The customer
A national packaged food brand with products sold through grocery, mass and club retailers as well as its own e-commerce channel. The brand was growing quickly, and its logistics had to keep up without putting food safety or order accuracy at risk.
Services: Food-Grade Warehousing · Warehousing & Storage · Pick & Pack Fulfillment · B2B Distribution
The situation
Food products bring rules that general merchandise doesn't. Every pallet carries a lot code and a best-by date, and both have to be tracked from the moment it hits the dock until it ships. Older product has to go out first. If there's ever a recall, the brand needs to know within hours exactly which lots went where.
On top of that, the brand was selling through two very different channels. Retail and distributor orders shipped by the pallet or case. E-commerce orders shipped one package at a time to consumers who expected them to arrive fast and intact.
The brand needed one partner who could handle both from a single, certified food-grade inventory.
What was at risk
In food, a tracking mistake does more damage than a late order. Shipping expired or short-dated product can get a load refused by a retailer. Losing track of a lot during a recall can turn a contained problem into a public one.
Growth added pressure. As volume climbed, the brand couldn't afford a warehouse that held up at low volume and slipped at high volume.
Food customers don't give second chances on safety.
What Clark did
Clark took in the brand's inventory at its GMP-certified, FDA-registered St. Louis facility and became its storage and fulfillment partner across both channels.
Over the course of the relationship, Clark:
Grew the account from about 300 to more than 1,500 pallet positions
Tracked lot codes and best-by dates on inbound receipts through the warehouse management system
Rotated stock so the oldest product shipped first
Shipped pallet and case orders to retail and distributor customers
Picked, packed, and shipped 300+ e-commerce orders a day from the same inventory
Ran mock recalls twice a year as part of its GMP certification
Gave the brand real-time visibility into inventory and orders through the client portal
Because both channels drew from one inventory, the brand always knew what it had on hand. It didn't have to split stock between a warehouse and a separate fulfillment house.
The result
Four years as the brand's storage and fulfillment partner
The account grew more than 4x with Clark. Food-safety standards and order accuracy held steady the whole way.
1,500+ Pallet positions
300+ E-commerce orders shipped per day
99.6% Order accuracy
2 Mock recalls run every year
[The relationship grew without a food-safety issue or a recall-tracing failure.]
In the customer's words
"We needed a warehouse that could handle food the right way and keep up with our growth on both the retail and e-commerce side. Clark has done that, and when we need something, we get a real person on the phone."
Owner, national food brand
The takeaway
A growing food brand needs more than shelf space. It needs a certified facility, lot-level tracking, and a team that runs retail and consumer orders from the same inventory without dropping either one.
Clark grew alongside this brand, and the operation kept pace as the volume went up.
That's what Clark wants to be for every food customer.