Case Study

Transportation Consolidation and Overhead Savings in the Food and Beverage Industry

How Covenant helped a nationwide fresh produce brand consolidate transportation to one location and save money in the process.

The Overview

When the core of your business is built on a freshness guarantee, it’s safe to say that timing and reliability are the two most essential factors in your logistics solution. That’s why, when looking to consolidate their transportation, they turned to the transportation experts – Covenant Logistics. Our team consolidated their transportation needs and saved them money while doing it, all while ensuring they could keep their freshness guaranteed promise. 

The Challenge

This company has its farm-to-table process down to a science. They built their business model on the promise that their ready-to-go salad kits will be fresh every time, or you will get your money back. It's excellent for their consumers, but it means hard work for the logistics behind the promise. The process is so intricate that they only harvest the produce at night or in the early hours of the morning when temperatures are at their most cool. From that point, they must keep the product at a minimum of 36 degrees until it reaches the customer's hand at the grocery store. That combined with the fact that they needed to consolidate facilities, we knew we had the flexibility in our solutions to meet their needs. 

Characteristics 

  • Perfect reefer performance required for the “cold chain” promise to their customers
  • All produce is sourced locally to the store for their “guaranteed fresh” policy

Expectations

  • High, on-time service delivery requirements
  • Dedicated fleet to service 3 processing facilities
  • Product specific temperature-controlled delivery requirements

The Solution

  • Temperature-controlled dedicated fleets to three supporting processing facilities in Harrisburg, PA; Morrow, GA; and, Grand Prairie, TX
  • Deliveries into grocery warehouses & DCs
  • 23 Solo Fleet Drivers
  • 8 Yard Drivers
  • Fresh Express was able to downsize staffing, and consolidate all transportation to Orlando, FL

Results

Covenant’s agility and commitment to the partnership created a successful process that helps deliver freshness to your grocery store daily. We successfully took their operation from 5 supporting facilities to 3, and with their own dedicated team of drivers – helping to ensure even more that their policies and promises are delivered daily. 

As of today, a dedicated team of 23 solo drivers and 8 yard drivers (did we mention we manage one of their yard facilities, too?) make up this team. The stand-out team helps to ensure they can deliver on their promise of freshness guaranteed, and by doing so, we can also deliver on our promise… Our Promise, is Your Success. 

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