If you fail to plan ahead, you’re effectively planning to fail, as the old business maxim goes. A case in point is the food industry. As a snack foods business, you need to prepare for potential issues with shipments that will require fast action. For example, how are you going to respond if there is a product recall? Or, how can your warehouse and shipping partners help you avoid shipping out products that are at their expiration date?
It certainly is wise to anticipate only the best for your business and its prognosis for success, but it’s also prudent to be well prepared for potential pitfalls with your snack products.
The Problem with Product Recalls
You need to have at least one person on your team always available to monitor the news for word of product recalls since such a disaster can strike at any time. Let’s say you discover an issue with one of your snacks, or that a government agency has discovered a problem with the food and now is ordering a recall.
What you need at this point is a talented 3PL team, such as the professionals at American Warehouse to be able to understand the significance of the product recall and then remove the items from the supply chain. Sometimes the manufacturer will want the items returned, and sometimes it makes more sense to have the warehousing professionals identify and then destroy the problematic snack products.
Is Your Food About to Expire?
Figuring out when to move items and where is a logistical responsibility that you have to pay close attention to since there are so many moving parts in today’s modern supply chain.
You don’t want to hold out on wholesalers, leaving them without the correct number of items in their order. But likewise, you don’t want to burden the ends of the chain with products that are close to their expiration date, or the “best by” use date.
When you partner with 3PL experts, you can make use of automated expiry date tracking. With this tool, you can move these items accordingly, and decide whether you want to put them on sale or to remove them from the warehouse entirely.
Boost Your Snack Foods Business by Partnering with the Third-Party Logistics Team at American Warehouse, Inc.
Whether you run a new startup snacks company and may be anticipating some hiccups along the way, or are an established foods business that knows it needs the help of established 3PL professionals, the team at American Warehouse, Inc. is standing by to help you take your business to the next level.
Our team has experience with snacks and cold chain shipping logistics concerns. We also know how crucial it is to stay on top of issues such as sudden product recalls and the ability to track products’ expiration dates so that you can keep the supply of goods moving through the chain as efficiently as possible.
To learn more about our third-party logistics capabilities and how we can help your snacks business thrive, we invite you to contact American Warehouse, Inc. today.