One of the many challenges that new food entrepreneurs face is finding an optimal solution for their supply chain management of which transport is one element.
The logistics in this context has two levels:
The supply of raw materials
With their professional local market players who have implemented solutions and practices adapted to assist a food entrepreneur who does not yet master the mechanics of this business. To provide themselves, a food entrepreneur must take into account several important elements:
Choice of a professional transporter that’s located in Brussels and that has food products in their stock in Brussels.
The ecology of transportation.
A transporter following the AFSCA norms.
A transporter that can guarantee that the food will stay fresh during and after transportation.
Possibility of working in partnership and assistance of a professional transporter and supplier specialized in Food.
A supplier that can easily adapt to their Just-In-Time supply pace.
Choice of a partner that achieves economies of scale to benefit from relatively low supply costs of their orders.
Considering all these criteria to be taken into account when choosing a supplier of raw materials, we have the example of two professional players in the Food service industry who intervene at several levels of their entire upstream supply chain system (purchase from organic producers, packaging, labeling, supply, transportation).
Solucious, Vandemoortele, Biofresh, ... are market players in the supplying of fresh food for professional clients. They take care of the availability in their food range of fresh, local and/or organic products according to the moment and frequency of their orders. The possibility of instant tracking of their delivery in order to complete their production. In addition to their business as a supplier, these operators can become their partners in assisting them as a start-up entrepreneur, by providing a more flexible service with more business days of delivery such as every Saturday, the possibility to adjust or modify their order two business days before delivery. Furthermore, they offer menu solutions through intelligent recipes to ensure their profitability. One of the added values of their service is the fact that their supply system ensures consistency between their customers' final orders and the quantities of raw materials they need to avoid food waste.
To optimize their supply costs, we recommend that they work with suppliers who already do a lot of business and achieve economies of scale
Source : www.solucious.be
These two operators work with a number of producers in Brussels, which guarantees the local origin and freshness of their food
Delivery to the final consumer
At this level it is a matter of delivering the prepared meals to each consumer. Several criteria must be taken into consideration in order to determine whether the entrepreneur should make the deliveries themselves, outsource them to a specialized company, or do a mix of both.
At this level it's important to analyze important criteria such as:
Proximity: an analysis of their service area should be done to determine where most of the online orders come from. For example, for a kitchen located in Brussels, the entrepreneur can observe whether the majority of his customers are located in the city center or in the suburbs. Based on this analysis, the choice of delivery method can be made. If the deliveries are relatively concentrated in the same geographical area and must be made at the same time, they could make the deliveries by themselves or by using bicycle delivery platforms. In the city of Brussels there are several bicycle delivery services (Urbike, Molenbike, Dioxyde de Gambettes, Ecopostale, PedalBXL, HUSH RUSH, Transpire Transport, Bubble Post, Deliveroo, Uber Eat, Mabool, etc). For an entrepreneur who, for example, has customers scattered throughout their service area, they could operate by grouping instead of individual deliveries by bicycle. We have delivery people who have mini-containers on bicycles and can deliver by geographic area.
In order to make a good analysis of their service area, they have a platform for geographical monitoring (http://monitoringdesquartiers.brussels/) which gives them details on the districts of Brussels and compares it with the original location of their customers.
Speed: we estimate the distance to ensure a fast delivery of hot meals at 3 km from their kitchens. It is therefore important for an entrepreneur to move into a kitchen that is not far from the city center of Brussels. BeCook! is located near Tours and Taxis, in the center of Brussels (3 km from the city center) which allows them to deliver in a larger area.
Cost: with the choice of delivery method the cost of each delivery must also be taken into account. As for the supply, they should opt for a delivery company that has a significant penetration rate on the Brussels market as well as one that already achieves economies of scale as is the case for bicycle delivery platforms.
The logistical means of the deliverer: it is important to take into account the different types of transport available to the deliverer. If, for example, they make fresh dishes in small quantities, they will need small refrigerated vans adapted for the preservation of the freshness of their dishes and the transport costs of their small quantities. Ideally, these vans could be used to organize multi-destination rounds at a specific time slot. There’s also another more flexible way of delivering your fresh meals to the final client, which are thermoboxes or isothermal containers of different sizes where you could arrange the meals to be delivered. It is a convenient way to organize your delivery by groupage and local.
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