|
|
|
Daniels Chilled Foods
Squeezing the Cost
Daniels Chilled Foods is a group of companies providing high quality natural fresh food for consumption at home, in restaurants and through catering outlets. A wide product range includes soup, sandwich fillings, freshly squeezed juices and prepared fruit. The company’s client base covers a wide variety of outlets including major multiples, catering distributors, airline caterers, wholesalers, multiple and smaller coffee shops and sandwich bars.
The need to continually supply fresh products, many with a short shelf life, across such a varied client base and order requirement on a daily basis is a logistical challenge. Add the need to maintain integrity of the chill chain, as well as many receiving points requiring delivery as early as 4am to meet rush hour customers purchasing on their way to work, and the matrix of distribution requirements becomes more complex. So far, Daniels Chilled Foods has handled much of its outbound logistics requirement in-house but this has come under increased pressure as a result of significant year on year sales growth.
Davies & Robson was commissioned to carry out a preliminary review of Daniels Chilled Foods’ current logistics operations to identify potential opportunities for improving service and reducing costs. Whilst it was important that the planned growth could be accommodated the disparate demands of the Groups companies and the markets they serve also needed to be recognised and guaranteed.
Davies & Robson looked at the current manufacturing and logistics infrastructure (as a result of a number of acquisitions over recent years the company has production facilities in Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire and Kent, as well as Central London) and were quickly able to highlight and report on a number of tactical areas with recommendations covering warehousing, distribution and customer service.
Following the review Daniels have commenced implementation of a number of important strategic changes aimed at reducing cost and more closely matching the needs of its customer base.
www.sdaniels.co.uk
|