ChillNet

RDC Deliveries

RDC Deliveries

There is no more demanding sector in UK logistics than chilled inbound movements for the major grocery retailers.

The retailers are very focussed on minimising wastage in this short life category and so the timeliness of the supply chain is critical. They send in orders to their suppliers which are calculated to the exact number of cases required for each stock keeping unit (SKU) to each regional distribution centre (RDC). Typically orders are received during the morning and if we are holding the stock on behalf of our customer we immediately begin picking the individual RDC orders.

The complete orders are then marshalled ready for despatch, the appropriate paperwork is generated, in some cases each RDC is then pre-advised of exactly what is being sent to them via electronic confirmation and then the goods are loaded on a chilled vehicle on behalf of several customers with product destined for the same RDC – usually requiring an overnight delivery. Each RDC has allocated individual stores and their function is to assemble and consolidate the entire order for each store from hundreds of different suppliers – usually making the final delivery on multiple temperature vehicles.

The major retailers all have at least eight RDC’s in the UK and some of them also have RDC’s in Ireland. Despatches run six or seven days per week and so this cycle repeats daily.

As a result, chilled goods that were situated in Bridgwater can be in chilled display cabinets in thousands of retail outlets throughout the UK less than 24 hours after they were despatched from stock.

A customer arriving in a supermarket in Aberdeen at around 11.00 AM would have no idea that some of the goods in the chilled section that they were looking at had hardly ever stopped moving over a journey of nearly 550 miles during the previous 18 hours.

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