Earlier we wrote about the vulnerability of food products such as meat, vegetables and fruit. These are consumer goods that need to arrive undamaged at their destination, such as a supermarket. Due to hygienic requirements and limited shelf life, it is necessary that these products are transported quickly. For the transport of meat (substitutes), people use refrigerated containers, hygienic pallets and meat crates, among other things. It is important to ensure that there are always enough of these load carriers available so that the production process can continue. A shortage of refrigerated containers, hygienic pallets and meat crates upsets the delivery schedule and causes dissatisfied customers. In this article you can read how you can always have enough load carriers available to transport meat.

Preventing shortages of returnable assets

As a supplier of food products, you want to meet the demand of your customers at all times. Therefore, it is important to have enough plastic pallets and meat crates available to transport the products. As we already mentioned in the introduction, a shortage of crates and plastic pallets will disrupt the delivery schedule. Shortages often come from loss, theft, damage or simply incorrect return delivery. Yet this does not have to be the reality. If you know how many orders have been placed and if you have an exact idea of how many load carriers are available, you can estimate when a shortage is imminent.

Transporting specific containers and crates correctly

Food products are transported in specific load carriers, such as hygiene pallets, meat crates and meat containers. Especially with food products, it is important that the products arrive at their destination in one piece, otherwise there is a chance that the products are no longer suitable for sale. In addition, meat must be refrigerated during transport. These and other hygienic requirements for food products mean that meat can only be transported in certain stacking bins, meat crates, hygienic pallets and other load carriers.  This makes these load carriers expensive and even more important to manage.

Bins and crates returned

When the meat (replacements) are shipped to your various customers, such as supermarkets, the stacking bins and meat crates typically remain on site for unloading at a later time. However, the intention is to eventually return the load carriers so that it can be used again to transport products. If you want to know how many load carriers are at each location, it is important that you register the outgoing orders and returned load carriers. This way you get an overview of the numbers and locations of your bins and crates. Please note that a paper registration or a registration in Excel solves little to nothing. Read more in this article: TrackOnline versus Excel: 5 reasons why you should consider TrackOnline.

Management and registration of meat crates and meat containers

If you want to prevent shortages, transport meat products in one piece and also want to see the meat crates and containers returned, there is a solution: TrackOnline. In our packaging registration platform you easily register and manage the outgoing orders and the returned crates and pallets.

This way you know exactly how many meat crates, hygiene pallets and meat containers are at each location and you always have enough meat crates and pallets available to transport the meat. More information? Visit www.trackonline.com/en/industries/retail for more information on management of meat crates, bins and pallets in the meat industry. Do you want to try trackonline yourself? Create a free account for 30 days using this link.