Improve Foodservice Order Fulfillment Efficiency

Solving the Complicated Puzzle of Foodservice Logistics

Efficiency is of the utmost importance in the foodservice industry. Not only do suppliers seek to fully leverage resources, eliminate unnecessary costs, and minimize expensive errors, but there are also food safety issues and regulations to contend with. Unproductive processes can lead to valuable time and labor wasted through intensive, hands-on sorting.

Multiple handling touchpoints make product damage and spoilage more likely. And transportation costs can skyrocket due to inefficient pallet configurations, leading to bloated distribution timelines and unnecessary trips. TGW Logistics’ warehouse automation solutions provide customized order fulfillment solutions that reduce costs, free up workers for higher-level tasks, optimize efficiency, and decrease risk.

How Inefficient Palletization Increases Order Fulfillment Costs

As the foodservice industry faces workforce challenges, automating as many systems as possible can help fill the gaps created by chronic understaffing. Relying on inefficient palletization and hands-on labor negatively impacts your bottom line in several ways.

While implementing new automated order fulfillment solutions may seem costly, the truth is that manual sorting, especially as part of an otherwise disorganized system, is more expensive in the long run. Having workers manually sort through and reconfigure pallets at distribution centers and delivery destinations keeps them from doing higher-value tasks at both ends. Additionally, with labor shortages compounding and other suppliers falling behind, automated palletizing gives your company a much-needed competitive edge.

Upgrading your palletization system has other benefits besides more efficiently utilizing employee time. Less-than-optimized methods can lead to unnecessary fuel and freight expenses in the delivery stage. With traditional pallet configurations, ensuring that all truckloads are full is much more complex, resulting in wasted space. And, of course, underutilizing space results in more shipments and miles traveled to meet your clients' needs on time.

The possibility of product spoilage and damage is even more concerning, and the risk increases with every handling stage along the way. Here again, old methods of stacking and organizing pallets can lead to losses, whether crushed, damaged, or even contaminated products. Additionally, facilities are subject to strict safe food handling guidelines from the FDA, including an emphasis on safe palletizing to keep food products safe until they reach their destination.

The USDA’s Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) requirements apply to meat and poultry facilities and are primarily concerned with pathogen reduction, including in the storage and distribution phases.

The bottom line is that reducing touchpoints via innovative automation solutions results in a safer and more compliant foodservice facility overall.

Destination-Based Palletizing Is the Solution

As the National Restaurant Association notes, adopting and implementing new technical solutions streamlines operations across the foodservice industry. Innovation is rapidly changing how everyone, from suppliers to restaurants, does business, boosting efficiency and reducing risks.

TGW Logistics’ warehouse automation solutions are designed to support the specific needs of foodservice sector clients and address those pain points most impacting your business.

Destination-based palletizing is a warehouse automation approach that groups orders by their final destination, whether your product is heading to a store, distribution center, restaurant, or regional hub. Organizing pallets by this method helps to ensure that only full or fully maximized truckloads are heading out for deliveries, reducing fuel and cost waste. It also saves time, labor, and unnecessary handling upon arrival since there’s no need for extra sorting. You may even find space to store more goods in your facility once your system has been upgraded, increasing your overall capacity.

Reaping the benefits of this type of automation is simple with TGW Logistics. Destination-based palletizing is a three-step process:

Step 1: Orders are grouped by their delivery route or final destination via an automated process. This decreases touchpoints and manual input and eliminates the need for further sorting once delivered.
Step 2: Pallets are built and stored with maximum truckload efficiency in mind. By filling all available space, you can maximize the amount of product going out in each shipment and avoid extraneous trips.
Step 3: Automated handling reduces the chances of product damage. The risk of spoilage, contamination, and damage rises with every touchpoint. Minimize handling via automated logistics solutions and lose less product.

The Benefits to Your Foodservice Business

We’ve established that TGW Logistics’ warehouse automation solutions give foodservice businesses a significant advantage in efficiently, safely, and cost-effectively fulfilling orders. For example, by automating the three-temperature zone facility of one of our customers, TGW Logistics was able to shorten their delivery route stop times from 45 minutes to 15 minutes, increase the number of stops per delivery by 35 percent, and reduce warehouse labor by two-thirds. Now, let’s break down those benefits further.

Destination-based palletizing can slash labor costs, with less worker time dedicated to re-sorting orders upon reaching their destinations. Automating your pallet organization system reduces payroll expenses by decreasing your company’s reliance on manual labor to perform easily automated tasks. By automating these tasks, skilled workers are given more valuable time to dedicate to tasks requiring manual input or supervision.

A streamlined order fulfillment system will lead to more efficient use of trucks and fuel during the delivery phase. The optimized pallet configurations made possible by TGW Logistics’ automation solutions ensure fully maximized truckloads and, therefore, fewer, more targeted shipments. Fewer unnecessary trips mean big savings in fuel and freight costs, as well as worker time.

Automated palletizing decreases potentially costly delivery errors, as orders are already pre-sorted by their route or destination before distribution. This pre-sorting and more efficient delivery system gets orders where they’re going faster. It cuts down the time needed to unload at each stop, reducing instances of spoilage and food waste for perishable goods.

Proper pallet stacking is essential to minimizing cross-contamination risks following FDA and HACCP food safety requirements. Automating this process guarantees that your business complies with these regulations without additional effort. By sticking with consistent, regimented pallet structures, your facility can increase overall stability and decrease the risk of damaged products during transport due to faulty storage.

Why TGW Logistics’ Automation Solutions Lead the Industry

Taking your facility to the next level in efficiency, cost-effectiveness, speed, and safety is easily within reach with the implementation of TGW Logistics’ warehouse automation technology. Our solutions enable smart, customizable palletization to suit your business’s unique needs and tackle the specific challenges the foodservice sector faces.

You'll maximize each truckload by doing away with disorganized, unstable palletizing, eliminating the fuel and freight costs associated with unnecessary deliveries. And pre-sorting will reduce payroll costs and increase efficiency amid staffing shortages, freeing workers to take on more complicated tasks.

You can also expect a smoother fulfillment process and fewer potentially costly mistakes. TGW Logistics’ advanced software guarantees precise order fulfillment by lessening the likelihood of human error and ensuring the same efficient processes every time. We also offer integrated food safety compliance features to make it simple to meet regulatory requirements, including those of the FDA and the HACCP, without sacrificing speed.

TGW Logistics does not take a “one-size-fits-all” approach. These solutions are tailored for your business and easily updated when necessary. There’s no reason to settle for how things have “always” been done or to be left behind as the rest of the foodservice industry leverages new technologies.

Contact TGW Logistics today to explore how we can help streamline your order fulfillment process.

Improve Order Fulfillment Efficiency and Reduce Costs with Foodservice Solutions