Its logistics requirements extend far beyond routine transport, with teams across the UK business needing frozen, chilled and ambient products moved between production, cold-storage, development and customer locations, alongside stock replenishment, trials, presentations and trade events.
Requirements range from a single sample case to large multi-case loads, often with tight deadlines and frequent changes. Extra products, urgent customer shortages, revised event quantities or additional equipment regularly need to be absorbed without disrupting the wider operation.
The solution
Really Cool Logistics has worked with the customer for around two decades, making this one of RCL’s longest-standing relationships. Over that time, RCL has become a core part of the customer’s day-to-day logistics operation.
RCL coordinates temperature-controlled collections and deliveries across the UK and Europe, holds frozen stock and event equipment, picks and packs products for onward movement, combines consignments from different sources and stages them for later delivery.
RCL uses multi-temperature refrigerated vehicles with moveable bulkheads and independently controlled compartments to carry different temperature regimes in the same vehicle. For European movements, RCL coordinates customs documentation and border formalities, while onboard Transcan units record journey temperatures for post-delivery reporting.
For trade events and presentations, RCL prepares product and equipment, delivers to the venue, assists with set-up where required, remains onsite when needed and recovers equipment afterwards for return to storage.
The level of integration means the customer’s teams routinely work directly with RCL around stock availability, product selection and changes to upcoming deliveries. Because the RCL team already understands the customer’s products, equipment and working practices, last-minute changes are incorporated into the existing operation rather than treated as a separate logistics exercise.
That flexibility is used regularly. One urgent 100-case load was requested during the afternoon for collection and delivery the following day. Event requirements are also frequently amended close to dispatch, with product quantities reduced or increased and additional equipment added after the original plan has been agreed.
The operation in numbers
The partnership has enabled the customer to:
Reduce internal operational complexity by combining stockholding, picking, packing, transport and event support through one established partner
Run product trials, customer presentations and trade events across the UK and Europe without logistics becoming a constraint
Respond quickly to urgent shortages and last-minute changes without disrupting the wider operation
The result
RCL operates as an extension of the customer’s own team, supporting multiple departments with one established logistics operation rather than a series of disconnected transport bookings.
The customer relies on RCL for routine temperature-controlled movements across the UK and Europe, urgent customer requirements, stock holding, sample distribution and complex event support, all managed by a team that already understands how the wider operation fits together.
