Part 1 – Introduction
Millions of Brits purchase from food from restaurants, pubs, cafés and more across the country every year. But have you ever wondered how the food supplies and ingredients arrive at these places?
Last mile transport and logistic companies like Foodmove act as the critical medium, ensuring goods required for the meals and beverages sold at your favourite retailers safely arrive on time, at the right temperature in line with food safety and hygiene regulations.
Importance of last mile delivery?
Last mile delivery refers to the final stage of the delivery process which involves the transportation of the ordered goods from the wholesaler to the doorstep of the customer. Being a B2B (business to business) service provider, a few customers Foodmove makes deliveries to are V&A museum, BMW, Sony, BBC and more.
The operating costs of this process makes this the most expensive and complex phase in the delivery process. This is due to the various pressures to deliver on time, optimise driver routes, ensure clients receive their goods in perfect condition and many other factors.
The global last mile delivery market is projected to grow to £44b, up from £29b in 2020. It is imperative for last mile delivery services to improve their operations to keep up with the growing demand of clients, considering the global macro supply chain issues we’re currently experiencing.
How are the food items transported?
As you may have figured out already, placing a hot tikka masala alongside some pistachio ice cream would leave customers unhappy with the state of their goods to say the least. A simple solution may be to deliver the frozen, chilled, hot and ambient goods in separate vans to maintain quality.
However, with the high costs incurred with last mile delivery and the expectations of clients to receive their goods swiftly to keep up with their own demand, this would not be ideal.
The simple solution for this lies in the modification of the transport vans. Our vans are fully equipped with refrigerating systems that allow the frozen and chilled goods to be delivered at the suitable temperatures.
Ambient
- Ambient goods are the long-life foods that can be safely stored at room temperature such as pasta, sugar, seasoning and cereal. These goods are arguably the simplest to transport as these remain in suitable conditions at room temperature (20-22 °C). Ambient goods do not require further vehicle modifications to be transported safely.
Chilled
- Chilled food items such as dairy products need to be transported with more care than ambient foods due to significantly shorter shelf lives. The Food Safety and Hygiene Regulations 2013 state that chilled goods must be transported below 8°C to “inhibit or prevent harmful microorganisms from multiplying”. We ensure all of our chilled goods are transported between 2-5°C to maintain optimum conditions for our customers. This is easily achieved by placing the goods in the refrigerated section of our vans, which keeps the goods at optimum temperature.
Frozen
- Frozen goods must be kept between -18 and -22°C. Due to these extremely low temperatures, they must be transported separately from the chilled and ambient items. Our Foodmove vans are installed with freezer compartments which can store up to 900 kg of frozen items. These vans are able to store chilled and ambient items simultaneously without their conditions being compromised.
