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Today's busy customers demand fresher, more appealing offerings from their grocers and convenience stores. To meet these needs, shippers must guarantee that deliveries will be on time, with built-in flexibility to respond when volumes spike.

To improve operations, shippers can utilize a mix of technology, equipment and expertise to leverage the , which works to reduce spoilage, offer a wider range of items than they may have had in the past and provide the freshest food products possible, and as a result, focus on their core competencies and better compete within the marketplace.

Maximize Your Food Supply Chain

1. Develop a Separate Cold Supply Chain

Freshness drives the food business. To accelerate that freshness, some companies create separate supply chains for the different segments and profit centers within a store. Here's how this separation works:

• Pull highly perishable items out of traditional distribution channels and put them in more rapid-replenishment distribution channels, often called fresh or cold chains
• Use smaller, more agile trucks to make more frequent, speedy deliveries
• Give the grocer the fuel efficiency benefits of smaller trucks for the rapid-refill items
• Build smaller warehouses, closer together for quick, easy access